Today, 2022-01-11, Pine64 opened orders for the Pinephone Pro Explorer release. $399. It comes with Manjaro KDE installed, but there are other supported options. Note that this is not the commercial release, the OS loads are still evolving rapidly: but for early birds, developers, and those ready to experiment and explore should take note.

I hope this isn't off topic, but I've been trying to shop for non-spying phones forever (i've never owned a cellphone before in my life but wanting to switch for pay-as-you-go cost savings over landline). I came across a refurbished phone being sold by Public Mobile called the ZTE Cymbal 2. On this flip phone's specs, the OS is listed as Linux. I'm mega suspicious. Never heard of it before and the specs on other sites have different info. Seems unbelievable this wouldn't be more well known.

Does anyone have any ideas about this or should I contact the website to tell them of their grave error?

I doubt it's an error. The majority of phones use linux (but not GNU/Linux). Android has a rule "no gpl in userspace" for example, but Linux is the kernel, so still can call it "linux" if you want. Tizen is linux. Etc.

(But I wouldn't go with ZTE if you wnat non-spyware, check their wikipedia, etc, they're a company with history of bribery and corruption, have been fined billions for selling US stuff in n.korea and iran against sanctions, have developed stuff for iran goverment to spy on its citizens, have had backdoor found on their phones, have been accused of being controled by PRC government and putting stuff in to spy on other countires, etc)

Easy way to be sure you're not taking a thread off topic is to start a new thread instead.

Interesting.
I found another review that claims the OS is "Linux 3.18.71". That sounds like a kernel version.
And I found another review of a similar model that came out with Android 5.1, which happens to use a 3.x (?) kernel version as well.

As others pointed out, the fact that there's a Linux kernel at the center isn't so amazing (every toaster has that nowadays).

What people usually get excited about a "true Linux phone" is

• continuous (security) updates
• mainline kernel support
• compatibility with or continuation or re-using of familiar GNU/Linux paradigms & software
• open-sourceness, community support/development

I am sure none of the above apply to that ZTE phone.