Its true! One needs a couple windows and/or several tabs with different things open. Itineraries, transport options, budget stuff, its a research project.

You should be studied in a lab.

Yes. Right now there are significant functional differences. In the future, maybe. Human Interface capabilities are always going to be the primary limiting factor, and as of now there are plenty of people who still much prefer actual tactile responses to computing to verify interaction. Physical buttons very clearly respond to inputs - except of course when they don't for [insert IT guy sigh here].

Plus, I can tell you for sure that Linux ARM distros are functional, yes, but don't compare to what an optimized PC distro or a dedicated mobile OS on ARM is like. My RaspberryPi with its fully optimized OS and ARM processor can't handle the same thing my phone can do in the background while I browse several tabs on the internet. Is it the RAM? I dunno, my laptop had the same RAM as the Pi until a couple months ago and still could multitask better. Play a game and watch a video and have multiple tabs open for the game. The Pi struggles on certain websites and that's all I ask of it.

Just because it exists doesn't mean it is ready for primetime.

I dunno. Someone should give me a linux phone so I can find out. Ive been searching forever :(

Last flight I was on transferred through China and the security guy cupped my balls with a determination that no one's done since the guy who checked me after my powdered mashed potatoes set off the bomb detectors in the US.

I literally haven't flown since before 9/11. It would be a huge culture shock for me

OS tooling

I was once writing an assignment last minute. On a full train. Where I could only use my phone while standing.
Not the best experience, but using Vim and LaTeX in Termux is pretty doable.
Although in that case I didn't have LaTeX directly on my phone, instead I SSHd into my computer, and then rsynced PDFs to preview the document. But TeX Live is even in the Termux repository, if you want. After all, you can SSH into your phone just the same.

Termux is awesome. I sometimes even use it to off-load stuff I don't want my computer to be choking with, such as large downloads, video encoding or compressing large files with high xz settings.
It's just a battery-powered highly portable passively cooled computer.
But of course, a full-fledged Linux phone would be even better.

Blue tooth keyboards are a wonder with phones, the apps are still a headache, but I’ve made due when finals were coming up and my computer shit the bed.

To be honest, so do mine. The giveaway is when the formatting is horrible and it's a . notes file, plus I've asked them about it. My current guess is a lack of typing skill, but that's concerning none the less.

Absolute bollocks. I don't trust any computer for that that isn't in the room with me

Are travel agents still a thing?

I send my highly trained executive agent for that shit. My supercomputer is fine for casual use, but plane tickets are just to important to trust to anything that isn't my trusted right hand ninja assassin / secretary.

The purchase will nevertheless quite likely go through a mainframe anyway,..

I did, and I'm Gen X!

No charge?!? Do they use affiliate links or something?

Get an e-bike and do 50mph down the sidewalk to your destination.