LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Guide Dog Joined: 08 Nov 2003 Posts: 8422 Location: MN

so, my razr is getting on in years, and I'm looking to replace it...

at the moment I was thinking I'd wait for an android phone, and get me one of them after they've been released...

then I saw this article

my only concern however is I can't find a single damn review of the thing where I thing the reviewer actually made a phone call, or even touched the thing, or did anything more then read the press release, and most of them just copied and pasted the press release.

now I do tech support for laptops and PDA's (now basically smart phones) for a living, I couldn't live with my self getting phone that I could have gotten from work for free in a few months any how, (I have a work phone and a personal phone, well 2 work phones and a personal)

so the linux phone seems like a perfect concept... It'll be nothing like I support at work, it'll be my personal phone, and it'll be the same platform as I use at home. I just don't know that I want to pay $400 for something that I don't know will even be an adequate phone.

any one here have any experiance with the openmoko phones?

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:43 am Post subject:

oooOOOOooo....

Me want.

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:58 am Post subject:

Words of caution from the UK distributer (emphasis mine):

Quote:
The Openmoko Freerunner kit, including the GTA02 phone unit, is a product that is being made available at the earliest possible time in its development. It comprises functional hardware with a very early, incomplete software stack.

In other words, this is the 0.01 release, if people were thinking of a pure Free Software project.

A Nokia 1100 or other very basic phone will be much more functional for some time. At the moment it does not work as an even impractical phone.

So please think twice if this point in time is really the right time for you to order the GTA02. Remember, there will have a much more complete product at some later point, with better hardware!

What you can expect to be there are:
. a functional bootloader with support for firmware upgrades
. a functional Linux kernel with basic drivers for the various hardware subsystems, with small bugs here and there
. a basic, simple linux distribution based on OpenEmbedded, that you may have to install yourself as rootfs image using USB DFU
. all the source code that we have at this point in time, and the corresponding build system mailing lists

What you CAN NOT assume is there yet are:
. reliable means of making phone calls, esp. not from the UI
. reliable means of sending/receiving SMS, esp. not from the UI
. integrated GPRS data access
. bluetooth integration (basic bluez driver works)
. proper power management (i.e. no reasonable battery life yet)
. ringtone (or other) profile management
. network preferences (call deflection, manual operator selection, ...)
. a complete application framework where third party application developers can write apps that easily integrate with the Openmoko platform.

The firmware is undergoing continual improvements, so once you have the hardware you will be able to update it from time to time to improve the feature set. For more details, see www.openmoko.org∞. Reviews of firmware builds can be found at http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Snapshot_review∞. These will give some indication of which features are working in a build, and what problems you might find.

This does not affect your statuary rights.

Guide Dog Joined: 08 Nov 2003 Posts: 8422 Location: MN

CMTG wrote:
Words of caution from the UK distributer (emphasis mine):

Quote:
The Openmoko Freerunner kit, including the GTA02 phone unit, is a product that is being made available at the earliest possible time in its development. It comprises functional hardware with a very early, incomplete software stack.

In other words, this is the 0.01 release, if people were thinking of a pure Free Software project.

A Nokia 1100 or other very basic phone will be much more functional for some time. At the moment it does not work as an even impractical phone.

So please think twice if this point in time is really the right time for you to order the GTA02. Remember, there will have a much more complete product at some later point, with better hardware!

What you can expect to be there are:
. a functional bootloader with support for firmware upgrades
. a functional Linux kernel with basic drivers for the various hardware subsystems, with small bugs here and there
. a basic, simple linux distribution based on OpenEmbedded, that you may have to install yourself as rootfs image using USB DFU
. all the source code that we have at this point in time, and the corresponding build system mailing lists

What you CAN NOT assume is there yet are:
. reliable means of making phone calls, esp. not from the UI
. reliable means of sending/receiving SMS, esp. not from the UI
. integrated GPRS data access
. bluetooth integration (basic bluez driver works)
. proper power management (i.e. no reasonable battery life yet)
. ringtone (or other) profile management
. network preferences (call deflection, manual operator selection, ...)
. a complete application framework where third party application developers can write apps that easily integrate with the Openmoko platform.

The firmware is undergoing continual improvements, so once you have the hardware you will be able to update it from time to time to improve the feature set. For more details, see www.openmoko.org∞. Reviews of firmware builds can be found at http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Snapshot_review∞. These will give some indication of which features are working in a build, and what problems you might find.

This does not affect your statuary rights.

yeah I saw the same in the wiki, but I was hoping that they've just not got around to updating that, they've been saying it isn't a reliable phone for years now... (ever since they started.) if they have "officially released" as the article said i would think they've made some imporvements right?

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:30 am Post subject:

Gah, I waited to buy a new phone for over a year because I wanted one of these. The release date just kept getting pushed back farther and farther and I finally gave up and bought a new phone about 3 weeks ago. Figures they would release them immediately afterward.

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:56 pm Post subject:

Please buy one of these: http://www.nvidia.com/object/apx_2500.html

Then tell me where you got it so I can buy 5 more Smile

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:45 am Post subject:

Mazamuda wrote:
Please buy one of these: http://www.nvidia.com/object/apx_2500.html

Then tell me where you got it so I can buy 5 more

That's a chipset, not an actual consumer product.

Besides, I couldn't read past "building next-generation Microsoft Windows Mobile-based devices"... Wink

Guide Dog Joined: 08 Nov 2003 Posts: 8422 Location: MN

on the topic of the open moko, Hackaday pointed out some reviews...
http://www.hackaday.com/2008/07/19/openmoko-usability-review/

They aren't good... however all I took away from them is "This isn't an iphone"

and since I think the iphone is the most overrated pile of crap ever put out with the title "cell phone" I'm going to take it as a good thing...

(oh and they aren't using new touch screen tech like the iphone, so look out every other smart phone on the market that doesn't have the iphones touch screen and uses the resistive touch screens instead... palm, HTC, samsung, guess you guys are all going out of business soon.)

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:44 am Post subject:

You should hold out for a phone that can be used to make phone calls with... Wink

Guide Dog Joined: 08 Nov 2003 Posts: 8422 Location: MN

crewsr wrote:
You should hold out for a phone that can be used to make phone calls with...

see that's just the thing, I've not seen a review where some one tried to make a call with the damn thing...

They just talk about the GPS, and the touch screen, and other features.

The news flash is that they are just that, features, not requirements, the requirements for a phone is that it is a phone, and no one seems to notice that there was a phone on this phone.

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 7:03 am Post subject:

I recently got a Razr2 through AT&T. I like it. call quality is vastly improved over my previous Razr V3. If I'm walking in my house and turn on the microwave, I'll get some static.. but otherwise, I am very pleased with call quality.
..and it still fits nicely in my pocket.