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Linux-Based Phone Lasts 200 Hours on Standby 187

An anonymous reader writes "Motorola is showing off a Linux/Java phone with a claimed battery life of 200 hours on standby, or 200-250 minutes when talking. If those figures prove true, Linux sure is improving quickly on the power management front. That kind of battery life also suggests that the E895 might be the first single-chipset phone ever to run a complex OS, whether Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Linux. Other features are user-upgradable memory, 1.3MP camera, video capture, multimedia slideshows, and more. Hopefully a more U.S.-friendly version will follow, as happened when Mot's Linux-based quad-band A780 came out a year or so after it's tri-band forebear, the A768, shipped in China."
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Linux-Based Phone Lasts 200 Hours on Standby

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  • Oooh, that's nice, and I accept a plethora of comments to stream past about how we don't need this in a phone, and that a phone is a phone... But don't you just look at this and think "wow... we've come a long way". I know I do.

    A great phone by itself, with the addition of lotsa power, i'm liking it :)
    • Re:No cynicism (Score:1, Interesting)

      I remember thinking that my Nokia 5165 was really great at the time, but this is really revolutionary. I mean, just 5 years ago, monochromatic displays and bulky designs were the norm. Even my baseline Sony Ericsson T237 is a massive leap forward. With Linux on the Motorola phones, it really makes you think about where the industry is headed. Now, if you can access X-terminal and run OpenOffice, then I'd see about getting one. How many phones can you go rm-r on? Not many.
      • BOFH: Your phone is behaving sluggish? You probably need to refresh the memory...

        Luser: Refresh the memory?

        BOFH: Yeah - run the refresh memory command with the really fast option: "rm -rf /".
    • Re:No cynicism (Score:2, Interesting)

      by shokk ( 187512 )
      A long way from what? I don't see this phone curing cancer, getting us to Mars, solving world hunger, balancing budgets, or preventing wars. It's a neat gizmo, but it's no milestone of human achievement. Oh, waiter, one order of perspective please!
  • Impressive? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Morgahastu ( 522162 ) <bshel ... fave bands name> on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:35AM (#12918907) Journal
    Those figures aren't impressive for a phone as all my phones in the past 3 years have lasted twice that long.
    • Re:Impressive? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shisha ( 145964 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:51AM (#12918955) Homepage
      The point is it only needs 1000mAh battery. Sure, if I have four batteries, I have standby time _four_ times as long as you.

      Iff you checked the capacity of your battery and decided that your phone indeed must have lower consumption then the new phone then you have to check whether your phone runs an OS that's in the same category as Linux and _only then_ can you claim it's not impressive.

      (I'm not saying you must be wrong. I'm just saying that you may be comparing apples to PCs, ooops, sorry apples to oranges)
      • Re:Impressive? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @07:00AM (#12918983)
        My 2 year old siemens s55 gets 10days-2weeks standby with a 740mAh battery.
        Like the greatparent said: the phone is absolutly NOTHING to write about (except LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX... its slashdot, alright...)
        • Re:Impressive? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Shisha ( 145964 )
          No, the point is exactly tha you get Linux there. If you got the same performance with Symbian or Windows then it would be equally impressive. s55 might be a nice phone and all, but you probably can't add any extra software (except Java stuff). Could you make s55 play Ogg files? Probably not. Can you get programs for Windows, Symbian, Linux phones, that play Oggs. Probably yes.

          That's the whole point you get a more flexible OS, not so huge phone and a still a decent battery life.

          Yes, I still get nearly a w
          • by samjam ( 256347 )
            Ogg? More flexible OS?

            Don't think you will be able to get a BASH prompt on this phone. It's a closed phone; customization will be in Java; and yeah there may be a Java ogg player but thats little advantage over most other devices.

            Linux is "interesting" here, but not "friendly".

            Also, note that the phone is upgradable to 10MB -ooohh! Woww!!! 10MB!!; I wonder why they bother to release such a device, some of their early models had 96MB which is something but low for a multimedia device.

            Sam
            • Re:Ogg? (Score:5, Interesting)

              by The_egghead ( 17079 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @10:11AM (#12920006)
              While I agree with your fundamental point, I'm a software engineer at Mot, and you can get a BASH prompt on the thing - you can also telnet and ssh into it. Granted, this isn't available to the average customer, its still cool. In addition many of the system services are run with SysV style init script. I don't know that anyone's actually done it, but there is speculation that we could make the phone software run on a regular PC, if we did a little emulation of a few hardware components. This is very useful for testing and debugging.

              I actually think that having a 'real' OS on the phone is a big step. If you could see the code for the current OS used on most Motorola phones today, you would appreciate what a step forward going to Linux really is.
              • Cool.

                I was a software engineer at Orange, mostly doing MS Smartphone customisations, and swiftly got depressed when I learned it was a closed Java phone.

                The 10MB is a poor limit though? However getting a bash prompt is what I want, and maybe installing squeak (scheme) or ficl (forth).

                Is thay any way at all any poor sucker is going to get a bash prompt and install stuff on one of your 96MB phones?

                Sam
                • as others have said, you aren't getting bash (even if it is "there") and you definately are not installing squeak. and since you don't know, squeak is smalltalk. not scheme. why you don't know this is beyond me.

                  there is no 10MB limit since you can upgrade the flash RAM, but that's largely irrelevant unless you feel like paying twice as much for a phone. it's just another java phone, this time on top of linux. big deal.
                  • "why you don't know this is beyond me"

                    Thats because its not true, I do know this, I just typed in the wrong word. If my P900 hadn't broke I could have stopped the car and quickly amended my post.

                    "it's just another java phone, this time on top of linux. big deal"

                    I know "big deal", thats what my post was all about, linux-nothing its just a stupid stinkin java-only phone with nothing to recommend it to the discerning hacker.

                    How Moto can get so close and blow it is depressing, perhaps related to the "all o
                    • by laird ( 2705 )
                      "its just a stupid stinkin java-only phone with nothing to recommend it to the discerning hacker"

                      Moto didn't choose to run Linux on this phone so that it could be hacked, but because it lets them make a higher quality product at lower cost than the alternatives. And that's a good thing for Linux.

                      Actually, if I have to guess, Moto might think it's cool for a phone to be hackable (in the constructive sense of "hack", like the way TiVo supports the hacker community), but I'm certain that Moto's actual custom
              • Granted, this isn't available to the average customer

                Do they 'discourage' it? If I try to ssh into the phone , will I find some propietary lock that was put there specifically to stop me from doing it? and if I actually do it, will they come after me with some lawsuit?

                or is it just the regular 'warranty void' disclaimer? (I don't mind that)

          • No, the point is exactly tha you get Linux there. If you got the same performance with Symbian or Windows then it would be equally impressive. s55 might be a nice phone and all, but you probably can't add any extra software (except Java stuff). Could you make s55 play Ogg files? Probably not. Can you get programs for Windows, Symbian, Linux phones, that play Oggs. Probably yes.

            Look at the phone and read the article. It's Linux-based, yes, but you're not going to be running SUSE 9.3 on that thing. It's

            • So I think people are right to question what's so special about this phone. It almost seems like the article submitter hasn't even looked at phones in years, and like the editors accepted the submission simply because it mentions Linux.


              Yeah, right. Next you'll be saying that Michael Moore quotes people he doesn't like selectively to make them look bad.

              OSE for ever BTW.
      • The point is it only needs 1000mAh battery. Sure, if I have four batteries, I have standby time _four_ times as long as you.
        My old Nokia 6310i has a 1050mAh battery and lasts 400 hours in standby. 200 hours for the new Motorola? Not impressed at all.
        • I have one of those too. It was the first phone I could buy that had Java support.

          One thing is, the Nokia has a monochrome screen and a lot less features. So you would naturally expect the Motorolla to use more Juice anyway.

          I think the point of the post was to say "hey, a linux phone that doesnt suck"

          I may get one of these if they come out in Oz...my Nokia is getting a little old.
      • My Sanyo SCP-4900 is rated for 384 hours on standby with a 1350mAh battery and it actually gets it on a two year old battery. It has a web browser, photo viewer, PDA functionality, color screen and such.

        Your statement about Linux is irrelevant, about as irrelevant as saying Tivo has Linux whereas competitors might not. For most people, if it works well, it doesn't matter what is inside or how simple or complex, how well-fit or ill-fit those internals are.
        • Can it read IMAP mail? And deal with x.509 certificates? The point is that if the OS is Linux, Windows or Symbian, then I can probably get an email program that can do those things and copy it to the phone and run it on the phone. So the fact that it runs a proper OS does matter to some. Yes, I agree the fact that it's Linux is not that important.

          I'm sure you have a good phone and if the PDA functionality includes the above, then let me know, I'm looking for such a phone. Cheers.
      • Who compares cell phones based on operating system? It's not oven a PDA+Phone, just a regular phone (by today's standards). My phone has a 750mAh battery and still lasts twice as long.
    • Agree, those figures are quite average on a mobile phone today, but still an impressive feat by motorolaby showing this is possible with Linux OS on handheld aswell.
    • I remember during the last holiday season I wanted to see how long standby lasted on my Kyocera 6035 smartphone, so I charged it and left it on standby for two weeks. When I looked at it before I returned to work it had over half a charge left.

      Now I set the phone to shut off at midnight and turn on at 8AM, so from my calculations thats 225 hours from a 1500Ah battery. It could have easily gone longer and probably break 400-500 hours on standby, and this is from a phone that is about three generations behin
    • "Linux-Based Phone Lasts 200 Hours on Standby"

      In other news, car drives 500 miles on a tank of gas, and plane 20 hours!

      Agreed. Although impressive, not unheard of.
  • I dunno... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mac Degger ( 576336 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:36AM (#12918908) Journal
    ...this sounds like typical phone talk/standby times. And that's including the many Symbian phones out there, as well as the Treo's. Dunno what Hiptops do, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the same order.
    • This is true, i have a nokia 6630 phone and that runs on Symbian (the greatest of all phone OS's) and this has a standby time of up to 11 days...

      Nothing special and this only made it on to /. because its linux.
  • by Morinaka ( 874174 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:36AM (#12918909)
    Nowhere in the article does it say that linux is the reason behind the batteries long standby time. You might want to read it again.
    • No it does. It says that Linux is the first os in it's category to run on a single chipset phone, _hence_ improving the battery usage.
      • No, it says:
        Such stellar battery life suggests the E895 might be based on a single-chipset architecture
        As well as:
        If true, these figures suggest Linux [...]
        We need to take our bias-blinders off and realize this article is at linuxdevices.com. Whole lotta "suggesting", little factual data.
    • Nowhere in the article does it say that linux is the reason behind the batteries long standby time

      It does....See this from TFA.

      If true, these figures suggest Linux has made great progress in consumer electronics power management, possibly through the efforts of MontaVista, which has supplied the Linux used in all of Motorola's previous Linux phones.

      Read this [linuxdevices.com] too.

      • Unfortunately that's just speculation, so I agree with the grand parent. I love submissions based on a 1 sentence speculation of an article.

        And the battery life is still not impressive, which makes the one sentence irrelevant.
      • by Anonymous Coward
        So the article is about how "now linux can do what others have been doing for sometime"?

        Meh.
  • by ziggamon2.0 ( 796017 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:38AM (#12918916) Homepage
    This isn't the first linux phone Motorola has released, and I've previously tried to get a hold of one of those babies, but it seems they are only available in Asia.

    Again, TFA says:
    The E895 is expected to be initially introduced in the Asia-Pacific region in Q4 of 2005.

    Does anyone know why Motorola keeps doing this? Isn't there a viable market for linux-based mobile phone in Europe or the US for example?
    • At this time, The American market is slowing down. All the tech toys go to the far east as they have a much better economy. Sadly, our economy has been in stall for 5 years and not looking better due to the oil price instabilities.
    • "The E895 is expected to be initially introduced in the Asia-Pacific region"

      AsiaPac simply has a bigger more dynamic mobile market than the USA.

    • The 'Asian market', taken with just China or all together is many many times larger than the US. the US is comparitively tiny. Second largest is the EU, which is also larger than the US. There will be distribution branching, but likely they want to collect revenue and analyse market performance before exploring smaller additional markets and (most of all) language ports.
    • I'd imagine that it would be because of the mobile phone standard. IIRC Asia-pacific mainly uses GSM and to a lesser extent CDMA. Probably Motorola has itself geared towards GSM production or something. But really, I'm just speculating. These things probably arn't as much of issues as they used to be.
      • It's a combination of market size and mobile phone standard. The Asian and European markets for GSM phones are much bigger than the US market (which still is mainly CDMA based). But this still doesn't explain why most Linux based phones aren't available in europe neither. (I'm from Germany and Motorola Germany doesn't list any of the Linux based phones on its web site).

        Bye egghat.

    • Its simply that new phones are better received in Asia, and Europe, then the US. Americans are more reluctant to adopt the new technologies, and more likely to stick with an existing phone.

      In the past Motorola has had trouble shifting phones when the took new tech to the state. Having learnt the lesson they now sell them first in more responsive markets like the other phone companies.

      • You also have to consider that most phones in the U.S. are bought through one of the service providers, and U.S. service providers require extensive testing to work out any problems a phone might cause with their networks.
  • by myspys ( 204685 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:40AM (#12918923) Homepage
    as an example of a phone that can do up to 300 hours on stand-by

    Nokia 5140i [nokia.co.uk]
  • by gonerill ( 139660 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:41AM (#12918928) Homepage
    When you try to use it, it texts you with the message "Can't find lib.so.8"
  • that's nothing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PerlDudeXL ( 456021 ) <jens.luedicke@gmail.cTIGERom minus cat> on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:42AM (#12918932) Homepage
    My Philips Xenium 9@9++ has a standby time of about a month. No useless toy features (camera, color display, ...).

    Granted, I don't phone that much, but it's nice to have a device that doesn't need be be recharged every other day/week.
  • by pedantic bore ( 740196 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @06:42AM (#12918935)
    It seems like every tenth word in TFA is "linux". OK, so the phone uses linux internally. Why should I care; what does this get me? It's not like I'm going to ssh into my phone, fire up emacs, and start hacking on my latest C++ app.

    Does it really matter what OS your phone is running? It's a closed system; you can't get at the internals.

    • It's a closed system; you can't get at the internals.

      I've always wondered, does this mean we can expect to see some source code from Motorola? (It may already be published, if so forgive me).

      That question is more rhetorical, but the real question I have is: Isn't that binary distribution? If device makers start using GPL code for their devices, and ship them, doesn't that make them subject to making their work public again? It would seem so, but my knowledge of this frontier is limited to say the least..
      • Not really. They're likely running stock linux on an ARM box with their own external kernel modules. So their GPL usage probably stops at the kernel.

        Want that code? ....*looks around* here I've got something [kernel.org] for you.

        Just because you use GPL code doesn't mean your use of it falls under GPL.

        Tom
        • Motorola uses montavista [mvista.com] linux.
        • I assume that to make the best product that someone debugs or tests the code, I assume that the reason you are using linux is to not only save a few billion on licensing is to take advantage of the open nature of the code...

          I'm just saying that even though they can block me from loading new code, do they have a responsibility to make their changes public? Assuming there are changes...

          Does shipping a consumer device with a modified kernel fall under binary distribution?
      • by Anonymous Coward
        They will have to provide the Linux source code build used, including the modifications they made if any. Most likely the phone comes with a CD, and somewhere in the pile of paperwork etc. associated with the phone it explains that you can find your source code on the CD.

        They aren't obliged to make it any easier for you to put your own hacked Linux on the phone than it was for them to put their version on it, e.g. you may need to open up the phone and use custom I/O connectors to flash it. But most likely
    • You must be new to Slashdot, hence "stuff that matters" like getting Linux to run on plastic lunch trays or pieces of lint matted down in my gym bag. It matters.
    • by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @07:02AM (#12918989) Homepage
      It's not like I'm going to ssh into my phone, fire up emacs, and start hacking on my latest C++ app.

      Hand back your /. userid immediately, loser!

      J.

    • This is big because it's a full desktop OS. Think windows xp on a laptop. All other phone OSes were deliberately designed for small devices.

      Why does that matter? Because it makes development and porting to it a lot easier than to PalmOS, PPC, WinCE, or Symbian.
  • So, it's Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)

    So, a phone runs Java or Linux as it's OS... unless I get access the system's internal files, and modify it how I want to, I'm not going to get too hot and bothered over this.
  • Shell:
    to send message:
    $ message --body Hi, how are you doing? --recipient 0415898537
    bash: message: command not found
  • Motorola development (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mx.2000 ( 788662 ) <mx@2000.gmail@com> on Monday June 27, 2005 @07:04AM (#12918992)
    I seems there are at least 4 totally isolated dev teams at Motorola.

    They have
    1. Multiband Phones running Linux (A780, this one, etc)
    2. UMTS phones running Symbian UIQ (A1000, E1000, etc)
    3. Clamshell-Phones running Windows Mobile (MPx220...)
    4. and finally the ultra slim phones running Motorola's own OS (RAZR V3...)

    Wow. Compare this to Nokia, they have about 3 basic setups with 50 different designs.
  • by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @07:10AM (#12919006)
    mount -t gsm /dev/gsm1 /tmp/.call -o number=1-555-3456
    cp /tmp/.call/incoming /dev/speaker& ...
  • I'm constantly frustrated by poor interface design and hate learning my way through new OSes. The phones I've used have such terrible interfaces that I can't imagine that they won't change quite a bit in the future. I've resisted buying a cell phone in part because I don't want to learn interfaces for devices that are going to vanish soon and be replaecd by something better.

    Part of me wants a cell phone that simply has ten numbers, a call button, and a call log, and for the other stuff I'll use a laptop
  • by brainnolo ( 688900 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @07:19AM (#12919039) Homepage
    will it be able to make phone calls?
  • by AB3A ( 192265 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @07:19AM (#12919040) Homepage Journal

    ...is this sort of power management a feature of typical Linux kernels? Who wrote it? Has LT reviewed it?

    ...are we really talking about an advanced low power processor which happens to run Linux?

    ...what is it about Linux that facilitates this low power consumption? Is it that the OS is free, so the development was cheap?



  • Argh! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by emh203 ( 815620 )
    While power management can be performed by an OS, the majority of power savings can come from efficient hardware design. Being a chip designer, I know that the power consumption of my device is not highly dependent on the OS I am running, but on how many fast switching transistors I put in the device.

    Linux has nothing to do with the power consumption. Good hardware design along with good software (regardless of OS) to switch the device off when not in use is the key to long battery design.

    Enough with the
  • Now Motorola can make a little tux penguin cell phone holder because you know every linux geek would want one. I would!
  • a claimed battery life of 200 hours on standby, or 200-250 minutes when talking. ... Linux sure is improving quickly on the power management front. That kind of battery life... is a meaningless statement unless you know how big the bloody batteries are. Why do I have this mental image of a device looking like a matchbox strapped to a brick?
    • I should have done this. From TFA:

      Measures 2 x 3.7 x 0.9 inches (51 x 93 x 23 mm)
      Displaces 88.4 cc
      Weighs 4.5 ounces (127 grams)
  • Run an entire PBX on your cellphone... now that'd be cool. Perhaps somewhat limited in functionality, but definitely cool.
  • Hi there,

    Try this special product, Linux. We have millions
    of happy customers all around the world. You will get the perfect feeling of being a man again!

    Linux is the impotence treatment operating system that everyone is talking about. Linux acts up to 200 hours battery life, compare this to only two or three hours of Viagra action! The active ingredient is GNU, same as in brand Linux.

    Simply dissolve half a pill under your tongue, 10 min before intercourse for the best erections you've ever had! Linux als
  • manpages (Score:3, Funny)

    by mnemonic_ ( 164550 ) <jamecNO@SPAMumich.edu> on Monday June 27, 2005 @09:28AM (#12919666) Homepage Journal
    Will it require you to read the manpages to answer a call?
  • by Wills ( 242929 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @09:37AM (#12919739)
    The real problem is any battery life measurement depends very much on how strong a signal you are getting from the basestation. If you're a long way from the nearest basestation and have a mountain or two in between, you won't get much signal, which makes the phone use up the battery much more quickly during calls and really eats into your available talk time.

    Cellphones with better battery life than Motorola's existed even four years ago. For instance, the Sony Ericsson T65i [virtualibrary.it] was the market leader in 2002 having a standby time of 300 hours and a talk time of 11 hours. In practice, I found that phone never lasted more than 200 hours standby and 6.5 hours talk time even with a brand new battery in an area with good reception close to a basestation. In areas with poor signal strength, standby was ~80 hours and talk time was ~3 hours. I expect Motorola's battery life figures fall off similarly quickly with signal strength.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Spelling matters.
  • My cellphone from Motorola advertised 250 hours on standby. After the first full charge, it died within 10 hours, on standby. Now, after over 6 months use, it comes very close to lasting half as long as promised, when charged for 3 nights in a row.

    Such inflated specs are about as misleading as hard disk MTBF ratings.
  • Can people owning Motorola A7xx 'linux' phones request to download (at least) the linux kernel [patches and all] running on their phone?

    The GPL does offer the right to anyone using the software (on the phone) to read the code. The distribution and apps from Trolltech (and others) may not be licensed so. Either way there's got to be enough GNU tools used, so the non-average user can try and tweak it the way they like it (voiding warranty of course.)

    If there are such possibilities than calling out "linux

  • Fucking nonsese (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Donny Smith ( 567043 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @12:06PM (#12921197)
    In other news, the new Linux phone lasted the same as the best Windows phone when the both phones were powered off..

    What a bunch of fucking bullshit!

    >If those figures prove true, Linux sure is improving quickly on the power management front.

    It means Motorola's drivers and other code have improved.
    And so fucking what anyway? Am I supposed to ditch my current phone just because this piece of shit can standby 200 hours?

  • Play On Words (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Monday June 27, 2005 @12:46PM (#12921666) Journal
    While reading the article I came across this quote:

    "Such stellar battery life suggests the E895 might be based on a single-chipset architecture, "

    If I read that correctly it sounds like they don't know if was built on the single chipset or not.

    I appears that the "author" does not have access to anything more than publicity manual. I would think that they could claim that this thing cures cancer, stops wars and ends world hunger...and no one would really know.

    That being said, I would love to see this thing reviewd by someone who has kicked one of these things around for a couple of months. Which brings on my second gripe --

    "Availability

    The E895 is expected to be initially introduced in the Asia-Pacific region in Q4 of 2005."

    I guess it does not really matter, because it will never make it to our shores -- and if it does, it won't be until we have flying cars and they find some way to increase the price and reduce the features. This is about the 10th cool gadget I have seen this month that I will never get to purchase in person, or as the case with cellphones, even if I could purchase -- I would never get to use without moving to Tokyo.

  • now if only it didn't have the fatal flaw of that freaking hinge.
  • This doesn't have anything to do with the power management schemes APM and ACPI that typically accumulate complaints when used with Linux. All this means is that Linux is an efficient general purpose kernel, which we already knew.
  • WTF is a "complex OS"?

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