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Communications Hardware

Linux Smartphones Race To Be 1st In U.S. 92

Posted by timothy from the buy-a-smaller-a-tux dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The race is on for first mover in the domestic US Linux smartphone market! Last week, Motorola announced a new Linux-based business user smartphone that's expected to ship to US customers by the end of 2004. Meanwhile, Chinese phone maker e28 will debut its latest Linux-based smartphone at LinuxWorld this week, and will soon begin distributing it in the Chicago area. Both devices are pretty cool. The quad-band Moto phone features a 1.3 megapixel camera, Intel's latest cell-phone chip, and fancy sync software that (currently only) works with Microsoft email servers at this point (others pending). e28's phone is an upgrade to its previously announced e2800, which became the world's first commercially available Linux phone when it shipped in China in August, 2003 [Slashdot discussion]. Interestingly, e28 was founded in 2002 by the former president of Mot's Asia Pacific cell phone division -- the world's largest mobile market."
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Linux Smartphones Race To Be 1st In U.S. More

Linux Smartphones Race To Be 1st In U.S.

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  • great news (Score:5, Interesting)

    by randomized ( 132106 ) on Monday August 02, 2004 @04:16AM (#9861781)
    Competition is great, I would love to get a smart phone that runs linux based kernel and allows for development without strings attached. Currently, Symbian phones are difficult to debug for. Microsoft phones... I won't even go into that.

    Some phone manufacturers are attempting to lock users from installing their own custom software, some are trying to prevent people writing for the phones without paying royalties (signed apps).

    Power to the user, if I can tweak with my phone as much as I can do with my pc - it's all good news.

    I just hope it won't take minutes to boot like my Fedora Core 2 at the moment ;)
    • fancy sync software that (currently only) works with Microsoft email servers at this point (others pending)

      Which means never, of course.

  • Motorola is on a roll ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Numair ( 77943 ) on Monday August 02, 2004 @04:18AM (#9861783) Homepage
    Check out their new RAZR V3 [motorola.com] as well ...

  • bah (Score:4, Funny)

    by gotpaint32 ( 728082 ) * on Monday August 02, 2004 @04:20AM (#9861785) Journal
    A linux based phone that only works with M$ mail... What is the world coming to!

    • Re:bah (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ThogScully ( 589935 )
      The article said it only Sync'd with Microsoft email, but the Motorola does POP3 and IMAP4 email communication too. The fact that it syncs with MS proprietary stuff is in addition to supporting the standards.
      -N
    • It uses SyncML which is an open standard AFAIK. You could even run your own SyncML client and connect over the air to it.

  • linux != full access (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday August 02, 2004 @04:21AM (#9861788) Homepage Journal
    something you should remember, just because it's linux based underneath doesn't mean it'll give the customer(you) any access to the system underneath or means to customize it beyond installing j2me apps. in most(all) cases these 'linux based' phones are not supposed to show what they are to the customer at all anyways(linux just happens to be a good fit for the os underneath, the customer isn't supposed to ever see it though and the customer apps supposed to be all java which makes software & sdk support a whole lot easier for them).

    symbian phones give surprisingly(scary) good access to the hardware underneath.

    • However it does mean full kernel access, does it not?

      PGA

      • Re:linux != full access (Score:4, Informative)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday August 02, 2004 @06:10AM (#9861910) Homepage Journal
        it does not, that was the whole point of mine(that you don't get any geeky fun with it like you would with a zaurus for example).

        these things would not expose the linux side to the outer world by any way, it would be more like a web kiosk in your pocket or whatever(and j2me is very sandboxed).
        • Do they plan to adhere to the terms of the GPL?
          • of course, but that doesn't mean jack into this(well maybe you'll find it useful if you're an embedded linux developer or something developing your own devices).

            what good is a piece of source if you can't get it in to the place as a running piece of code? it's not likely to have an option for you to insert your modified kernel(at any practical level anyways).

            these things are not meant to be user modified in those parts, very intentionally.

  • great news (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    as a true geek naturally i want
    • megapixel camera
    • video player/conferencing
    • Open source (i can dream egh)
    • MP3 player (4-20gb please)
    • GPS (with a map would be nice)
    • Bluetooth & Wi-fi 802 +
    • Gaming platform (c++ or symbian)
    • IR remote (saves having a table full of them)
    • VNC (nice to get my desktop on a phone)
    • touchscreen handwriting
    • Internet with XHTML/JS support (thanks opera)
    • IM and VOIP capabilities
    • External KB/Mon/Mouse support

    iam fed up of carrying around multiple gadgets (and chargers etc) when the

    • Re:great news (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mikewas ( 119762 )
      No way!

      I want a seperate phone, PDA, camera, ...

      I want them all with no interface other than bluetooth or WiFi.

      I want a seperate interface device, one display, keyboard/text entry, ...

      Everything connectted together via bluetooth.

      I have a phone now with a grungy camera & PDA function. Most of the phone, PDA, other items I have are the keyboard & display. I'd much rather have a single very capable human interface and then a phone, PDA, other items that are very small and can be just slipped

      • Re:great news (Score:2, Insightful)

        by pardey ( 568849 )
        I agree completely - modular replacement of gadgets is the way to go, both price-wise and feature wise, which is exactly why it will never happen. Phone/PDA companies would make less money with such a plan, so they have no incentive to develop a completely new device system. Thus, I'm left with my lame cameraphone and duplicated PIM functions in my phone and PDA.

    • Re:great news (Score:3, Informative)

      by tcr ( 39109 )
      VOIP capabilities

      Given the crazy price per MB for GPRS data (at least here in the UK), I think it would be cheaper to...err....just make a call with the thing. :-)
    • A completely new battery technology to run all that crap for more than 20 minutes.

    • More wishes (Score:2, Funny)

      by leuk_he ( 194174 )
      * megapixel camera
      Set you standard higher, 2 Megapixel with optical zoom & nightvision! also having the possibilty to recod movies.
      * MP3 player (4-20gb please)
      And usb, so i can use at as a plug & play hard disk for any pc. Must also play mp4 movies?
      * Gaming platform (c++ or symbian)
      & java !
      * IR remote (saves having a table full of them)
      & IR interface to laptop in case it does not have BT, or wifi.
      -small form factor. (PDA?)
      -must have moneydetector (to detect false money),

  • Smart phones or stupid companies? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 02, 2004 @06:04AM (#9861902)
    Why does every phone maker nowadays insist on cramming as much as possible in cellphones? Can't they just leave a phone a phone? Maybe they should sell them as a pda/camera/gameboy/mp3 player that also happen to maker phone calls. It seems that the more junk they put in them, the easier they will crash. And it makes navigating the UI a chore.

    I really wish Apple would take a shot at designing a phone UI, they still have some of the best UI designers anywhere. With the iPod they found a way to navigate thousands of songs that really works.
    • And it makes navigating the UI a chore.

      Why do people always make that arguement? Having more features MIGHT make the UI ugly or difficult, but it doesn't have to. I have a Sagem MyX-7, the UI is fine.
      I agree that sometimes manufacturers make crap UI's, but not all do, and that's not a reason to reduce the number of features.
      To clarify my point slightly... it's ok to have more features, so long as the UI doesn't suffer, which it doesn't always.

    • Re:Smart phones or stupid companies? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ultrabot ( 200914 ) on Monday August 02, 2004 @10:05AM (#9862604)
      Why does every phone maker nowadays insist on cramming as much as possible in cellphones? Can't they just leave a phone a phone?

      Well, they do. Just buy a model that is not a smartphone. They are dirt cheap these days.

      The margin, however, will be in the phones with most features (and higher prices). Only a few ultra-chic models of "dumb" phones have sufficient margins.
    • I agree, there should be a way for the user to disable and hide the features they don't want. For me I want phone and email might be useful. Not much else.
  • I don't see why we should care that the phone runs linux. It's not like you can do anything with it unless you have windoze anyway. Gimme a PDA/phone/whatever that actually COMES with tools for Linux, and I don't give a crap what runs on the unit itself.

  • T-mobile's new sidekick (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Maksym ( 784212 )
    It was comming out in august I think. I'll wait for that. Personally I like a full keyboard and the ability to type faster than with 1 as 'a', 'b', and 'c'. I can also ssh into my linux server, which is more powerful than anyfone could hope to be (well maybe not 30 or more years down the line ;). Selling point for me are 'full' keyboards.
    • I dont have a "full" keyboard mobile, however I dont have any problem ssh'ing and writing/reading mail editing files or whatnot. I also use my phone (through ssh) to irc/icq! The T9 feature and tab-completion makes up for the limited keyboard. The biggest problem is the battery....after about 4 hours of ssh session it dies(maybe I should buy a new one).
  • it's ugly....I just got a Motorola MPx200, which as much as I do not like microsoft, is pretty nice. If their was a linux flipphone that had as large of an lcd....I would definitely bite. Hopefully in 1-2 years, when I upgrade again, there will be.

  • MeshPhone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Monday August 02, 2004 @09:06AM (#9862305) Homepage Journal
    From the article:
    The A780 includes about 48MB of built-in user storage space...
    The LocustWorld [locustworld.com] MeshBox [locustworld.com] requires only 32MB [locustworld.com].

    Things really take off when you put mesh routing into VoIP phones and they start jabbering at each other.

  • What I'd really like is the ability to ssh into a remote server from my phone. I know you can buy an SSH client for the Nokia 9290, but the phone itself is huge and why pay for an ssh client? I would hope that a Linux based phone would allow for porting of existing software such as OpenSSH. Okay, I must admit I love my bluetooth phone, so I'd enjoy that being added as well.
    • look at comment #9862276, there are a couple of ssh-clients for mobiles (java), at least one of them is easy to use on a limited(mobile) keyboard, whithout separate input/output screens. This is the one I am using ;)

      All that hoopla about email-clients who can read .doc/pdf and html files...Well, I do that! Everything You have access to on a full UNIX/Linux box is availble! As an admin, I can fix anything from the beach!! ;)
      This on my old Siemens S55!(which I can bring to the beach :) ....)
      The upcoming s [club-siemens.net]
    • You can ssh from a Treo 600 and it's free. Check this out:
      http://www.tussh.com/ [tussh.com]
  • I didn't see in the article what windows system the moto would run. Opera7 works on Qtopia and X11 to name two possible candidates.
  • My Treo 600 [treocentral.com] is a fully integrated (stereo, DSP) audio player, (Palm) PDA, and (CDMA) mobile phone. Its network HW includes a 100-128Kbps radio for Internet connections, in addition to CDMA voice and SMS/MMS. Other peripherals include SD/IO slot, USB (slave) RS-232, VGA camera and color touchscreen. But this brilliant smartphone runs only PalmOS5. Which is adequate, but not nearly as flexible as Linux. Who's porting, say, uCLinux to this cutting edge networked computer?
  • When the price of Sony Ericsson P800 had fallen down to about 350 Euros (without any service agreement etc.) two months ago, I've bought one. It does have a camera and even though I don't use it, it doesn't hurt (It's nice to have a shot of car plates named PHP etc.).

    It runs Symbian as its OS, but the only thing I'm mad is, it only synchronizes with M$ software (Outlook etc.).

    A phone that is more than a phone might be life saving, and anyway, even if you don't use it for something serious, how on earth
    • It runs Symbian as its OS, but the only thing I'm mad is, it only synchronizes with M$ software (Outlook etc.)

      P800s use SyncML, which works seamlessly with at least OS X (Address Book, iCal). You can also check here [linux.pt] and scroll down to SyncML for some info.. Keep in mind that support addressbooks and calendars in Linux is still pretty damn primitive, though KDE seems to be making a few strides in the OSX direction with stuff like kitchensync...
  • You probably will not see any CDMA carriers with Linux phones due to Qualcomm's licenses with their CDMA technology. GSM is a open standard and that is why you are seeing this.

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