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

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."

Comments

great news

[randomized]

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 ;)

Motorola is on a roll ...

[Numair]

Check out their new RAZR V3 as well ...

bah

[gotpaint32]

A linux based phone that only works with M$ mail... What is the world coming to!

linux != full access

[gl4ss]

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.

Re:linux != full access

[gl4ss]

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).

Re:I won't buy it

[ThogScully]

I don't need or want a camera in my phone either, but for 95% of the population, it doesn't hurt. And it certainly isn't expensive.

You don't have to see the "use" of Linux on a phone. In the case of the Motorola, that only means that their Java software base runs in Linux. I'd expect more stability than an equivalent Windows-based smartphone and better interoperability with my desktops. Since it's apparently just a USB Mass Storage Device to the computer, sounds like that was granted.

The email syncing is only with Microsoft Exchange, but both products can do POP3 and the Moto can even do IMAP4 - that's pretty darn flexible.

As for those other features you don't know about, the article often includes more information than the summary. The Motorola is a quad-band phone, the E28 mentioned some ungodly amount of battery life, and both I think had Bluetooth.

And lastly, I'm sure even someone as annoyed as you at new things can figure out how to use them as phones. It's not like the interface is BASH on these - they look just like phones and people who don't know it's Linux will have no trouble using them as such.
-N

Smart phones or stupid companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Smart phones or stupid companies?

[ultrabot]

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.

Re:I won't buy it

[vincob]

I don't see a use of Linux on a phone

Phone manufacturer aren't interested in Linux to give a fun toy to geeks, but for the same reason Linux is seeing success in the embedded world: High-quality networking stack, good performance, access to source code, no royalty, customizable, and many applications available compared to other embedded OS. Vincent

Re:I'll buy it if....

[brunes69]

Nearly any phone with Java capability and a PC sync cable allows you to write your own apps and upload them.

Re:I won't buy it

[mwood]

You know what would be *really* smart? Letting me tell my phone to take big wads of unwanted features *off* the menus until I decide that I want one of them back. Let them all hide behind one "manage features" menu pick.