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Review Of Linux-based Motorola A768i
Eugenia writes "MobileBurn published a review of Motorola's A768i, the Linux-based smartphone that employs a PDA-style form factor. It may not have much in the way of photo-taking abilities, but the A768i might be the thing for business users as it excels in the phone/messaging category."
Since when to people use phones for that anymore? ;)
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
.. I saw a Motorola Linux phone that really had me drooling - it was just a simple "bar of soap" form-factor, no keys, one big O-LED display on one side of the rectangular black plastic form, and when you hit the On button, the whole thing lit up.
.. he did show me some videos on it, and demo'ed the voice-recognition features, which seemed pretty workable. But, alas, it doesn't look like Motorola are releasing this one too soon .. anyone know of the "bar of soap" Linux phone from Mot?
It was running Linux, only the guy demo'ing it wouldn't really let me play with it too much
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
So I tried to RTFA, and I got a 500 error past the first page - so my question is without a numeric keypad, how the heck do you dial the phone? Do you use the stylus - cause that would just be annoying.
I have the A920, a very similar Symbian OS 3G phone from Motorola. It's excellent in terms of design and functionality (a bit low on battery life with the 266MHz CPU in it, but that has been fixed).
For someone like myself who loves and uses gadgets but can't justfy carrying a seperate PDA, MP3 player, cell phone, camera... the smartphone is the only serious choice. Having one that runs linux instead of Symbian can only be an advantage.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I'd love to know exactly how well this Linux phone is locked-down to prevent tampering and "copyright abuses", or another way, how easy it will be to write cool hacks for it myself.
Will they release a tool-chain? Will every piece of software have to be certified before use (as most network operators seem to like). Will it be hackable like the Linksys Wireless routers
Am I being naive and engaging in wishful thinking?The phone operators should realise that they could make a lot of money if they were not so damn greedy with their download rates.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I find it quite strange that innovative phones like this one is still being made for the 2G networks.
Since the market for this phone is business users, and the network coverage for the 3G networks is more than adequate almost everwhere where you will find a concentration of businesses.
In many areas you will find that there are even more than one 3G network provider. With this in mind I find it odd that you will still see so much development on the 2G phones, especially with data intensive devices as this one.
"Might be the thing for business users as it excels in the phone/messaging category."
Well, you know, you can never tell when you need your phone to make a call or to take a message now do you? I think that feature would be useful to some people.
the A768i might be the thing for business users as it excels in the phone/messaging category
Because no other equipment competes for this niche? Or is it because obviously the only acceptable solution is a Linux solution, and if this is the only Linux option in the niche it's therefore what everyone should be using? I like Linux, use it almost exclusively, but I can't say I'd go for a Linux PDA or phone if, say, a Symbian alternative had better features.
Virtually serving coffee
Technical specifications indicate a 65k color TFT display. The display really shines is when it comes to internet browsing
Today TOO early in the morning *or more in the night) alarm in my new phone woke me up. Okay, I can sleep longer but I need to reset the alarm to the right time. And damn, I can't. Damned display shines so brightly that it blinds me...
Finally keeping it far away from myself, getting eyes a bit adjusted to the brightness, tilting and turning it I managed to set the alarm...
Note to self: Pull contrast control WAY down.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I have a pair of phones (one for the wife), unlimited web browsing, $15/month. I don't have a cable over to my laptop, but I keep thinking I might do it. I'm still waiting for a better Treo or something to come along.
-- No sig for you!
Someone should have known better than to combine the words Linux and Mobile in the same posting, now you know that site is going to get slashdotted
Having finally got to the site (2 mins to download a page), it looks nice, pity we will never see it in the UK.
What is the use of receiving emails if you can't reply to them? And how are you going to do it without a keypad? Annoyingly slow. Much prefer a Treo for that task.
Now, I wonder how much of the sources for the phone Motorola actually discloses? I could imagine that part of this must remain unmodifiable simply to retain its phone license...
While I'll grant you that Linux is certainly "...the road less traveled..." for smartphones they didn't even mention PalmOS? I know (and am very disappointed) that there are few enough of them out there, but PalmOS is such a strong player in the PDA market that I can't figure out why there aren't more Palm based phones out there.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
Not necessarily. The fact that it has a camera at all makes it unuseable for me at work (security). Give me an option if I want a camera or not, and adjust the price accordingly. Then we will talk.
By the way, does this look just like a Palm m100 to anyone else?
It's all very well that the phone itself runs Linux underneath. What's more important from where I'm sitting is, can I use it with my Linux {single-booting and proud of it} notebook? For instance, does it use standard {or at least, well-documented and free for the asking} APIs so I can write my own perl scripts to do cool things with it? Can I use it to get on the Internet? Do Motorola provide the drivers as source .tar.gz files which I'll be able to compile on any system, not just the "commercially viable" ones? Does the phone have a scripting language {I mean, more sophisticated than ash} on-board?
My wishlist would be for something that looked to the host PC as though it was a USB network adapter plugged into some sort of network. You would assign it an IP address in a subnet of your choosing, from the phone's "console". There would be standard servers on standard ports {21 for FTP, 22 for SSH, 80 for web, 3306 for database, &c.; maybe even an Asterisk proxy for hardcore VoIP users} so as to keep the interface clean and simple {I'm implying that they would just be using regular files and databases for storing ringing tones and contact info; there's no reason to assume otherwise}. While you were on the Internet, the phone would do NAT, just like one of those little ADSL gismos.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Why does Slashdot insist on publishing at the very *least*, one article a day on a Linux based PDA? Why? Every single one has been a total and complete flop. Virtually nobody in the real world (outside of Slashdot readers) use them. They are *always* withdrawn from the market after a few months, and when they are, there are always a good half dozen Slashdotters that post a "But I love mine. Why aren't they still being made? It's such a shame". They're always using some cutting edge technology (Bluetooth, 3G, etc.) that most people A. Could care less about B. Couldn't even begin to figure out.
Face it. There will always be a Linux based PDA on the market. They all seem to suck in one way or another. They are all overpriced. They will always fail. Now, please continue with some interesting stories, huh?
I don't respond to AC's.
I've been waiting for a Motorola handset that runs Linux for ages. They've been talking it up for years now.
I want:
bash, gcc, java, phone, browser, camera, and wlan at the minimum.
Sort of like the Sharp Zaurus, but coupled with a phone.
Get your own free personal location tracker
I'd probably be happy. It's running QTE phone edition, so I could port my fave apps over from the Zaurus. I'd probably port IRK over to it so I could use my Pocketop IR keyboard (on-screen keyboards leave me cold).
:(
Would have got one of these puppies instead of my K700i
+++ BASELINE REALITY FAILURE+++ +++ PLEASE REBOOT UNIVERSE +++
The disadvantage of being a first mover, however, is challenging, as there are not many applications written specifically on this platform for the mobile market, especially when compared to Symbian, Microsoft, or PalmOS. That will change if Linux OS devices become popular in the mobile market space, which I hope they do.
Will it? Something that tells me just because two devices are based on Linux, the chance that an app that works on one will work on another is probably quite slim. What's on top of this Linux? A completely custom GUI? Or a type of X, do they use common toolkits?
I see a lot more being different than the same between two Linux based PDA/phones.
...because even if you could ssh into your phone, it'd still be nice to be able to bring up your phone's display on your laptop. This could potentially reduce the need for even syncing your phone with your PC if you can easily access your PDA /phone data from your remote computer.
-- I speak only for myself.
you could compile emacs for this.
That's what I'm talkin' about!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Base the phone on emacs.. who needs Linux after all.
Emacs is the only modern OS, that doesn't offer multitasking.
What would be really great is if custom small DB applications could be made for individual clients. That would really get the attention of the small business world. If the Linux implimentation is powerfull enough then there is no reason why small tuned DB access apps could not work.