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."

Comments

A cellphone without extra doo-hickeys?

[physicsphairy]

"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? ;)

Re:A cellphone without extra doo-hickeys?

[PhrozenF]

Actually, that is a really popular use for a phone in Asian and European markets. SMS is such a shock for US citizens.

Check another review of this phone at the link below.

http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/showstory.jsp ?storyid=53686

At CeBit this year ..

[torpor]

.. 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.

It was running Linux, only the guy demo'ing it wouldn't really let me play with it too much .. 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?

Re:At CeBit this year ..

[aka.Daniel'Z]

I'm not sure I got that "bar of soap" idea right, but maybe you're talking about the Motorola A1000?

Re:At CeBit this year ..

[DigitalSmash]

This one? http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4604576509.html

No pad?

[HotshotXV]

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.

Re:No pad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go -- I don't have the full text, but there's the first three pages (before the site went down)

Motorola A768i Review

Review by Guest Contributor on Tuesday October 19, By Michael Puhala

Motorola A768i
Motorola A768i
I've recently gotten my hands on the Motorola A768i, a feature rich tri-band GPRS smartphone that boasts a Linux operating system along with Bluetooth, MP3 player, speakerphone, 65K TFT color screen, multi-function camera capable of shooting both stills and video, and a slew of other hidden features. Do I have your attention yet? Well then, let's find out if this phone delivers on everything it promises.

Design

If you are a flip phone zealot, then the design of this phone will appeal to you. However, if you are drawn more to the candybar or slider type of phone, as I am, then it might take some time to get used to the A768i.

At first glance, the A768i doesn't look much different than your typical Motorola flip phone. Upon closer review, and after opening the flip, you'll notice the absence of any physical numeric keypad and the presence of a fairly generously sized display. From here on out, there are very few similarities to the Motorola of the past. The form factor has been kept fairly compact considering its category (phone + pda = smartphone). The A768i weighs in at a respectable 120 grams. It is noticeably smaller than many other smartphones, but this Motorola model probably will not get any style points when compared to some of the ultra compact phones now on the market.

Back in Black

With many of the new phones donning the oh so popular silver exterior, Motorola went the other way with A768i and chose a dark gray exterior with chrome like accents. However, depending on the light, it often appears to be more black than grey.

On the left side of the phone are a volume rocker switch and a select button for navigating the user interface UI without the included stylus. On the right side is a single button that acts as the shutter button when in camera mode. It also enables the status and time when the flip is closed. Rather than going with a dual screen layout (one exterior and one interior), the a768i sports a clear plastic window that reveals roughly two thirds of the overall area of the main display when closed.

The back of the phone houses the camera lens, with its adjacent mirror for taking self-portraits. The face of the lens is almost flush with the phone, which lends itself to possible scratching. Also on the back, in close proximity to the camera lens, is the external speaker that is used for the speakerphone as well as other audio functions. A noticeable protrusion is the small fixed external antenna, which is obviously seeking function over form in this case.

Display

The a768i's display is quite impressive. Technical specifications indicate a 65k color TFT display. The display really shines is when it comes to internet browsing, where it shows off remarkable clarity and detail even on zoomed out web pages with a lot of images. Viewing the screen outdoors in direct sunlight is better than average; the display remains very readable.

Which comes first, Phone or PDA?

When it comes to smartphones, there are usually two camps: the devices that are more phone and less PDA, or just the opposite with the PDA taking center stage. If I had to allocate a percentage, I would suggest that the A768i is 70% phone and 30% PDA. Let's first cover the phone functionality.

Motorola has always delivered solid communication devices, and the A768i is no exception. Reception and voice quality (incoming and outgoing) are both exceptional (using 1900 band in the USA). The speakerphone is also top-notch. Most people could not even recognize that I was on a speakerphone when I was using it.

There are effectively three ways to dial out. The first and most basic is by touching numbers on the TFT screen. While the numbers are spaced far enough apart that you can use your finger

Re:No pad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, here's the rest of the text --

==

Messaging

For writing messages (SMS, MMS and email), the A768i works very well. It is generally quicker to use than is T9 on a traditional numeric keypad, , especially when using the on-screen keyboard. However, when using the handwriting recognition function, the text recognition is not as responsive as one would expect - even when set to 'fast' text recognition. That being said, the A768i is very accurate and includes predictive text, meaning as you begin to write a word, it will give you a list of closest matches from an internal word list. Additionally, you have the option to use the on-screen QWERTY keyboard, which also works well (but excludes predictive text). My only other complaint is that the space bar is awkwardly placed to the side rather than at the bottom of the virtual keyboard, where one would expect it to be.

In any application that requires text entry, you have a choice of using either the handwriting recognition function in a designated area at the bottom of the screen (much like Palm's graffiti function) or of using the virtual QWERTY keyboard or number specific virtual keypad.

I believe in order for a smartphone to be truly useful, it must have near equality with today's pure-play PDAs in terms of text entry and keyboard. Simply providing T9 or other predictive text on top of a numeric keypad just doesn't cut it for me. The A768i performs well under these criteria. If you use text messaging and/or email on a mobile phone often, it's hard to go back to a numeric keypad system once you've grown use to a system such as the one provided by the A768i. If you are drawn to physical keys (eg. Blackberry or Palm Treo 600), then the touch-screen of the A768i will take some time getting used to. Overall I preferred to use the QWERTY virtual keyboard in most applications. Handwriting recognition in the A768i has some usability issues, in my opinion, and is not as mature as that found in Palm OS or Microsoft Pocket PC platforms.

Battery Life

Lets not forget that last essential component: battery performance. In my own tests, the battery performed well considering the wonderful TFT screen. However, with Bluetooth on, and a lot of active use during the day, I would run out of battery life after about four hours of talk-time and 16 hours of standby time. In low usage scenarios, I achieved about 50 hours of standby time and about 2.5 hours of talk time. Compared with phones with a similar screen resolution and feature set, the battery life of the A768i could be deemed above average.

Conclusion

So, the question becomes will this be my mobile phone of choice for any length of time? Overall, I really like this phone. The A768i is refreshingly unique in many aspects and it does excel in the phone and messaging categories. But will it replace my Palm Tungsten T3? I don't think so. The A768i is not a PDA powerhouse, but it does have a much better contact database than the traditional Motorola OS offers. If I can get over my lack of desire for flip phones in general, then this phone will be a keeper. That is, until I get to try out the A780...

Recommended
Pros: Bluetooth, messaging, good browser, contact management
Cons: camera, dialing effort, mediocre calendar

More photos of the Motorola A768i are available on the following pages.

Re:No pad?

[LinuxHam]

I find it faster to dial someone's number if they're located somewhere in the middle of my phonebook

Have you tried hitting the first letter of their entry while looking at your phonebook? That jumps right to their area on most phones. Also, if the second letter is pretty far down in the alphabet, try hitting the next letter that comes AFTER the first letter of your desired entry. For instance, to look up Stuart, hit T (8) to get to the T's and then go up from there instead of scrolling down through all the S's. Try it out sometime. It really is better than dialing the whole number, especially if you're driving.

Predecessor

[obeythefist]

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.

Re:Predecessor

[zurab]

Motorola has more up its sleeve. It looks to me like the A768i is a reworked A760, which was for Asia only and didn't work in the U.S.

A780 is a flip-phone, just like A76x, that also has real buttons.

But a real nice one is E680 that's also capable of MPEG-4 encoding and decoding, can carry up to 1GB SD card, and much more. Check it out.

Lockdown

[tomalpha]

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?

Re:Lockdown

[hazard]

Indeed, I hope that Motorola is smart and will release a toolchain which would allow to build native applications (not just Java stuff).

Make a tri-band GSM Linux phone with ssh client and VNC client, and I'm your customer.

Re:Lockdown

[Tim C]

Will every piece of software have to be certified before use (as most network operators seem to like).

I've not had a very wide experience of installing third-party software on 'phones, but with my old 3650 (on the O2 network in the UK), it would warn me if the app wasn't signed, but was perfectly happy to let me install it anyway. I see this as a good thing personally - a rogue app could quite easily run me up a huge bill by dialing out and/or sending text messages to premium sevices, which would not be cool...

Of course, there's no guarantee that a properly-signed one won't do that, but you'd hope that there's more to getting is signed than just buying a certificate, and that there's a certificate revocation mechanism in place. (I know, all probably wishful thinking...)

Messaging?

[Anne Thwacks]

So long as internet use over a mobile phone is more expensive than buying your own internet cafe, there's little future in this.

The phone operators should realise that they could make a lot of money if they were not so damn greedy with their download rates.

Re:Messaging?

[Realistic_Dragon]

Orange in the UK used to offer free 0800 28.8k/sec access to the internet (via some service like OneTel).

A month before GPRS was lauched this was increased to 35p/min, and GPRS was advertised as being '35 times cheaper than dialing up'.

Anyone else remember the first BT GPRS tarrif that could cost you £114/min if they actually delivered on their advertised data rate?

Now at least you can buy unlimited GPRS from some suppliers in the UK (for around £50/$80mo) but it's a damn sight more expensive and not as quick as (HS)CSD used to be AND they have the unmitigate d gall to cap use at 100mb in their AUP! Bastards through and through. I await the revolution when they are first against the wall (well after Old Bill and patent lawyers of course).

Why a 2G phone?

[millwall]

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.

Re:Why a 2G phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, primarily because the backbone is not entirely 3G yet.

Besides, 2G definitely has more of a coverage than 3G does.

Hence a lot of continuing investment in 2G networks.

I think.

Re:Why a 2G phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I.e. central Tokyo? Here in the northern part of Europe, ComputerWorld (I think it was them) is still writing about the difficulties getting the 3G networks online, and the phone companies would rather rent bandwith from other phone companies than buying their own equipment. And the US is years behind, not even fully on GSM, but still strugling with their old incompatible with anything systems.

*the* thing for business?

[melonman]

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.

Someone should have known better ..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Symbian or Microsoft?

[DLR]

Quoth yon article: In terms of operating system choices, Motorola definitely chose the road less traveled for the A768i. The obvious choices in the market are the Symbian OS and, of course, Microsoft.

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.

Business

[StevenHenderson]

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.

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?

Linux on a telling-bone

[ajs318]

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.

Re:Linux on a telling-bone

[ajs318]

the way it syncs data with a PC seems to be proprietory (it doesnt use the qtopia desktop) and the PC-side software is Windows-only.

Bloody typical.

I am seriously thinking of writing to my MP to try to get it made law that manufacturers must provide full disclosure of driver specs if they want to sell their goods in this country. Placing the driver source code under BSD licence or GPL would of course satisfy the requirements. {I know BSD can be poison; but it isn't actually too bad for situations like drivers, where there is no danger of proprietary extensions taking over from the main code base. The manufacturer can't add proprietary extensions themself, since that would break the requirement for full disclosure.}

Meanwhile, has anyone got any success stories re. getting a Linux laptop on the internet with a mobile phone? Any mobile at all? If I use my own dial-up server, will it just be counted as any old mobile-to-landline call {and therefore covered in the monthly allowance on my current tariff}? I don't need a feature-packed phone with a colour display, camera and integrated self-rolling ashtray, just something that lets me send and receive text messages and answer voice calls. Oh, and go on the internet, obviously :)

Re:Business Phone without a key pad?

[ThogScully]

What is the point of replying to a Slashdot post with a terrible assumption about email being one-way, when you haven't even read the article?

Geez, one of his largest sections talked about the 3 different methods of text entry and described how he liked that flexibility more than any keypad/T9 solution.
-N

Re:Another flop

[Anonymous Coward]

A768i and the simpler A680 are both big successes in China. I have used the A768 for a few months now and although it has its foibles it is a kick ass phone. Very responsive and quick. Stable as a rock. Makes Windows phones look positively slow.

Re:Motorola and Linux - when?

[Erwos]

Would you be willing to pay a thousand bucks for it?

Even the A768i is still running for $400 or so on eBay. Retail, it's going for about $600.

Adding all the stuff you would want, qa'ing it, and then redesigning the hardware to accomodate would push the price to at least $800. What's worse is that you'd still have anemic performance, and battery life would get worse due to the additional memory and larger display.

This is not to mention any potential size or interface issues.

-Erwos