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Openmoko's Open Source Phone Goes Mass-Market

Posted by timothy on from the long-may-it-wave dept.

nerdyH writes "Openmoko has begun shipping its Linux-based, open source Neo Freerunner phone to five newly announced distributors, in Germany, France, and India, says the company. The Neo Freerunner features an open hardware design, and a Linux-based operating system that users are free to modify. The project originally hoped to produce a mass-market offering last October. The $400 Freerunner will remain available direct, online, too. A 2.5G GPRS/GSM phone like the original iPhone, it boasts a 500MHz processor, WiFi, 3D accelerometers, a 4.3-inch VGA touchscreen, Bluetooth, and built-in GPS."

4 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. Re:2.5G by Milyardo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A 3G/3.5G/WiMax Controller Will undoubtedly come, as any manufacturer could make the controller. The competition will also keep the prices for such devices reasonable. The reason this will compete with a 3G iPhone is because you the ability to upgrade piece by piece. The iPhone you dropped $600 on last year is, and will be the same iPhone 2 years from now.

  2. Re:2.5G by svnt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its Open-Hardware, get a 3G controller and replace the 2.5G one(when a 3G controller becomes available).

    Yeah, you're comfortable hand-soldering 0.5mm pitch BGAs, right? What 2.5G controller were you talking about?

    Buy it for what it is - freedom. If that's not enough, don't force it on yourself.

  3. Re:2.5G by sglewis100 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You did say correct you if wrong... so here goes. iPhone 3G has a GPS. You are absolutely correct though, in that it does compete. I'm a happy iPhone user that wants to upgrade to get faster Internet, so obviously it's not a good choice for me. But it's a good phone.

  4. Re:Some Experience by mmontour · · Score: 3, Insightful

    headphone only mono. i.e. only one side works Are you sure about that one? The speakers in the device went from stereo (GTA01) to mono, but I never heard about a similar issue with the headphone audio. Do you have one of the production models or an earlier prototype? Is your headphone using the correct 4-pin plug?

    no bluetooth headset support No support in the current software, but AFAIK the necessary hardware is there.

    For me the killer feature is the openness of the platform (datasheets for almost all of the modules, the ability to completely brick it and then restore with JTAG, etc). I'll forgive a lot of flaws in order to support that philosophy.