A first look at the OpenMoko Neo 1973

Posted Aug 30, 2007 9:41 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Posted Aug 30, 2007 9:57 UTC (Thu) by mjr (subscriber, #6979) [Link]

The Qtopia phone stack, afaik, is not free, even if the Qtopia base is GPL'd. Also, Greenphone is more of a tech demo than a phone trying to enter the market. Expensive, too.

As for the comment by svkelley, hell no this phone isn't gonna put iPhone out of business, but I fail to see what that's got to do with anything. No point trying to compete with the excellent hype for the consumers clamoring for the Apple image, restrictions be damned. For now, the point is to get a truly open alternative to the people who grok its significance. Hopefully later, when the openness has spawned more cool software (and also more hardware options will be available), Moko phones will be able to better compete also among those who don't see the point of freedom as such. Saying that it won't scare Google or Apple is, well, a disingenious strawman argument. Of course it doesn't, and it doesn't have to.

Underpowered? Well, it could use a bit snappier processor. Guess what, that's coming in the mass-market model (you know, as opposed to the developer preview that's available now), along with a GPU. Or maybe you meant the cell connectivity being limited to GSM? That's a fair cop as such, but with limited resources to a startup project a GSM phone is a good choice for the first model; it gives the most global basic coverage you can get while keeping costs reasonable. Hopefully 3G models will enter the fray later, and I'm certainly one to get one if and when they arrive. Meanwhile, GSM is good enough for me considering the openness and the other quite advanced features of the phone. YMMV, of course; nobody's forcing anyone to buy these phones if they don't fit your needs well enough, but that doesn't make them useless.

Also, hell yes it's got a "home-brew" taste at this point; that's not because it's home-brew, though; it's not. FIC is one of the larger phone manufacturers, though they usually manufacture for other firms. The phone software subsidiary startup, OpenMoko, is certainly new, though, which is why the software is not ready. In the spirit of openness, however, the phone along with software is available for early access to interested developers. Absolutely nobody is saying it's by any means ready for mass-market.

It's a bit sad that some people apparently fail to understand that all phone systems pretty much go through similar stages; it's just that with Moko, we get to choose to go in at the ground floor if we will, when not everything's all polished and nice yet.

Because choice is what it's all about.