Mobile Phone with PC running Linux 2.6

A8 writes "There is a new toy (aka the S101) around the corner from a German company called Road GmbH. Looks like the Nokia Communicator, but is a little PC with GSM, GPRS, IrDA, Bluetooth, WLAN -- you name it, running Linux 2.6/Qtopia! Sorry seems like the page is in German only." There are also versions based on the same hardware but running Windows CE and Symbian.

Translation

[Electronik]

Here is the Goggle translation [google.com]

For those of us...

[freralqqvba]

who speak english [road-gmbh.de].

english translation [google]

[Anonymous Coward]

S101/S101K
Technical features
Software
- standard applications
- GSM telephone with SMS/MMS
- PIM also
* Directory
* Appointment calendar
* Tasks
- pocket calculators
- dictating machine
- indication program
- MP3 Player
- PC synchronisation Ms Outlook
- remote ACCESS
- InterNet Browser
- email client (POP and IMAP), repeated accounts
- Office Viewer (Ms Word, Ms Excel, Adobe pdf)

[Customized applications]
- cryptology (only S101K)
- Business applications for direct access to firm servers
- Providerspezifi on-line services

[Operating system]
- LINUX Kernel 2.6.x
- Qtopia Graphic user interface

[Hardware]
- GSM telephone
* Display: LCD mono chrome 102x65 pixel
* Keyboard: 20 keys standard layout
* Acoustic output over earphones or free speech mechanism
- PC
* Display: Color TFT 640x240 pixel with Touchscreen
* Keyboard: 63 keys PC-compatible layout
- Diktiergeraet/Audioplayer
* 4 separate keys for control
* Rendition over loudspeakers/earphones
- camera (optional)
* 2 megapixels

Actual working time
- GSM telephone: actively 4h, standby 240h
- PC: actively 5h, standby 30 days (GSM telephone switched off)

Konnektivitaet
- wireless: GSM quadband (850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz) with EDGE
* WLAN
* Bluetooth
* IRDA infrared modules
- wire-bound
* USB 2,0, mini USB socket
* SD Card base
* Power supply unit 5V DC, RK 1A
* Telephone Headset or stereo earphone

[Interior life]
- CCU Intel Xscale PXA 263 with 400 MHz
- memory 64MB RAM, 64MB Flash
- Akku lithium polymer 1500mAh, load time 3h
- vibration alarm

[General data]
- weight 210g inclusive Akku
- dimensions 128x60x25m

Re:ROAD runner?

[Anonymous Coward]

German commercial websites are required to publish address and phone number in a way which makes it easily accessible from every page. It's usually called "Impressum" or "Kontakt". The link is at the bottom of the page and leads to http://www.road-gmbh.de/impressum/index.html [road-gmbh.de]

Products have been announced for the fourth quarter of 2005.

Hans Constin is also director of Constin GmbH [constin.de] at the same address.

Re:The Windows CE and Symbian versions

[wertarbyte]

It might also rely on the geek factor, it seems to work for other devices [openwrt.org] as well.

Calm down with the "Vapourware" talk.

[cmclean]

Hey, let's get this out in the open, shall we. The product was "announced" at the 3GSM World Congress, it don't exist, you can't buy it. Yet...
But the specs have been announced, you can email the company about pre-ordering, and it's getting some decent coverage. Plus the fact it looks pretty cool (the screen may have been photoshopped, but the model looks like a prototype).

Usually I like to give a product more than 72 hours before denouncing it as "Vapourware".

Now, about the 1400 Euro pricetag :-(

Re:Issues: Size and GSM

[jrumney]

My service provider is Verizon. No GSM. Will ROAD eventually have CDMA, or will the US eventually have GSM?

The US has GSM already, you just need to switch networks and/or move to another state.

But for a phone with these specs looking to release in almost a year's time, I'm surprised they're going with GSM rather than WCDMA, or is Germany that far behind in 3G rollout?

Re:Power use

[Anonymous Coward]

Cellphones have to transmit a signal that can be picked up by a tower that is some miles away. An electromagnetic signal attenuates at rate of some constant I can't remember times pi times r to the power of two ( the surface area of a sphere. ) I think modern cellphones tend to use about a tenth of a watt to transmit, from memory.
But basically anything that broadcasts a radio signal uses a lot of power.

Re:Linux for handhelds?

[evilviper]

What use is linux for handhelds, considering there are currently no good open source mini browsers (eventually, there will be minimoz) or handwriting recognition programs.

Good call Anonymous Moron...

There's no good Open Source mini-browsers like Konqueror Embedded [konqueror.org], Dillo [dillo.org], or (GUI) Links2 [mff.cuni.cz]. Which is too bad, because the universe would colapse on itself if you used a non-open source browser (such as Opera) on Linux, just like every other embedded device ever made.

And you're sure to need good handwriting recognition on a device with a full keyboard... An on-screen keyboard (which most PDA users use) like xkbd couldn't possibly be good enough. And someone that wanted handwriting recognition couldn't possibly adapt one of the open source Linux OCR programs to suit this purpose...

Re:[OT] What is GmbH

[Ozan]

It denotes the business structure, which is similar to that of an american LLC or Ltd.

Re:[OT] What is GmbH

[k7net]

It means limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit Beschränkter Haftung in German).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

. The amount of overhead required for running a multitasking operating system really isn't compatible with the hardware being used (that is, its speed), and isn't compatible with the way its being used anyway.

You're quite simply wrong. Windows CE/Smartphone stuff is actually less efficient in many areas than Linux. For one, the use of XIP (which MS seems to prefer) for most applications eats a lot of flash and cuts down on performance. A typical PocketPC image is generally much larger than a Qtopia and Busybox based Linux fs and kernel.
And multitasking is perfectly suited for a PDA despite what you might say. I doubt Windows CE would have had any acceptance as a PDA platform if it did not have multitasking capability.

The cpufreq stuff in Linux gives comparable or better net power consumption for a wide variety of tasks as well.

The linux kernel is a win here because it gives respectable performance without having to put up with the hassle of a crippled API like Windows CE (anyone that has programmed CE apps of any significance knows exactly what the C stands for).

You have to realize that many of these phones are using processors like Freescale and Intel PXAs that are power efficient, yet they are among the fastest ARM implementations available. These processors are many many times faster than any 386...so are you saying that Linux should never have been created? They are thoroughly fast enough to run graphical environments like Qtopia and even a surprisingly large number of roms on MAME.

It's a win because with Linux you get a fairly stable platform with the ability to use many POSIX and POSIXish libraries, many that are PDA relevant (OpenOBEX, Bluetooth) (plus have things like UNIX shell scripting and python for hackers). JFFS2 for all its problems is still more robust than that abortion called IPSM.

You should be aware that for ARM platforms (what most of these phones are anyway) there is work being put into linux 2.6 that uses the domain feature of the ARM MMU to make context switches extremely fast.

It sounds like you are completely clueless when it comes to running software on smaller systems and really don't have a fucking clue what "overheads" are involved in running a system like Linux..

You should check to see what your drinking water pipes are made of.

English website

[uluckas]

There is an "english" link at the top of the page - pointing to http://road-gmbh.de/en/index.html [road-gmbh.de]

Re:ROAD runner?

[ulitu]

A prototype of the device could be seen at Trolltech's both at the Cannes conference (3GSM) last week. While it sure looked like it was in heavy development, it was far from vaporware. The device was demonstrated to be operational as a cell phone and qtopia apps could be seen running.