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.

Great keyboard!

[claes]

Take a look at the keyboard - finally a keyboard at a PDA-size device that includes keys for international characters. It takes germans to understand that some alphabets are longer than a-z!

Linux for handhelds?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

For less than this, you could get palm or windows devices that are fully functional. Until there is a free handheld environment, we can't just say "stick linux on it".

--
Dogs are annoying. Go ECFA. Buy a K9Zap today.

Re:Advantages of Linux

[CAIMLAS]

I'll probably get modded troll for this :(

If you don't already understand the whole "Linux" appeal, I doubt you'd find anything particularly appealing about a Linux-powered phone.

For the most part, I think the appeal is the ability to tinker with it, add software that wouldn't be intended, and various other 'geeky' things that most consumers wouldn't give a damn about. It would give the sysadmin type a great deal of mobile administration ability. If you don't grok grep and pine for sed, there's not a perl of wisdom I can give you which would likely make you see the significance.

Additionally, since it uses Opie, there's a lot of available software out there for the device already. Much of it is 'geeky' software, but as a for instance: you'd be able to emulate PalmOS without any problems, provided you had the ROMs. I don't know if this is possible with WinCE, though, so it might not be all that 'special'.

This particular device looks fairly useful to me, and that's saying a lot, as I tend to thing such things are just trendy toys. The existence of the SD slot is definately nice, as it'd allow you to use this device for quite a few things, including a portable MP3 player. It's got a built-in keyboard which - while not full-size, is a hell of a lot bigger than those on other chick-key keyboards.

Re:Advantages of Linux

[Erik Hensema]

To the user it probably has no advantages at all. You won't even notice it's Linux.

To the manufacturer it's just the usual freedom/free beer thing.

Re:Ah memories...

[CAIMLAS]

Yeah, I remember those times.

I remember the absolutely atrocious low-frequency ringtones which would set me on edge every time someone's phone would ring (at least the new 'personalized' ringtones have a fuller frequency). I remember the shitty quality signals and the battery life which required the phone to be recharged after about 8 hours of in-pocket use and maybe 20 minutes of talk time. I remember having to cart around a huge brick which took horribly grainy photos if I wanted to use a digital camera. I remember having to wear a watch around in addition to carrying my phone if I wanted to tell the time. I remember not having voice mail, so that when my phone was off I'd not recieve calls. I remember having only 20 slots to store my friends' and family members' addresses.

Now, granted, there's something to be said for simplicity. I don't think I'd want this "phone" but I sure as hell don't want to go back to the irritation of old technology. I would like a simple, durable phone with just basic phone/clock/alarm features, though.

If you don't like the extra features, just don't use them or turn them off. That's still a possibility.

Re:Ah memories...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm longing for the days when we will finally get phones where you can turn off the phone feature. I don't want it. I want a mobile clock, alarm, mp3-player, camera, organizer etc. the size of a box of matches, but I don't want people to call me all the time. That's annoying.

Re:The Windows CE and Symbian versions

[cecom]

I don't know wbout Symbian, but getting licenses for Windows CE is not a problem for any size developer. I used to work for a very small company (less than 10 people) in 1999 and we developed an embedded device with Windows CE (2.1 I think). Getting the licenses was not a problem at all. The environment (to build custom CE images) wasn't expensive either (I don't remember exactly, but less than $1K).

A CE license in our miniscule volumes was about $50 (again, I don't remember exactly), which might be considered prohibitive for devices in the $200-300 range. I don't know.

OTOH, Linux in a phone is mighty cool. I doubt it will be available in the US, though.

comparison to Communicator?

[rjasmin]

What is the real difference between this and Nokia 9500? One that I can think of is availability - 9500 is on the market, at half the price of S101, which in turn look like a marketing prototype. 9500 has WLAN, EDGE, GPRS, BT, IrDA, ability to do IMAP/POP mail, Opera browser, m$ doc support (although rudimentary)
I dont see the point of S101 as it isnt any lighter or smaller than 9500. OK, it runs Linux, but so what, using keyboard that small is excercise in futillity anyway..
What it has as a big plus is touchscreen, 9500 has navigation pad that is painfull to use in browser.

so WHEN it comes to market, it will have its little advantages, but compared to 9500 and with bigger price, I doubt it can make nothing more than a cameo appearance on the market..

Is the stylus dead?

[fm6]

When I do input on a handheld device, I prefer a stylus to a keyboard, since it takes two hands to type, and I'm not a motie. Yet all PDAs now seem to be deisgned with a keyboard instead of a stylus. Oh well...

Never!

[fm6]

This is why you should never buy any electronic device, no matter how useful. The very moment you click on "place order", something twice as good and half as expensive will appear on the market, and make you hate yourself!

Re:Advantages of Linux

[nickos]

I'm not sure about advantages, but I was speaking to someone from one of the big mobile phone manufacturers on Saturday and they were saying that when making a phone, it was very important to the network companies that a company was legally responsible for how their equipment dealt with the numerous communication protocols (and so presumably could be sued or whatever if it caused a problem). He went on to say that sadly Linux might have a problem with this as there is no company to take legal responsibility.

I wonder if these network companies have problems with Microsoft which has licences that deny all responsibility for any problems caused by their products...

VoIP

[uluckas]

A hackable phone with WLAN. I guess it won't be long before someone puts a VoIP client on there.

Use WLAN to make cheap calls and GSM for backup if there is no WLAN available.

Re:Ah memories...

[dago]

You know what, such phones still exists ... Nokia 1100 [nokia.com] for example.

Re:Advantages of Linux

[idlake]

but what about in day-to-day operations?

Potentially lots more software than for any of the other platforms: it's the same kernel and APIs as on the desktop (not true for any of the other phone platforms), and there is lots of Linux software that runs on small screens and limited memory (due to the age and previous uses of UNIX).

Re:Photo

[chasingporsches]

there is no other mail client that looks like that. black background windows logo in the top right, the windows fade bar on top, the word formatting toolbar right above the text box... it's outlook. but who cares.