First North American OpenMoko/FreeRunners Arrive

holdenkarau writes "The North American OpenMoko FreeRunners are starting to arrive. It would appear that the OpenMoko still has problems with some 3G networks, including AT&T. Although, in my own personal completely unscientific test, 2 out of 3 AT&T SIM cards worked. Check out the unboxing of a complete FreeRunner (along with debug board) and my experience getting the FreeRunner up and running. Or a direct link to the pictures for those of you bored with text. If you feel brave enough to take the plunge, you can buy your own FreeRunner from the OpenMoko store."

Re:Pictures

[holdenkarau]

Oh sad. Well you can read the post and then you only have to look at one picture.

Re:500

[slick_rick]

The big difference between this and an iPhone is you can plug nearly any sim-card into a freerunner and it just works. You have to open the case of your iPhone and solder things the last I heard to get equivalent functionality with an iPhone.

Nice troll, BTW.

Re:I was about to order one

[Simonics Zsolt]

They are "good enough" for a lot of things.

and I'd want to buy it why?

[arpad1]

If I'm not mistaken, the phones are going for $400 per. It doesn't look all that good compared to the $200 iPhone so why would I want one if I wasn't interested in the "open" aspect of the phone?

Re:and I'd want to buy it why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wells, you have to keep in mind the true cost on an iphone (namely the difference between an iPhone plan and the plan you would get if you didn't have an iPhone). For me that difference is pretty large, mutliply by 24 and you've got a much more expensive iPhone.

Re:CDMA areas in 4 years?

[gblfxt]

i've been able to use my GSM phone when i travel around the world, CDMA, not so much.

Re:500

[TooMuchToDo]

Dude! The best part isn't that it can be used anywhere. That's an added feature. The best part is that the platform is completely open!

Re:Downsides to Openmoko?

[ThogScully]

Sounds to me like they made a bunch of stuff up. The OpenMoko folks have gone to great lengths to develop the hardware platform from a completely open perspective, so that it developers can have full access to the hardware and full specs to program to.

Ultimately, calling this a Windows phone running Linux is like saying that all ARM processors are really Windows machines that can also run Linux.

The article really focused on OpenMoko vs. iPhone, but at least as far as I read, didn't get the point. The iPhone is geared toward those who buy things already working and the FreeRunner is aimed at those who want to make it better.
-N

Get both release 1 AND 2 when it's ready

[rekrutacja]

Waiting for second release is a good way to kick a company out of the market. I understand this desire for some businesses, but with Freerunner and OpenMoko you do want this second release to happen, right? So buy this release, and than buy the second when it's ready.

Re:500

[TooMuchToDo]

Ahh! But they are two different things. My Blackberry from T-Mobile is unlocked, but I can't change the OS, although I could write apps for it if I wanted to. Most, if not all GSM phones can be unlocked to work on any other network. No phones (except the Freerunner to my knowledge) provide open source access to the OS.

Re:Get both release 1 AND 2 when it's ready

[TheRaven64]

Which is why the lack of the camera and 3G is a huge problem. I'd be happy to pay slightly over market value for a phone with an open software stack, but only if it's an upgrade. My current phone is almost three years old now. It has 3G, works for Internet access from my laptop via Bluetooth and has a 2M pixel camera. Trading it in for one with only GPRS (getting off GPRS having been the reason for my last phone upgrade) and no camera is just not going to happen. My next upgrade is likely to be to HSPDA and something with enough flash for my music collection, and I'd really like it to be based on an open stack, but if they are going to build products based on three of four generation old technology and price them in the premium segment then it's really hard to justify buying them.

Re:I was about to order one

[slartibart]

sorry, come from a linux background where we prefer one thing to do its job well, in this case, make phone calls. as opposed to making all things "multimedia extravaganzas!" there is always windows mobile and iphone for you to check out.

I think you're comparing apples to oranges. In unix, you might as well have programs do one thing well because there's very little cost to installing more programs. It doesn't make your laptop any bigger or heavier.
Separating your phone, camera, mp3 player, portable video player, etc into different devices is ridiculous, no one can carry that many things. People want one device that does it all, for good reason.