[LUGSB] Ars.Technica OpenMoko review

[Chris Wright]

2008/7/11 Ilya Sukhanov (dotCOMmie) <lugsb at sukhanov.net>:
> I've seen a couple of Neo FreeRunner articles/reviews but none of them seem
> to
> address the most important feature of a phone. The call making ability --
> and
> perhaps the coverage.

There are three images for openmoko: the 2007.2 image (and its
successors, the ScaredyCat line), the ASU (which includes Qtopia), and
the FSO (Free Smartphone Organization). All of them are capable of
making phone calls. The FSO image is only capable of making calls (and
Milestone 1 was only released a few weeks ago).

For text messaging, there's a console app and a python/gtk wrapper
around that console app. I'm not sure if the Qtopia stuff in ASU can
handle that, but it probably can, and in a more integrated and pretty
way.

As for coverage, you can use it with any GSM network. There are two
tri-band varieties (850/1800/1900 and 900/1800/1900), so you should be
able to use either one in most places in the US and Europe, though
you'd have to go through AT&T or T-Mobil in the US. I'm not sure how
good the GSM receiver in the Freerunner is compared to other phones.

One of the more pressing issues is battery life. Since suspend is not
working very well, the Freerunner's CPU is always active, which
reduces the battery life to roughly 20 hours idle. However, there has
been progress on this front, and the Freerunner should have similar
battery life to other smartphones eventually.

Additionally, there have been reports that some SIM cards do not work
with the Freerunner. There are no correlations to manufacturer or
network, though, and getting a new SIM card usually helps.

I was considering getting a Freerunner, but it's $400. I'd still pay
that if I were going to develop software for it, but I probably
wouldn't.