[Noisebridge-discuss] what sort of phone to get, part xxx

Thu Sep 30 16:25:17 UTC 2010

Thanks, Jeffrey, for taking the time to relay all of this great 
information, and thanks Andrew for your comments.

I see that N900 still sells for pretty much the full price. I think 
that's my most practical immediate solution, while waiting to see what 
HP and Nokia have to offer in the next handful of months (CES is 
January, no?) might be best if I can wait a little.

What I'd love is to find someone who has an unused N900 which I could 
borrow (or rent) for a couple of weeks to see what it's like. Right now 
I simply don't have the $300-$400 to buy one.

I'm still very tempted to buy one of the GSM modules from Sparkfun and 
roll my own. I have one of these 
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.urlesque.com/media/2009/03/brick-phone-h02ks.jpg 
which has plenty of room for a Sparkfun GSM module, an Arduino, an 
entire computer, and still leaves room for my lunch.

M

On 09/29/2010 05:30 PM, Jeffrey Malone wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I'd personally recommend you look at the N900 with Maemo 5 for now.
>   Maemo became a haven for all the OpenMoko refugees, and is mostly open
> source.
>
> webOS was only released on two phones, both for Sprint/CDMA only in the
> US.  It runs on top of a Linux kernel, but it's not so much GNU/Linux --
> just a Linux kernel, like Android. Development for it is in
> Javascript/HTML/CSS, and uses their custom toolkit which appears to be
> closed source.  As noted, webOS was a Palm product, but failed to get
> enough of a base to save the company.  It got bought by HP, and as is my
> understanding, little of the original webOS team is still there.
>   Waiting for a product that is just entering the rumoured stage from a
> company that has yet to really enter the mobile phone market may be a
> long wait, and a complete unknown of what it will be.  Whatever HP is
> doing with webOS, it may not resemble what we've seen of webOS to date
> -- both for good, or bad.
>
> Maemo is GNU/Linux, and has all the standard libraries you would find on
> a Linux desktop in place.  People are able to develop for it in any
> language they wish, with Python, C and C++ being the more popular
> choices.  Standard Linux applications can typically be recompiled to run
> on the device, and it has an extensive non-commercial oriented community
> base much like OpenMoko had.
>
> That said, while the phone is mostly reliable and has the best web
> browser of any mobile phone I've had (Mozilla fennec based, although
> Opera, Firefox, Midori and several others are available), it predictably
> has some drawbacks.  There is no free decent mapping software for the
> phone.  The application it comes with is crap, and I've ended up using
> the Google Maps' mobile site (which has GPS support), but it is rather
> tedious.  There are occasionally weird issues, the battery lasts a mere
> 10-12 hours of moderate use, and for those who object, it is a resistive
> touch screen.  Runs on quadband GSM and has a dual set of UMTS/3G
> frequencies to work on T-Mobile US and outside of North America (eg,
> Europe, but not ATT).
>
> The Nokia N9, which is completely rumoured and theorised to come out at
> the end of the year or early next, will allegedly be running MeeGo --
> the successor to Maemo and Intel's Moblin.  Much of the N9 specs are
> rumoured, and there are some pics of what are allegedly prototypes
> floating around.
> MeeGo, one of the worst names ever for a platform (and right on the
> heels of Moblin) is the way things are flowing with Nokia though.  It's
> a bit of a wildcard, although approaching it's 1.1 release at the end of
> October that will be the first stable release with the handset profile.
>   It's designed to be entirely open source -- although device drivers
> required for some hardware may still remain closed, but will not be part
> of the MeeGo distribution.  It'll be maintaining a base that includes
> many of the same packages found on a desktop machine, with a strong push
> for Qt.
> It's still not at all sure if MeeGo will go anywhere, especially in the
> mobile phone market.
>
> To add to the option overload, I'm told that yet another Linux mobile
> platform is being worked on by Samsung that will be out within the next
> year.  It'll be based on Enlightenment, which should give it a very
> smooth and pretty look... but that's about as many details as are out.
>
> Also, in the Android field, the T-Mobile G2, which appears to be a cross
> between the Nexus One and T-Mobile G1 is out in a week or two with a
> hardware keyboard.
>
> For a quick summary:
> There's a lot of phones coming out over the next year, and many
> platforms to choose from.  If you want a new phone in the next couple
> weeks, look for the Nokia N900 (Maemo) or the T-Mobile G2 (Android 2.2).
> If you want to play the waiting game, your options will increase.. the
> Nokia N9 may be worth your wait, or a waste of time.
>
> Jeffrey
>
> On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Michael Shiloh
> <michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com <mailto:michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     my bad. a quick visit to wikipedia explained a lot.
>
>     how open is webos? from the wp description it didn't look terribly open.
>
>     what makes you feel that it is the os of choice?
>
>     does anyone currently have a phone running webos, and what is your
>     opinion?
>
>     On 09/29/2010 03:00 PM, Michael Shiloh wrote:
>      > seems very interesting. i browsed a little, but am confused:
>      >
>      > is webos a linux distro aimed at palm devices?
>      >
>      > are there any devices running webos currently?
>      >
>      > what is this pre stuff anyway? a phone? an os? a prefix?
>      >
>      > On 09/29/2010 02:47 PM, Andrew Fresh wrote:
>      >> I have to add that I think webOS is the OS of choice.
>      >>
>      >> http://www.precentral.net/webos-android-and-hacking-which-more-open
>      >>
>      >> http://www.precentral.net/hp-reaffirms-support-homebrew-community
>      >>
>      >> But, that is with the caveat that HP hasn't announced specs or
>     timeline
>      >> on any new phones yet, but personally I expect something awesome
>     by the
>      >> end of the year.
>      >>
>      >> l8rZ,
>      >
>
>     --
>     Sent from my ASR-33
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