[off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
Hi list Sadly to say, my GTA02 is going to retire. It is having too much troubles to be used as a daily phone and I'm thinking to replace it. The perfect candidate is the GTA04 but I can't afford its cost right now. I didn't follow with attention the evolution of the smartphones market, so I'm asking you: what alternatives do I have? Is there something with a recent hardware but somehow open and that costs no more than 200€? I have to say that I'm not a big fan of android and for now I would prefer to go with a 30€ nokia in the pocket and a gnu/linux friendly tablet/netbook on the shoulders waiting for better times... Best regards Joif ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:59:46 +0100 francesco.dev...@mailoo.org wrote: Hi list Sadly to say, my GTA02 is going to retire. It is having too much troubles to be used as a daily phone and I'm thinking to replace it. The perfect candidate is the GTA04 but I can't afford its cost right now. I didn't follow with attention the evolution of the smartphones market, so I'm asking you: what alternatives do I have? Is there something with a recent hardware but somehow open and that costs no more than 200€? I have to say that I'm not a big fan of android and for now I would prefer to go with a 30€ nokia in the pocket and a gnu/linux friendly tablet/netbook on the shoulders waiting for better times... Best regards Joif Same applies to me. I love the GTA02 but wanted something a bit more robust while still remaining affordable. So earlier this year I purchased a used Nokia N900. It's still a bit on the slow side compared to newer offerings but it does offer a good user experience. It gives you a linux phone with a real shell and there's a ton of software in the repos. I'd recommend using Opera instead of the standard browser though because it's much faster. You should be able to find one in that price range and be able to get an extra battery and a large mSD card while still staying in budget. Brian ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:59:46 +0100 francesco.dev...@mailoo.org wrote: Hi list Sadly to say, my GTA02 is going to retire. It is having too much troubles to be used as a daily phone and I'm thinking to replace it. The perfect candidate is the GTA04 but I can't afford its cost right now. I didn't follow with attention the evolution of the smartphones market, so I'm asking you: what alternatives do I have? Is there something with a recent hardware but somehow open and that costs no more than 200€? I have to say that I'm not a big fan of android and for now I would prefer to go with a 30€ nokia in the pocket and a gnu/linux friendly tablet/netbook on the shoulders waiting for better times... what about a galaxy S(should be cheap enough) with Replicant (Android)? Else porting GNU/Linux on it shouldn't be too hard if you're skilled enough with theses kind of things(it's already ported to the Nexus S, and only lack very little to be usable). Denis. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
On 12/17/2012 05:59 PM, francesco.dev...@mailoo.org wrote: Hi list Sadly to say, my GTA02 is going to retire. It is having too much troubles to be used as a daily phone and I'm thinking to replace it. The perfect candidate is the GTA04 but I can't afford its cost right now. I didn't follow with attention the evolution of the smartphones market, so I'm asking you: what alternatives do I have? Is there something with a recent hardware but somehow open and that costs no more than 200€? I have to say that I'm not a big fan of android and for now I would prefer to go with a 30€ nokia in the pocket and a gnu/linux friendly tablet/netbook on the shoulders waiting for better times... Best regards Joif Hi Joif/Brian, Sad to see you go. I am curious on why the Freerunner did not meet your expectations? Not to try to convince you to reconsider, but because it might be important for future phones (like the gta04) What distro did you try? what are the things that you missed in the FR? What made you finally decided to look for another phone? I hope you are willing to tell us about your experience, i think there are much more people who gave up on the FR and i am wondering why. Kind regards and the best of luck with your quest for a new phone. Ed ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
On Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:50:31 +0100 Ed Kapitein e...@kapitein.org wrote: On 12/17/2012 05:59 PM, francesco.dev...@mailoo.org wrote: Hi list Sadly to say, my GTA02 is going to retire. It is having too much troubles to be used as a daily phone and I'm thinking to replace it. The perfect candidate is the GTA04 but I can't afford its cost right now. I didn't follow with attention the evolution of the smartphones market, so I'm asking you: what alternatives do I have? Is there something with a recent hardware but somehow open and that costs no more than 200€? I have to say that I'm not a big fan of android and for now I would prefer to go with a 30€ nokia in the pocket and a gnu/linux friendly tablet/netbook on the shoulders waiting for better times... Best regards Joif Hi Joif/Brian, Sad to see you go. I am curious on why the Freerunner did not meet your expectations? Not to try to convince you to reconsider, but because it might be important for future phones (like the gta04) What distro did you try? what are the things that you missed in the FR? What made you finally decided to look for another phone? I hope you are willing to tell us about your experience, i think there are much more people who gave up on the FR and i am wondering why. Kind regards and the best of luck with your quest for a new phone. Ed Hi Ed, I didn't mean to imply that I'm not still using my GTA02 because I most certainly do! Mainly as an ebook reader, for streaming internet news radio, and a few other things. In the future I may use it as a SIP handset or for GPS in the car. Pretty much anywhere I can keep it plugged in. I had no illusions regarding expectations when I got mine. I knew exactly what to expect and can't really complain. I just had to have one warts and all. :) I retired it from phone duties because too often the signal would drop and reconnecting usually meant rebooting. Spotty carrier reception in my area didn't help and there were some complaints about call quality on both ends. Battery life was an issue when used heavily so carrying a usb cable, spares, and wall charger seemed a bit impractical. Getting a GTA04 is tempting but I just can't afford one right now. That doesn't rule out one in the future though. I really do appreciate the efforts that went into both the Neo 1973 and FreeRunner as well as the GTA04 but I've yet to experience one of those first hand. It's important to me to encourage handheld mobile devices that are as open as possible in both hardware and software. I'm a hobbyist and love to tinker with gadgets so I've tried just about every distro on the wiki or mentioned on the mailing list. My favorite for phone duties is QtMoko, for e-reader AoF. When I got the urge to try bleeding edge and break stuff it was SHR. Current setup is QtMoko on NAND and AoF on SD. My biggest complaint about the FR is that it probably came out too early, suffered from some production delays which hurt development imho. Thus hurting the chances that a lot of others (read consumers, manufacturers, and devs) would follow in the much more open footsteps of OpenMoko than say IOS or Android. The smaller complaint would be having a real keyboard on a mobile device is awesome, but those are usually poorly done and hard to find. So the landscape of mobile devices isn't quite as open as most of us on the list would like but it could be a lot worse right? In closing you can have my FreeRunner when you pry it from my cold dead hands... Cheers, Brian ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
Those of Brian are more or less my same words. The GTA02 completely satisfied me, it is my daily phone since three years and probably it will be still with me until it works. But battery and GSM issues, and other usury problems, are making it uncomfortable when I am away from home for an entire day, imagine when I have to travel. I can maybe buy a new GTA02 but it is understandable that I prefer a new hardware today. After those years of use I can say that I missed: - a bigger screen, maybe a capacitive one - a better video device - a better wifi device - the bass fix (: I don't want to leave this community, probably I'll just wait to have a GTA04 in my hands. But in the mean time I would need a new phone. Ciao Joif ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [off-topic] smartphone alternatives?
On Monday, December 17, 2012 10:27:16 PM francesco.dev...@mailoo.org wrote: Those of Brian are more or less my same words. The GTA02 completely satisfied me, it is my daily phone since three years and probably it will be still with me until it works. But battery and GSM issues, and other usury problems, are making it uncomfortable when I am away from home for an entire day, imagine when I have to travel. I can maybe buy a new GTA02 but it is understandable that I prefer a new hardware today. After those years of use I can say that I missed: - a bigger screen, maybe a capacitive one Hi, quite offtopic, but since this thread is marked off-topic i guess it's not problem :) I have used N900 for some time and here is my conclusion. You need either big capacitative display or small display and HW keyboard. Otherwise working with phone is not very comfortable - because of small virtual keys or small workspace. Freerunner has small display and no HW keyboard. For SMS and some small work it's ok, but on N900 i could develop - i have written parts of QtMoko on N900 in vim and the experience was very close to working on laptop. My favourite phone would be GTA04 with HW keyboard with long standby maybe powered by AAA batteries :) I don't want to leave this community, probably I'll just wait to have a GTA04 in my hands. But in the mean time I would need a new phone. Good luck - whatever you choose. And thanks for your wonderful QtMoko themes! Regards Radek ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
