Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Advice on mobile phones please

[Tim Dobson]

You could save yourself having to read this email by reading
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973:_GTA01Bv4_versus_GTA02_comparison
instead.

On 19/11/2007, Dave Love <address@hidden> wrote:
> It doesn't have wifi as far as I can tell, though presumably you could
> attach a USB device.  Also no 3G, though I'm not sure how relevant
> that is.

Sorry but you are a little confused here:
The current version; a developers prerelease(code named GTA01), does
not contain wifi.
the Mass Market device, "GTA02" is due to go on sail at the end of december.
The GTA02, the phone I intend to get, has the Atheros AR6K wifi
chipset, which obviously has drivers which are Free Software.

GTA02 will have:

* Dimenstions: 120.7 x 62 x 18.5 mm
* Weighs 184g
* touch screen: 2.8" 480x640 at 285 ppi
* 256 MB integrated flash memory. Expandable with any size microSD or
microSDHC memory cards
* Samsung S3C2442 SoC
* SMedia Glamo3362 Graphics Accelerator
* 2x 3D Accelerometers
* LEDs illuminating the two buttons.
* 256MB Flash
* 1700mAh Battery
* S3C2442 at 400MHz
* 128mb of RAM
* Tri-band GSM, GPRS Class12/CS4/B 2.5G (Not EDGE), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR;
* 802.11 b/g WiFi
* u-blox/Atmel ATR0635 GPS chipset
* software: Basic PDA included. Software can be created by normal users.

Costs: USD 450 (base model)  + ~£50 import tax

> It apparently has non-free GPS stuff and firmware (or did when I read
> about it).

I stand corrected here. You are right.
(http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Community_Updates#gllin_GPS_driver_for_GTA01)
*but* this only applies to GTA01, the developer release, I presume
that the u-blox/Atmel ATR0635 GPS chipset has Free software/open
drivers though I have nothing that says either way.

> > *obviously running ssh on it should be no problem
>
> ... as long as the platform is capable/stable enough, which looks like
> an issue currently.  In this context there's the important question of
> how easy it is to operate without a keyboard, though.

That platform sounds quite stable to me, there are vmware [yuk!]
images to look at if you want, i believe, but the operating system, i
have utmost confidence in.

However, I understand what you are saying about usability of ssh on a
platform with no "real" keyboard, but i think this is always going to
be a problem, and not one just linked with this platform.

> > *it also has a certain wow factor to it
>
> Mainly that, as I understand it, you can't actually make phone calls
> (reliably?) yet...

i think you are really getting the wrong end of the stick about the
software, as I understand it while it was relatively unstable during
the development period, now it is quite stable.

However we will see at the january or febuary fsuk-manc meeting when i
should have my phone....

until then check out their wiki: http://wiki.openmoko.org/


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