I finally got my hands on an Openmoko Neo1973 phone tonight. Not sure if it’s ready for primetime. A few notes:
It took me an hour and a half to flash the root file system and kernel on it. The getting started page and the Mac OSX page were helpful. I used this version of the kernel from buildhost.automated.it and the 2007.11 snapshot of the rootfs.
The operating system takes longer to load than OSX 10.4 on my macbook.
There are a couple things about the UI that bother me:
- It’s not obvious how to answer or hang up a call
- There’s no obvious way to access system settings through the UI, including things as basic as ringtone or volume
- It’s apparently not yet possible to send or get text messages.
- There’s no way to turn it off when the OS hangs, other than removing the battery.
I hope it gets better. It’s a nifty-looking phone.
Michael Sharon | 13-Dec-07 at 9:21 am | Permalink
Yech. This ain’t no Android.
It’s a pity to see that it’s taken them so long to get their act together. It feels like there’s an enormous demand for hackable mobile devices, especially with the specs that the Neo sports. My guess is that unless they get it together rapidly, they’re going to swiftly become irrelevant as the iPhone SDK is released, the existing iPhone drops to a ~$200 price range and newer models and clones begin to flood the market over the next 6-12 months.
tigoe | 09-Mar-08 at 2:33 pm | Permalink
I had a promising talk with Michael Shiloh about these phones at ETech, and he got me eager to see the next revision.
I also had it pointed out to me that for some people, having voice capability on the phone is a bug, not a feature :).