Linux moves to mid-range mobiles!!
Motorola E895 marks a new beginning by bringing the Linux platform to mid-range mobile phones, which until now has been a luxury limited to high-end mobiles only, reports c|net!!
Cheryln Chin, vice president for Motorola mobile phone marketing, predicted that more than half of Motorola phones will use Linux in the next 18-24 months. Motorola uses Java heavily in its mobile phones, as Chin was quoted saying
Motorola is a lead developer of Java Mobile Edition, but the company sees room for improvement in power consumption and performance
Besides Linux, Motorola mobile phones currently use various platforms like their own P2K, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Symbian OS.
The E895 can play MP3 music, supports a removable TransFlash memory upto 512MB, has a 1.3 megapixel camera that can take stills & videos and is Bluetooth capable.
Big deal?? :eyebrow: Almost all of mid-range phones now have these features as standard(give or take a few exceptions), with some phones(Samsung & SonyEricsson) having more than that on their mid-range phones!! As I know of it, there’s been one problem that has bugged people in Moto phones, power consumption!! Moto phones consume power like a pack of hungry Vikings!! 
Moto phones are good, they look good, they are cheap, but they consume a lot of power which means a lot to many people, like those who travel around a lot, they usually have to carry a portable charger which runs off AA batteries!! Power consumption isn’t a big issue for a lot of people who use the mobile phones normally(meaning that they don’t talk or play games or listen to music etc for long hours) like me and seldom go away from a power point, so they can have the batteries charged every day or so.
While power consumption might’ve been reduced in Moto phones in recent times, I doubt that it still is on par or less than others like Nokia or SonyEricsson.
But what I wonder is, why the hype? :think: If that’s all they can provide in a Linux based phone for mid-range-segment, then I’d prefer a Symbian based phone that has a lot more features for the same price or a little more. :think:
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Linux had to get in and they had to make a start. Better now than never. Thinking of linux, i have to install podzilla on my new ipod mini, gotta go !
well, the thing is that if they are not gonna leverage the power of Linux and simply use it because its cool, then I don’t think there’ll be any takers for it. Linux already has a bad reputation of not being layman-friendly, and this will further cement that.
I mean take a look at Windows Mobile powered phones like O2 XDA-II, iPaq, etc. They come fully loaded, with stuff like Outlook, Office etc. so users love them. So if all a Linux phone is gonna do is play your MP3s, take pictures/make videos, connect using bluetooth, then I don’t think that there’ll be a lot of takers, as this & much more can be done in existing phones, usually on the Symbian OS which cost less, so why bother spending more on a Linux phone?
there’s no reason to buy it that i see now, but windows mobile did’nt start off the way it is now. I’m sure that with the manufacturers support, linux can compete at the top in a few years time.