The ever-expanding mobile phone market of India continues to attract companies from abroad. Now, OpenMoko has launched the Linux-based FreeRunner mobile phone in India. The open source handset, which was launched on 4th July, will begin shipping on July 7. It will be distributed in the country through OpenMoko's web-based store, apart from a number of vendors in the country. FreeRunner has been designed as a hackable and open device, right from the scratch level, and is the successor of the Neo1973, the first handset by OpenMoko.
OpenMoko will be aimed at broader consumer market, unlike Neo. The launch of the phone will be followed by software updates, which are expected to incrementally not only improve the product, but also increase its viability for a non-technical audience. The development cycle of FreeRunner, the software platform of OpenMoko has undergone some major changes. GTK+ strategy was backtracked and some Enlightenment E17 technologies and parts of Trolltech's Qtopia platform were also adopted.
Right now, FreeRunner has been provided with a GTK-based stack. However, the users can also choose to update it to the Qtopia-based ASU. With the passage of time, OpenMoko is expected to leverage the lightweight E17 components more pervasively, throughout the environment. The components will allow users to build applications, with a variety of toolkits and programming languages. Not only that, even the underlying platform will be adaptable to modifications, improvements and even replacements.
FreeRunner will be launched at a price of $399, at which it will come with either 850MHz or 900MHz tri-band GSM support. The phone will come equipped with 400 MHz processor and 2.8 inch VGA touchscreen, which boasts of a resolution of 640x480. Some other features of the mobile phone include WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, two accelerometers, 128MB of SDRAM, and 256MB of storage. The only problem with FreeRunner is that it lacks 3G support, which makes it step short of being a smartphone.
Technical Specifications
- Accelerometers - 2 x 3D Accelerometers
- Audio - "High-Quality" Audio Codec
- Bluetooth - Version 2.0
- Cellular - 2.5G Tri-band GPRS/GSM (900MHz or 850MHz)
- Display - 4.3-inch, 640 x 480 VGA, Color TFT, LCD
- Flash - 256 MB
- GPS - AGPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) Receiver
- Graphics - SMedia 3362-based 3D Graphics Acceleration
- Processor -- Samsung S3C2442 500MHz
- RAM - 128MB
- USB - 1 x Version 1.1
- WiFi - 802.11b/g WiFi
