Most of Joerg's comments reflect the experience I have had. On the other hand, its a GREAT portable office. You can run just about any Linux application on it and with an 8Gbyte microSD card, carry around a lot of stuff easily in your pocket. Just plug it into any old PC via WIFI, Bluetooth or USB (Preferred) and you are away. Simply great for a consulting lifestyle.
It also receives and sends phone calls, although it generates too much heat to carry about in your pocket for that application. Joerg Lippmann wrote: >> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Joerg Lippmann<jl_li...@donalbain.de> >> > wrote: > >>> Then the Freerunner is not for you. >>> It may sound harsh, but it's definitely *not* suitable for daily use. >>> Period. >>> >> Brolin, >> >> I must respectfully disagree with Joerg's advice to you. There are >> flaws, including the ones Joerg points out, but they do not >> necessarily make the Freeruner unsuitable as a daily phone. I think >> it depends on the person. I use mine daily as my only phone and it >> works well for me. From your description of yourself, I suspect you >> would be happy with a Freerunner as well, as long as you don't expect >> it to do everything you want out of the box. >> > > OK, maybe I should explain. > > My mail should not be taken as FUD. I have a freerunner since it came out a > year ago and - being a linux user since 1994 - I was prepared to get > something > rough and unfinished. But I hoped that it would one day be sufficient to > replace > first my phone, then my Palm Tungsten C and maybe my Etrex-GPS. It does > neither > in a satisfactory way. > > I used it for about year now, installed this and that distro and during that > time I defended all the shortcomings as being a work-in-progress and a > community effort. But all in all I cannot recommend it to anyone as a daily > phone. Here's why: > > - The device wakes up too slowly, I lost some calls. > - The vibrator is too weak, I missed more calls. > - The volume is way to low, You can really only use it indoors. > - The Display is too dark for sunny days, even in the shade. > - I lost many SMS. I eventually receiced most of them after restarting the > device > - The battery lasts only a few hours, again, I lost many calls (this depends > on the distro. But even with a »good« one, I had cases in which the device > did > not suspend due to something crashing) > - Sometimes I cannot access the phonebook (Android, SHR) > - Wifi does not work reliably and it takes a long time to connect. > - The device/software is terribly slow. How fast was even the oldest palm in > comparison! > - the on-screen keyboards are all terrible for finger-typing. I liked the one > from QTe, but you have to install german wordlists by hand. Also it was > impractical to switch upper/lowercase. Best solution would be to use > landscape > automatically. > - Even simple tasks like inserting the number of the caller into the > addressbook is sometimes impossible or very complicated. > (- Many people I called complained about terrible buzz, but I hope to get the > fix soon) > - The alarm clock does not work reliably. > - When the battery is completely empty, it takes ages to reload the phone and > you're not able to turn it on even when plugged in. > - You cannot sync dates or even contacts, PIM-functions are virtually non- > existent. > > (And I did not mention nice things like video-playback, a good MP3-Player, > voice-notes, a nice email-Interface or a feed-aggregator...) > > Granted, most things depend on the distro you're using. But neither is really > good: > > OM: 2007: very stripped down, although I liked the simple interface. > > QTe: Overall quite OK, but no Sync, no working wifi, no usable browser, no > GPRS, no usable GPS-Application > > SHR: good battery life when not crashing. some bad design decisions > (animations are useless on this phone), slow (especially the setup-menus and > finger-scrolling), ugly phone-function, contacts crash very often, tangogps > is > working, many SMS and calls lost. Keyboard either english-only or only usable > with a pen. > > Android: Best of the bunch so far. But volume too low, missing keyboard in > stable versions (cupcake one looks better, but is not stable enough at the > moment) > > I'm trying to honour the work of the many developers, but in my book, this is > still not a working everyday phone. Let alone a smartphone. > > > Today, I slipped my SIM-card back into my old Siemens M55. What an > experience: > I got every call immediatly! I could hear what the other side was talking! I > could send an SMS in a few seconds without problems and received an answer! I > could also insert the number from a caller directly into my addressbook. You > should try it once. > > My freerunner will stay in my drawer. Maybe when Android works perfectly, I > will give it another try. > > Am Samstag 20 Juni 2009 schrieb Ben Wong: > > >> The sound quality is "terrible" according to Joerg, but that has not >> > > It's just way too low. I can only unterstand the other side well, when I'm in > a quiet place. While with a real phone you can talk on the street or in a > car, > with the freerunner I can't. I tried also other alsa-state-files and fiddled > myself, but without real success. > > >> Joerg also mentioned that the device is "lame". I'm not quite sure >> what he means. >> > > Sorry, I meant "slow". See above. > > Please, developers, don't feel like I want to thrash your work. It's just not > ready for primetime, yet. I really like the design and the hires screen. It > could make a cool device when it would work... > > j�...@home > _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community