My New Phone - OpenMoko Freerunner - with Geek Porn!

I've been running into issues with my current phone provider (Bell), and limitations with my current phone (Samsung A920). The Samsung is now 2 years old. It operated fine in that time frame, though the battery is starting to die out much faster. Bell has had ongoing issues for me. I have a dropped call once or twice a week it seems. Some are dropped even before the outgoing number is dialed. A call to Bell tells me I've only had 9 dropped calls this year. Though I know it's been more than that, at least on my end of things. Hello Bell... ONE dropped call is too many. One of those dropped calls just happened to be while I was talking to a new (and high(er) profile) customer. That was when I decided I was dropping Bell. So I started looking at new phones. Right in the midst of that the second edition of the OpenMoko phone was released - the FreeRunner. The FreeRunner was touted as a "publicly ready" phone. I've been waiting for the OpenMoko project to hit this point, so I jumped at the chance and ordered a FreeRunner in the middle of August. After a mix up with the shipping address, my FreeRunner arrived this week.

Now, the thing about OpenMoko is that the phone is COMPLETELY open. It was designed in an open method, the CAD files for the case and electronics are freely available, the software is a Linux variant, and allows you to do anything you please with the system at your discretion. In practice, this means I don't need to pay Bell $5.00 to download a snippet of a song that I already own to use as a ring tone. It means that I can make full use of the WiFi capabilities to interact with the phone, or use the phone to monitor my networks. It means that I can replace the software on the phone to find something more suited to me. Basically, the FreeRunner means I am only tied to the phone service I choose, and that service does not impact any capabilities of the phone itself.

Now, with all the pluses, there are some cons. The FreeRunner comes ready to use. However it comes with version 2007.2 of the operating system. 2008.8 is now available and fixes a number of the issues with 2007.2. However updating to 2008.8 is not for the faint of heart. You need to hook up the phone to your computer, get networking running between your computer and the phone, update the kernel, root file system, and possibly the boot loader as well. All at the command line of a Linux computer. (I've heard some rumblings the update tool can be run on Windows too, but it'd be from a command prompt there too.) That update isn't so bad, but I think the interface for 2008.8 is not aimed at consumers. It is functional, but in a techie sort of way. And learning the quirks of the interface takes a day or so. Nope, if you just want a consumer type phone, the FreeRunner probably isn't for you then.

BUT, if you want a portable hand held computer that just happens to be able to make phone calls too, then the FreeRunner will scratch that itch easily.

The phone comes in a very nice package. The package has a nice inspirational quote, and thank you note, in addition to holding all the goodies. The goodies include the phone itself, a multi-purpose stylus (stylus, pen, laser pointer and flashlight via a high intensity LED), a USB connector to hook up the phone to a computer, a wall jack charger, and international power adapters for the charger. Oh, and a battery... And a micro SD memory card. The glaring ommision from this is an instruction booklet. The only hint is a URL printed at the bottom of the paper with the inspirational quote (http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Getting_started). I missed it completely until I was writing up this post. Luckily I knew about the site already. By the way, that URL is now wrong - it is currently http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Getting_Started_with_your_Neo_FreeRunner.

Overall, I am happy with the FreeRunner so far. I'm not using it as my "live" phone just yet, simply because I'm too busy playing with it, and learning how to make it do what I want. I've included the usual "geek porn" below, though I'm far from the first to be posting these types of pics. (For the non-geeks out there, "geek porn" is slang for pictures of new tech toys being un-packed...)

I'll be making some posts in the next few days on my findings in getting the phone up and running, and "playing".