Questions about Freerunner: Phone Usability, Battery Life, Shipping Date

[rakshat hooja]

Just to clarify the Rs 20000/- price in India includes shipping to your
address in India, customs and VAT duties, a 30 days return policy (We added
to the Openmoko DOA return policy at our own risk as we want the initial
lots of phones to go to people who are aware that the software needs
polishing and are comfortable using the phone; this is something that no
other phone company is offering in India though is a norm abroad) and a one
year warranty ( we are again keeping 5% of our stock in reserve to deal with
warranty returns that can not be repaired that adds to our costs).

Keeping the above in mind Rs 20000/- looks like a reasonable price.

On another note I have used the GTA01  as my main phone for some time and on
qtopia and (as far as I know) on mwester's suspend resume worked kernel  I
don't get calls that don't wake up suspend as long as I do a full shut down
and boot up every morning.

Battery life is a problem (5-6 hours if you talk a lot or dont talk at all)
but I keep a spare battery and almost always am near a wall socket, car or
computer (HTC Universal chargers seem to work for me - not too sure if fast
charge is actually enabled but the phone charges up).


Rakshat

www.idasystems.net



---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kunal Singh <kunal at singhkunal.com>
> To: List for Openmoko community discussion <community at lists.openmoko.org>
> Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 09:43:22 +0530
> Subject: Re: Questions about Freerunner: Phone Usability, Battery Life,
> Shipping Date
> Hi,
>
>   I am located in India, and I have decided to go for Free-runner.
>   But, I am really wondering about why this phone is so costly?
>   Apple will be releasing the iPhone in India later this year.
>   This phone is likely to be priced much cheaper than free-runner
> (free-runner is currently available for $500 in India).
>   Also, it looks to me that iPhone has much more features (it has 8 GB
> memory - I could not see similar in Free-runner).
>   On a plus side, iPhone is fully tested. Their is official performance
> rating for each feature.
>
>   Why is the Free-runner cost so high?
>   With open-source development, the cost of devices should in fact come
> down (that is my thinking - correct me if I am wrong). At least be at par
> with the commercial products.
>
>   Is the high cost due to the low volume production? Or something related
> to the location of production units?
>   If the cost is high because of above (or similar) factors, I assume that
> costs will come down in long run.
>   In such a scenario, does any one have a (rough) idea about what the final
> (appx) costs would be?
>   Will it be any better than the commercial products?
>
>   My interest in openMoko is purely from a developer's point of view (I
> guess every one currently using it is has similar interests).
>   And the reason why I want to participate in open source development is
> that I want technology to proliferate and become affordable to the common
> masses.
>   If this objective is not going to be satisfied, I am going to feel a bit
> dis-appointed with the loss of time which I spend on my efforts.
>
>   Also, I really find the Free-runner too expensive just for the
> development purpose. I am hoping that if I can use it as my cell-phone, I
> can feel a little better. In case the phone is not practically usable (very
> poor battery performance, or loosing networks, going to infinite sleep etc),
> that will add to dis-appointment too.
>
>   Another possibility - is it that Free-runner is much beyond iPhone in
> feature list (which I have failed to capture)?
>
> Regards,
> Kunal Singh
> www.singhkunal.com
>  <michael at crosscode.org>
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