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

[Kunal Singh]

Hi all,

  thanks for so much of information. Now I have a better knowledge of 
what extra I am going to get with Free-runner:

    (1) no contract with service provider
    (2) no hidden costs like i-tunes
    (3) openness; freedom to experiment
   
     In addition I will be supporting open source.

     another point which I wanted to reply to
 >     Michele wrote:
 > Open-source development doesn't mean that the programmer work for 
free! This is a common error that a lot of person do.
 > In Openmoko there are a lot of talented persons that has a family and 
they need a salary.
     Hi Michele, fully agree with you on both the facts.
    (1) Open-source development does not mean free. But effective cost 
come down as (a) As there will be some contributors (though it will be 
very less % of total, and this type of free support will mainly come 
during later stages of the project) working for free (b) making big 
profits is generally not the goal of open-source projects (again i say 
generally, there will be exceptions), whereas profit is the sole 
objective with other projects. the open-source projects have other 
motivations (in addition to profit)
    (2) There are lot of talented persons on project - hats off to them. 
They have developed a phone which is comparable to any other smart phone 
in the world. Those phones have hundreds of developer working on it with 
budget of hundreds of millions US$. And they take years to perfect their 
designs. openMoko is a wonderful product.

Regards,
Kunal
enaut wrote:
> Kunal Singh schrieb:
>   
>> 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)?
>>
>>     
> I think the cost is that high because you get an Iphone usually with
> acontract to a specific firm.
> the other thing is that the Iphoneis closed sothey make the real money
> by selling music and stuff like that.
>
> for the "hardware features" i think they are pretty even.
> the iphone has multituch but no GPS and lower resolution.
>
> but the big feature of om is, that you are independent. you can do what
> you want with it. Iphone contracts dont allow you that.
>
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