why openmoko is so slow? Is it a joke?

roguemoko at roguewrt.org roguemoko at roguewrt.org
Wed Jul 15 02:24:15 CEST 2009


On 15/07/2009 5:32 AM, Joerg Lippmann wrote:
[... snip info about possible future development ...]
> When will that be? When the device is completely obsolete?

That's up to individual perspective. I've been playing with openwrt and 
embedded devices for a while and all purchases made well over 5 years 
ago are still in productive use.

If you consider the FR to be an advanced embedded device with a stack of 
features crammed into a tiny package then you are likely to find a use 
for it, for a long time to come.

Considering it a phone and only a phone is to your own detriment. If you 
have been on the list for as long as you say you've been waiting for it 
to be a phone, you would have been aware of people seeking compensation. 
Unfortunately your time to speak up has passed.

I consider it the first step to an open hardware phone platform and one 
hell of an embedded device. A lot of it's current use is about 
persistence and imagination. I do however still disagree with the 
original marketing of the FR and believe it was misleading. That has 
been hashed over enough with refunds/compensation sought and issued to 
relevant parties ... eventually.

> Sorry, but after a year of waiting I still have an expensive brick that I can
> neither use as a proper phone (speaker still WAY to low, too unstable, too
> slow, too battery-hungry) nor as a PDA (no usable software available). So I
> really regret my decision to buy it. But then again, it was touted as a real
> phone for end-users back then and being a happy Linux-User for 14 years, I
> thought that I could live with some minor flaws...
>
> I'm really for the idea of freeing the phone (thats why I bought one), free
> hardware and the community. And I really loved to see this effort to succeed.
> But I came to realize that I start to hate this sluggish, instable device
> without good software. I cannot help it. I haven't found a single distro that
> works well out of the box. The best ones so far were QTopia/QTe and Android.
> And neither are really community efforts. So I consider my personal experiment
> (buying a community-driven phone for 300 EUR) as failed. Sorry.

It's unfortunate but you're not unique. It's again down to perspective. 
If your intention had been to aide the cause for long term success with 
the acceptance of possible short term failings as a useful phone then 
you would possibly be succeeding (who knows just yet). All of us had the 
choice of taking a risk and investing in an ideal ... or not. As far as 
linux based phones go there are plenty of 'safe' options. OM wasn't 
exactly a recognised brand with existing functional phones, despite 
misleading marketing. Anyone who believed the hype failed to research 
the device properly.

Out of curiosity ... and no I'm not putting my hand up, is there a wiki 
page we can point people to that addresses this age old discussion? A 
'why is the FR not what I expect?' page or something? :) Links to what 
it actually is/is not and where it's heading would be good. Even though 
most of us are aware of the answers it would save continual threaded 
discussion about 'expected' failings. It would also be useful to shut 
someone down with a link when they are obviously trolling/flaming.

Sarton



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