2009/6/20 Joerg Lippmann <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jl_lists@donalbain.de">jl_lists@donalbain.de</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
OK, maybe I should explain.<br>
<br>
My mail should not be taken as FUD. I have a freerunner since it came out a<br>
year ago and - being a linux user since 1994 - I was prepared to get something<br>
rough and unfinished. But I hoped that it would one day be sufficient to replace<br>
first my phone, then my Palm Tungsten C and maybe my Etrex-GPS. It does neither<br>
in a satisfactory way.</blockquote><div><br>You're spreading a lot of misinformation. Since you might influence someone's decision about buying the FR, I'll address those points with which I completely disagree (about the rest I could argue). <br>
</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
I used it for about year now, installed this and that distro and during that<br>
time I defended all the shortcomings as being a work-in-progress and a<br>
community effort. But all in all I cannot recommend it to anyone as a daily<br>
phone. Here's why:<br>
<br>
- The device wakes up too slowly, I lost some calls.</blockquote><div><br>The wake up time is about 2 to 2.5 seconds. Usually small enough for picking up the call quickly.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
- The vibrator is too weak, I missed more calls.<br>
- The volume is way to low, You can really only use it indoors.</blockquote><div><br>Depends on a particular mixer setting. I could get one that's good enough for me (found a link on the wiki)<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
- The Display is too dark for sunny days, even in the shade.<br>
- I lost many SMS. I eventually receiced most of them after restarting the<br>
device<br>
- The battery lasts only a few hours, again, I lost many calls (this depends<br>
on the distro. But even with a »good« one, I had cases in which the device did<br>
not suspend due to something crashing)</blockquote><div><br>With most distros you get ~48h of suspend time with the GSM running. Whether the distro you choose crashes a lot or not depends on your luck and ability to chose the right distro and version (release, testing, unstable). But agree that most of them crash occasionally, although I don't see how this influences battery life (just restart the device)<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
- Sometimes I cannot access the phonebook (Android, SHR)<br>
- Wifi does not work reliably and it takes a long time to connect.<br>
- The device/software is terribly slow. How fast was even the oldest palm in<br>
comparison!</blockquote><div><br>There is a ton of software, and some of it is slow, some of it is fast. The device itself is pretty fast for a phone I would say.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
- the on-screen keyboards are all terrible for finger-typing. I liked the one<br>
from QTe, but you have to install german wordlists by hand. Also it was<br>
impractical to switch upper/lowercase. Best solution would be to use landscape<br>
automatically.</blockquote><div><br>Then you haven't tried the illume predictive keyboard. It's better for typing sms with your finger than anything else I've seen. Certainly 10x faster than a phone without a touchscreen.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
- Even simple tasks like inserting the number of the caller into the<br>
addressbook is sometimes impossible or very complicated.<br>
(- Many people I called complained about terrible buzz, but I hope to get the<br>
fix soon)</blockquote><div><br>You can buy a buzz-fixed FR.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
- The alarm clock does not work reliably.<br>
- When the battery is completely empty, it takes ages to reload the phone and<br>
you're not able to turn it on even when plugged in.</blockquote><div><br>I think it takes a few hours to reload it. The problem with starting on an empty battery have been fixed in recent devices I think.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
- You cannot sync dates or even contacts, PIM-functions are virtually non-<br>
existent.<br>
<br>
(And I did not mention nice things like video-playback, a good MP3-Player,<br>
voice-notes, a nice email-Interface or a feed-aggregator...)<br>
<br>
Granted, most things depend on the distro you're using. But neither is really<br>
good:<br>
<br>
OM: 2007: very stripped down, although I liked the simple interface.</blockquote><div><br>That distro is 2.5 years old! :-)<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
<br>
QTe: Overall quite OK, but no Sync, no working wifi, no usable browser, no<br>
GPRS, no usable GPS-Application<br>
<br>
SHR: good battery life when not crashing. some bad design decisions<br>
(animations are useless on this phone), slow (especially the setup-menus and<br>
finger-scrolling), ugly phone-function, contacts crash very often, tangogps is<br>
working, many SMS and calls lost. Keyboard either english-only or only usable<br>
with a pen.</blockquote><div><br>The slowness can be fixed by tweaking some settings in illume gui. <br><br>Keyboard english-only? Changing the dictionary to another language is as simple as downloading a word list into the FR.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
<br>
Android: Best of the bunch so far. But volume too low, missing keyboard in<br>
stable versions (cupcake one looks better, but is not stable enough at the<br>
moment)</blockquote><div><br>Well, you definitely forgot about Om2008 and 2009.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
<br>
Please, developers, don't feel like I want to thrash your work. It's just not<br>
ready for primetime, yet. I really like the design and the hires screen. It<br>
could make a cool device when it would work...<br>
</blockquote><div><br>I will repeat the famous words, "works for me." Just give it some love.<br></div></div><br>