Why one cannot recommend the freerunner as a daily phone (was Re: Is a FreeRunner sufficient for me?)
Joerg Lippmann
jl_lists at donalbain.de
Tue Jun 23 03:51:33 CEST 2009
Am Montag 22 Juni 2009 schrieb Ben Wong:
> I want to thank Joerg for taking the time to give a clear list of
> reasons why a person might consider the Freerunner unsuitable as a
> phone. I think it'd be helpful if these and other points were put on
> the wiki so that potential buyers can see the arguments against the
> Freerunner, and what the community response is. (E.g., Solved?
> Kludged? In progress? Unfixable?)
Good starting point!
I'd like to thank everyone who answered my disgruntled mail in a constructive
manner. You all made a good case for the freerunner/openmoko and I appreciate
that. I think I see clearer, why I'm so unhappy with it now and maybe that's
the case for other people, too.
I think, most of the technical answers totally missed my point.
The guy wanted a smartphone. He didn't ask for an exiting piece of hardware
experimentation lab and developer paradise. If you recommend to tweak this
mixer-setting and install that tool and use that kernel-fix, then you prove,
that it's not for him.
I listed a lot of points, where I got stuck or where I got frustrated with the
Freerunner to show, where he might get stuck, too.
Granted, most of my points may be solved in distro A or fixed in Kernel B, or
fixable by tweaking settings in illume. but the point is, that there is (to my
knowledge) not a single distro out there, that works perfectly out of the box
and has all the fixes already installed. Thats whats needed, if you want to
recommened it to the end-user.
You are offering me and this guy single proofs-of-concept, and that is great
for further development, but thats not a working everyday smartphone.
let me cite another mail (from Vasco Nevoa):
"Yes, it needs A LOT of attention and tweaking for about 3 months until
you get it "just right" for yourself, but after that it's "good enough"
as a phone and GPS, and a pretty good PDA."
See my point?
Best wishes!
jörg at home
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