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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