Geeksphone launches the first multi OS smartphone | Hacker News Reader

Geeksphone launches the first multi OS smartphone

geeksphone.com

47 pointsRobby201238 comments

This may be a little OT... but if you want to win me over on a geek focused device... i.e. power users... 3000mAh battery minimum. I know it's not the core intent but personally that grabs my attention as a power user just as much.

I was thinking someone should make a black and white android smartphone if it helps the battery to last longer. I would take half a week of battery over a color screen but I'm probably the minority.

You mean like this one: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/04/yotaphone-e-ink-smartphon... ?

If it's successful, soon enough extended capacity batteries are likely going to start appearing.

There are extended capacity batteries on the market, I use one from zerolemon. For most users they are too bulky.

I think the important value for geeks it that you can have different OS in the same phone

Agreed.

At least they got the SD card, though.

I'll have my phone soon, the thing just left spain last night.

I'm very excited to have it in my hands and helping me hack on FoxOS after what feels like a year of delays since the peak+

I just bought one and I'm excited. As a developer it is wonderful to have one device 2 operating systems for test my apps. About dual boot there is nothing clear. Any idea?

Dual boot is very difficult to achieve. On the Revolution you are able to switch from one OS to another but you can't select which OS you want to use while booting

I played with this phone days ago and it's amazing, really fast. Android and FirefoxOS works smoothly. I would even say it surpasses the Nexus 4 performance!

They say the performance is between a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 5

Okay, but does the baseband processor have direct memory access to the system RAM? If so, it is useless from a security standpoint.

What phones have been made without that handicap? Honest question, I really have no idea.

The second question would be if there are any genuinely secure mobile OSes such that it really makes a difference.

Is it just me, or is there no LTE support here? Seems like a largish oversight.

It's a $300 phone, and between licensing and the actual hardware, LTE is very expensive.

Looks interesting, but I think they should have focused more on the spec.

Although, I definitely like the SDcard slot and real buttons rather than stupid onscreen ones.

Can anyone shed some light, I've never heard of Geeksphone.

Can you use Android, and iOS and Windows 8 on it? If so I can see why people would want to buy one.

They are one of the producers of Firefox OS developer phones. ZTE being another one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeeksPhone

You probably can't use any proprietary OS on it: Apple certainly would never license iOS, and I doubt W8 would either.

Android, Ubuntu Mobile, Firefox OS, Meego, Tizen are more likely candidates.

Windows 8 runs on commodity x86 hardware. Assuming there's driver support, it should work.

Can you buy a licence to run it legally though?

Windows 8? Yeah. You can't buy Windows Phone 8.

Phones aren't commodity x86 hardware in the way PCs are. The hardware can't be enumerated.

Aren't these the guys that produced the Peak+ etc? I can't seem to locate those devices on their site anymore

They don't sell their previous smartphones anymore, they are focused on the Geeksphone Revolution

Not really true. I know quite a few devices in industry currently sold that support Windows CE or Android as desired.

What, only one SIM slot, really?

I wonder if they'll ship the US. I've wanted an Atom SoC phone for a while

I don't know if calling it a SoC is right. It's a CPU and GPU on one chip, but far from what the Qualcomm ones offer (for now).

All of the recent Atom brand chips for mobile deployment are SoCs. There's a CPU, a GPU and a shared memory package on the same silicone. Intel calls it a SoC themselves [1]

[1]: http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2012...

     Onstage was the world’s first public demonstration of the forthcoming 32nm Intel Atom SoC for tablets and hybrids running on Microsoft* Windows* 8, codenamed “Clover Trail.”

I'm sure they ship to the US

Its an Atom processor? Does that mean it can run any x86 OS?

In theory, yes. In practice developers may have to do minor changes. About drivers there is nothing published.

Geeksphone hasn't said officially anything, but unofficially, it is working in make the device compatible with Ubuntu Touch and Windows Phone 8.

It's one of the Atom SoCs which Intel doesn't seem to have a public datasheet on. From what I know they're almost but not quite like a regular PC --- they're missing some bits that wouldn't really be necessary on a phone.

For half a second there, I thought you said "almost, but not quite, completely unlike a regular PC" and almost laughed out loud.

Cool!

Total entropy, like the 20 variants of linux that cant establish a wifi connection.

Please save me from your tower of phone-babble. I dont care, and Im not going to spend time in your insane bouncy house of doom.

Fuck off.

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