As smartphone prices decline, they have become more popular every day. Symbian, PalmOS, Windows Mobile and Linux seem to be the big names in this high-end market of phones, all showcasing PDA-like features, native toolkits and fast processors. Today we are looking at one of the most popular Linux smartphones (especially in Asia), the Motorola E680i, which was released around May 2005 and was graciously provided by Geeks.com for this article.
This… chubby phone (133 grams) uses Montavista’s Linux kernel 2.4.20 and tools. On top of it is a custom UI (not the traditional Qtopia UI) based on Qt/Embedded 2.3.6 (Some claim that it uses MobileSoft’s toolkit but there is no official information on this). The phone sports a 312 Mhz ARM CPU, a replaceable 760 mAh battery, 64 MB of ROM (50 MB available to the user), 32 MB RAM, a VGA camera, 3D stereo speakers, Bluetooth, a 3D graphics chip, an FM radio, a 1/10″ headphone plug, a hold/lock button, an SD/MMC slot, USB communications and extra hardware buttons for games. The E680i also comes with a 2.5″ QVGA 240×320 TFT touch-screen and a stylus. In the box that came with it you will find a second stylus and a second battery, along with the power supply, USB cable, CDs and manuals. You will also find a pair of headphones/headset that acts as an antenna for the FM radio. The phone works at GSM 900/ GSM 1800/ GSM 1900 bands and supports GPRS class 10. It also supports Java applications using MIDP-2 with .jar sizes up to 700 KBs, which is pretty impressive.
This phone is the next generation of the original E680 which was released in
2004. The differences are mostly in software than in hardware (the E680 can
be flashed with E680i’s ROM). The phone features an excellent build quality
and it feels well in the hand despite its extra size. The stylus has an
ideal thickness and size and makes the touchscreen-based usage a nice
experience. The quality of the QVGA LCD is good and the fact that its
settings window allows for… 50 brightness levels is a great tinkering
feature (I use it on just 16%, which is enough when inside buildings).
The main software feature of the phone is the inclusion of Real Player and
FM radio. They are both very easy to use and a useful addition to the rest
of the software stack. Real can play .rm, .mp3, .mp4, .3gp and .amr but it’s
a bit picky about the exact format of the mp4 codec. Playing small video and mp3 music was sweat-free (although there was some sound-chop when changing tasks), however here I must note that while for a phone the video performance is good enough, comparing it to an equally equipped PocketPC 312Mhz it doesn’t stand a chance (my HP PDA can playback QVGA .mp4/divx video without dropping a single frame). The
3D stereo speakers included do an excellent job and I think they are better
than the e398/iTunes phone. The only downside was that Real Player doesn’t
support internet radio streaming, which requires a direct internet file to
be used (e.g. the www.DI.fm music feeds don’t work). The phone comes with a
1/10″ headphone jack and quality is very-very good for music-listening (the
Chinese E680i comes with Bluetooth headphones instead).
I am a huge fan of SD card usage on phones and so I am happy to see SD
support as I know that Motorola prefers transflash (in fact, all new Linux
phones from Motorola now use Transflash that go only up to 512 MBs). I tried
a Kingston 512 MB SD card; the phone supports them up to 2 GBs. The SD works
at acceptable speeds and I encountered no problems with it. The overall
software seems rock solid, I had no OS or application crashes whatsoever.
The user interface is not stellar in terms of responsiveness but it’s very
easy to follow and understand. It is a custom UI on top of Qt/Embedded
(Others say that it’s 100% java from MobileSoft, my contact at Trolltech
could not confirm either way) and the manufacturer has included all
most-needed applications on a PDA-phone: a calendar with recurring
events/alarm support, world time with 3 different timezones support, a file
manager, a syncML-compatbile sync application that can also sync via GPRS, a Task application, a notes application (to be used with the included virtual
keyboard or handwriting recognition applet), a drawing app, a calculator, an
.amr voice recorder and 3 java 3D games.
In addition to Opera 7.50 (which
renders osnews.com beautifully) there is the Picsel Viewer which can display
.ppt, .doc and .xls among other popular office formats (but can’t edit). The
messaging client is one of the most critically-acclaimed parts of the
software. It supports MMS & SMS with support for sub-folders but for pop3
and IMAP support you must use another client included on the phone (they are
not integrated). A minor problem with the user interface is that there is no
way to switch tasks with a press of a button (currently it requires 4 clicks
to go to the Task Manager while the “hang” button only switches between the
last two open applications). Also, scrolling and menu navigation is a bit
clunky at times; double-buffering seems to be missing.
Java works with quite a few QVGA-compatible games in the market, but the 3D
performance of the included 3D games is really bad. It feels a lot like
trying to run “Return to Castle Wolfenstein” on a Voodoo-2 with 8 MBs of
VRAM while its minimum specs require a 16 MB Voodoo3. There is another very
disturbing thing about java games on this phone. The phone comes with 4
extra gaming buttons (2 above the screen, 2 on the side) and you are
supposed to use most full-screen games in landscape mode. Only 4 third party
games support this layout and work in landscape mode though. All the rest of
the ‘compatible’ java games will require you to use the phone in vertical
mode but keep your fingers on the joystick below the screen and the other
hand on the keys above the screen! In other words, the phone expects the
java games to run on landscape, while 99% of them out there don’t support
that mode!
As for native applications compatible with this phone, there are none to
speak of really, except 4-5 (insignificant) apps to be found on
MotorolaFans.com. Obviously, this platform does not compare to Symbian’s,
Palms’ or Windows Mobile’s, each with thousands of native apps.
The system setup screen allows you to change a number of settings on the
phone (ring style, wallpaper, color scheme, text size, language, backlight,
screen calibration, data connectivity via GPRS or CSD etc), but it misses
out quite a few others: no way to change the volume globally (volume buttons
only change volume for Real Player, java games are always 100% loud – there
is only a setting for java sound to be on or off and nothing in between), no
way to remap the 5 extra hardware keys, no way to set both ring and
vibration *at the same time* without picking special Motorola sounds that
support vibration.
On the good side though, GPRS worked without a hitch here and its Bluetooth
paired with my Mac without problems. Although iSync is not supported and the user must use a special
modem script on the Mac to transform the phone to a usb/bluetooth modem, with a bit of effort it eventually works together just fine. However, to use the phone as a modem under Linux via USB, you need to patch the usbnet
kernel driver with the device’s usb hex info. Also, there is no WiFi or IrDA
support.
To dial you must first press the dial softbutton in the touchscreen and then
start typing the number. Because the device lacks a numeric keypad,
two-stage clicks are required to establish a call. It would have been better
if the manufacturer were binding the “call” hardware button with the dialing
screen directly instead of the “dialed calls” screen. While this is a bit of
a hassle, the signal reception is admirable and the Contacts menu is well
done.
The E680i comes with a VGA camera (no flash) which is a bit peculiar and it was apparently the No1 gripe for most E680i customers. Because the phone is pretty high-end, a 1.3MP camera would have been more appropriate. Regardless, the camera takes the kind of pictures one would expect from a low-end VGA phone camera and it has a night mode that helps in low-light conditions. The user interface on snapping .3gp video (video sample, use “save as”) and .jpg pictures is really great and exceptionally easy to use. However, when recording video for more than 6-7 seconds, the I/O of the phone gets clogged and while it stops recording video when you told it to, it continues to record audio (on top of a blank video) and it stops doing so only after the UI gets unclogged.
There are two major problems with the E680i: First and foremost, battery
life. If you use the phone to do more than 5-6 calls per day and use its
messaging client sparingly, you will have to recharge the phone in 2 days
time. If you also add a bit of mp3 or gaming in the mix, you will need to
recharge the phone by the time you come back from work/school at night.
However, this is not the first phone with below-than-average battery life
and Linux is known to be power-hungry so I am not that surprised. Where I am
negatively surprised is with the battery indicator. It only has 3 levels:
20, 60 and 100%. Nothing in between (reminds me of the first Linux
Zauruses)! And not only that, but you might have your battery saying that
it’s got 100%, then plug in the power supply and voila, for some reason it
now says 20%. Conclusion: the battery indication meter is very, very buggy
and apparently newer ROMs haven’t fixed the problem.
The second problem is the fact that by touching the touchscreen the screen
comes back to life. There is no way to disable this, except by using the
Hold/Lock button at the top of the phone. I am spoiled on the way PocketPCs
work: the PPC will come back to life after hitting a hardware button (if not
on “hold”), but it won’t come on if you touch the screen by mistake (which
is much easier to happen as the screen is big and more sensitive).
Having said all that, this remains a good Linux phone. It has a pretty fast
boot time (for a Linux) and it comes with 2 styluses and 2 batteries.
Performance is good, overall; it is expandable and extensible (there is even
an Opie port with Qt 2.3.10), it’s super-stable and works well as a phone.
Could it have been done better if Motorola had been more careful on the
details and fix some eye-popping obvious bugs/problems? Definitely! But it’s almost as good as it goes today with Linux phones and I am pretty sure that future Linux phones will be even better and
will compete with Symbian and Windows Mobile more vigorously.
Overall: 7/10
These OS’ that use java for games are not doing anyone a good service.
The NOKIA gaming phone is pretty cool. It wouldn’t be as good if it used java. Java is not great for graphics.
It would be nice if you guys would f***ing cooperate for the bigger picture and come up with a standard compiler .
Then we can all have a pretty good handheld for 3d/2d gaming. Don’t lecture me about java graphics being great. Pleeeeeeeeaaaaase.
[begin_lecture]
Java Graphics are Great
[/end_lecture]
“Looking great! It’s way better than Symbian IMO. Can’t wait to get my hands on one of those”
What junk. OSnews used to be open to opinions.
Now we have programmed shills and astroturfers modding down(CENSORING) posts.
Read my original on java thats been modded -2.
From the admin: I suggest you calm down. The community awarded your previous comment -2 (I only modded down this very comment), there is no point replying in such a way on the article. People will just mod down things, and others will mod up too. You never know how your comment will end up.
I like this phone (well I have a gripe about its lack of quadband GSM but anyway) – the major question is “where is the software” ?
UIQ, PalmOS, WindowsMobile, Series 60 all have an established software library and the OSes run on many devices. With this OS running only on 2 devices – software is a bit scarce. What good is a smartphone w/o software ?
Actually this kind of UI runs on about 4-5 Motorola phones so far. But as you said, yes, there isn’t much software for it. In fact, there’s fewer than 10 titles for it. This is one of the places Motorola should get their act together, as getting the native SDK for these phones (not for java games) is not easy.
Why did this earn a 7/10? That has got to be one of the most negative reviews of a phone I’ve ever read, some of the things mentioned (specifically the “slowness”) would make most people throw a phone out the window. Go check out mobileburn or something, even the _worst_ phones there have more positive features than this one. Yet they get much worse ratings. What, is this phone a 7/10 compared to all the other linux-based phones? Hah! Well, I suppose we are all entitled to our own opinions, just from reading the review and knowing nothing else about the phone, I give it a 2/10 (barely functional). I love how geeks endorse things simply for geek-factor “oh my phone runs linux” even if they completely and totally suck.
Ok, I counted up the totals.
# of things said about the phone good/bad
Good: 12
Bad: 22
Of course you can count things slightly differently, I tried to combine like things together (both bad/good), but regardless, I don’t see this as a 7/10 unless it’s a 7/10 compared to other linux phones only. That’s one horrible phone.
The phone works, get over yourself. Just because I mentioned the bads (as I should), it doesn’t mean that ALL the goods are mentioned in the review. If I was to do that, I would need 100 pages for this review. The good points are more than the bad ones. I used the phone and in my mind, it does deserve a 7/10. It is on SOME of the DETAILS only that the phone needs more debugging and love from Motorola.
Over myself? Yes, I agree you did a good job reviewing the phone, hence I used your review as the only source of information concerning the phone. If I thought your review was poor, I would not have done so. No need for petty insults.
I simply didn’t feel your review backed up the 7/10 rating. The review seemed more like a 2/10. Now maybe the phone has some great qualities you left out (of course who will write a 100 page review), but your review really doesn’t convey that. It’s a whole lot of negative, with a little bit a positive, and a fairly positive rating.
I just felt you should be a little more detailed in why the phone is *good* if you felt it deserved a 7/10 rating. I’m not arguing about the rating of the phone, I’ve never used one, I’m sure 7/10 is accurate. I just felt the review didn’t display the phone in a 7/10 light. Maybe you can get over yourself now? I’m not arguing with your rating, per say.
>I just felt you should be a little more detailed in why
>the phone is *good* if you felt it deserved a 7/10 rating.
Because ALL the rest of the applications and hardware included WORK as expected. The only problems I found on the phone are the ones I mentioned. But that doesn’t mean that Java crashes, or the email app crashes, or the email app fails to get my email, or that Real doesn’t play my .rm files, or that GPRS disconnects out of the blue, or that the phone eats my SD filesystem or that Bluetooth doesn’t want to pair with my PC. NONE of that happens!
There are about 1000 things in this phone that one could mention (but it’s impossible to). 975 of them WORK. And so the 7/10 is a fair rating, given the fact that some of the problems are eye-popping and makes you wonder why Motorola didn’t fix them. But that doesn’t mean that the phone sucks and it’s unusable, ’cause it doesn’t.
And speaking of fair ratings, you said that you found my review to be a ‘good job’, you just disagreed with my final rating. If I am so bad on ratings, I guess your 1/10 that you rated my story is even worse then.
And speaking of fair ratings, you said that you found my review to be a ‘good job’, you just disagreed with my final rating. If I am so bad on ratings, I guess your 1/10 that you rated my story is even worse then.
touché !!
Because regardless of how I felt the review was, I found it in no way signified a 7/10, let alone 5/10, or even 3/10. Maybe if you had included the ^^^ information, then sure, a 7/10 would be understandable. Thanks for clearing up your feelings about the phone for those of us who can’t read minds/don’t like making assumptions that “everything else must be good” simply because it wasn’t mentioned as bad. I’ll leave this thread alone now, the other readers can get the information out of it needed, and continuing the thread will only lead to the flamewars I’m accustomed to seeing. Really, the attitude isn’t necessary, I’m sorry I didn’t make assumptions concerning your thoughts, and I’m sorry for being honest in my opinions. It’s a good review, it could just do with your previous post tacked on, to clarify the 7/10 rating. Otherwise people will be left thinking it’s full of issues, and has very little good going for it.
I’ll leave you with some examples of phones that were highly rated. Notice the good/bad ratio in them. There is a reason for that, regardless of what you (the reviewer) might think about the phone, if you don’t clarify things, none of your readers will understand.
http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=1393&source=BROWSER
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/samsung-d600-en.shtml
Maybe if you had included the ^^^ information
And here is the last paragraph of the review:
[i]Having said all that, this remains a good Linux phone. It has a pretty fast boot time (for a Linux) and it comes with 2 styluses and 2 batteries. Performance is good, overall; it is expandable and extensible (there is even an Opie port with Qt 2.3.10), it’s super-stable and works well as a phone. Could it have been done better if Motorola had been more careful on the details and fix some eye-popping obvious bugs/problems? Definitely! But it’s almost as good as it goes today with Linux phones and I am pretty sure that future Linux phones will be even better and will compete with Symbian and Windows Mobile more vigorously.[i]
Sound 7/10 positivish to me!
To me: “It’s almost as good as it goes today with Linux phones” == neutral, since all linux phones thus far have pretty much sucked compared to the symbian/windows mobile/etc phones.
As well: “this remains a good Linux phone” == no meaning, a “good Linux phone” can be completely obliterated by the current crop of smartphones (well, I’ve not used this new one, so I can’t qualify that statement).
Thirdly: “Performance is good, overall” <– I expect any phone I own to be terrific in performance. A slow phone is a brick to throw as far as I’m concerned.
I just don’t see that as being a glowing 7/10. Maybe I just see things in a different light. Go ahead and remove my vote if it makes you feel better, you’ve my permission. I’m sorry for expressing my opinion.
I always mention the generic goodness of a product. But I am making sure that I mention ALL the bad things, even more than the “normal” things, because people read reviews in order to learn about such potential problems. They want to know about problems MORE than they want to know about features (features that are already listed on the manufacturer’s web site anyway) before they shed money on a product.
If for example, you are interested in the messaging client of a phone, and my review doesn’t say anything in particular about it (apart from the fact that it exists), it means that the app works as expected! There is not much to say about it, it’s a simple messaging client, sending SMS/MMS that feeds from your contact list. Nothing extraordinary there! Nothing to mention there! You should assume it works! However, if the client is not able to send a .3gp video, or it is not able to create sub-folders, or whatever else, I WOULD mention it.
MobileBurn and MobileReview are good sites, I read them daily. But my style is simply not the same.
A simple little disclaimer like that would go a _long_ way. This _really_ clears up all of my qualms with the original story. Especially the second paragraph. Your review makes complete sense now, knowing that. I just felt it shouldn’t be left to assumption “how” you write reviews. I’m fairly new here, I don’t know your “style” and I’m sure there’s lots of other new people visiting every day. I really enjoyed seeing a review of a *phone* here, it makes for variety. I thought it was well written. I just didn’t know your style was simply pick out ALL negative things, and generalize “it’s a good phonelinux ” -translated to-> everything that I didn’t mention as bad is wonderful. Thank you absolutely for clearing this up. It’ll make reading your future reviews very easy. Maybe there should be a Bio section to this site where we can read about people’s personality/writing style?
>Maybe there should be a Bio section to this site where
> we can read about people’s personality/writing style?
My homepage is a good start. 😉
To clarify myself:
—
And speaking of fair ratings, you said that you found my review to be a ‘good job’, you just disagreed with my final rating. If I am so bad on ratings, I guess your 1/10 that you rated my story is even worse then.
—
A good review that completely does NOT support the given rating is a bad story. A good review which backs up the given rating is a good story. In this care, I felt it 100% absolutely did NOT support the rating you gave it. After your previous posts, I completely agree it deserves the 7/10 rating. I hope this makes it clearer to you.
Why did this earn a 7/10?
Eugenia has a tendency toward “saying it like it is” that to some may come off as negativity. I appreciate the honesty, and know I am going to get the straight story. On the other hand, if it was my product, I might think differently.
750mAH batt? Thats it?
bet that has a LOOOOONG run time…
I have a similar phone, the Motorola A780. It kills me because it has so much potential, and if you’re looking to get any real work done with a smartphone or write custom apps, I’d recommend a Symbian.
I agree that internet access is fantastic. The version of Opera running on this platform is its greatest asset. It renders OSNews.com wonderfully, and it even allows me to access my Gmail account anywhere I have signal.
The overall form factor of the device is a little on the large size for a phone, but when you compare it to other smartphones it’s apparent how pocketable it really is. It isn’t heavy, but it has a nice heft to it. It feels very solid, and the construction is top notch.
I really appreciated that instead of coming up with some new proprietary connector, it uses a mini USB cable for its charger and data. I have a particular beef with Sony-Ericsson and their proprietary connector because it seemed to wear out VERY quickly on my T616. You’ll have no such problems here.
The European version of the A780 features GPS, while the Asian variant has voice features (recognition, text-to-voice, etc.). Sounds good, doesn’t it?
As great as that is, the fun part of Linux (to me) is being able to muck around in an open system, and I can’t help but feel that Motorola is purposely trying to stiffle development. Eugenia is right; it’s next to impossible to get a Motorola native SDK (I’ve tried). Get this: to gain access to the GPS library (GPS is NOT in the E680i I believe), I have to sign a nondisclosure agreement with Motorola! How crazy is that?!! I’m left wondering why Motorola even put a GPS chip in there. So instead of allowing you to do cool things with the hardware, you’re pretty much stuck with vanilla J2ME. Motorola does have a code site (MotoCoder.com), but I found it to be a pretty useless site with no bulletin board and less than helpful assistance. It’s glaringly evident why there isn’t more activity on this platform.
Last problem: Motorola won’t directly supply you with new firmware. You can either send it to your provider (if they support it) or find it on a few Chinese sites, but it’s a hassle and going through some of these alternate channels instead of an official channel is risky.
I don’t know why Motorola is using Linux here. They’re not taking advantage of the inherent strengths of Linux and taking on all of the major downfalls. They’re losing out on a huge, obvious opportunity by keeping the platform so closed. The hardware is actually very cool, but they leave us with no real way to take advantage of it. All of the Linux embedded devices (that I’ve personally seen) seem to suffer from the same short battery life and sluggish user interfaces. Add Java on top of that, and you’re left with a slow, expensive smartphone that requires a daily recharge.
My own personal rating of this phone:
Hardware 7/10
Software 3/10
Fun factor 0/10
To sum up, Motorola has the right hardware ingredients for a useful and fun platform, but in the end, their software and developer support absolutely kills it.
Well said. Motorola could do better.
Ok I’m currently using this phone as well as a Nokia 9300 Communicator. I agree with the chubby physical form, somewhat sluggish UI response, the lack of applications, and the no “Alt-Tab” key to switch between apps. I also suspect the GSM stuff on this phone is not so good: frequently SMS sending fails and/or sent in duplicates and sometimes if I pick up the phone to answer call there is no sound (have tried this with two GSM card from different operator with the same results). All in all, it’s a pretty average phone. I prefer my Nokia 9300 very much (due to its wide screen, real QWERTY keyboard, and a plethora of available apps).
Some other minuses: unstellar battery life, no physical keyboard/numeric pad so it’s pretty unusable when you want to type SMS with one hand (if only Motorola provided a numpad-style to type), contacts/groups management is not very powerful.
But I like the fact that it runs Linux. It’s also one of the cheapest touch-screen smartphone on the market. It supports SD Card, Chinese, has a camera and FM-radio (though I never use it), stereo earphone (you have to buy this separately with Nokia 9300), voice command (I love it, but I can’t add new commands or type with it). And there are a few other nice features, e.g. it clearly shows “SIM Card” SMS folder so you can easily move SMS messages from the GSM card and phone memory.
I agree. I haven’t used a Nokia Communicator before, but I’m currently looking into it as my next phone.
My question is this: *why* do you like the fact that it runs Linux? Is it merely the geek factor of having a phone that runs Linux? I admit I’m guilty of this to some degree, but I don’t think the way Motorola has implemented it really does anything for me or anyone else. I wouldn’t care if it ran another kernel because it’s buried under a proprietary (EZ-X GUI) and has no commandline. I would be very, very happy if Motorola released new firmware with Qtopia and a terminal program.
The rest I agree with. It’s relatively cheap, and if only Motorola would open up the native SDK and access to the cool features (GPS, voice, etc.), I could see a phone like this competing with the Treo 650 and Communicator. Until that happens, I think this will remain a Linux geek toy.
In spite of it all, I’m a geek and like the phone itself, but Motorola is evil.
Why I like the fact that it runs Linux? Hm, I think it’s more of a ‘talk with your pocket/money’ instead of ‘geek factor’. I don’t want to make Microsoft richer. If I buy a Windows Mobile based phone, a fraction of the price will go to the royalty income to Microsoft. I don’t want to support a company which I think is unethical and not-consumer friendly.
The A760, A768, E680, A780 source code is very bad really.
I developed A760, A758, A780 from begaining to end.
I know the bad of the source code.
If the code is released out, you will laugue to the ground.
mot has no time to release the SDK, the people are busy on fight with eath other.
they want to us gtk to replace ……
they used lot of source code of GPL, but not put back.
Some time ago the announcement was made, with much fanfare, that Eugenia would be leaving. Good to see that’s as reliable as anything else she says.
Can I SSH into the phone. What fun is a linux phone if I can’t SSH or XDMCP/VNC into it for some good hacking times.
No, you can’t SSH. But you can telnet to the phone, with a bit of effort though. No, it’s not an uber-hacking Linux machine, it requires effort to change things into it.