14 DAY TRIAL // Neo FreeRunner, the second Linux-powered smartphone produced by OpenMoko, will be commercially available starting this spring. Initially announced at the beginning of the year and said to come in the second quarter, the open source handset will hit the market sooner, most probably in March or April 2008.
OpenMoko is the company that brought the first open source smartphone, Neo 1973, which is only a made for developers and not for the wide public. With Neo FreeRunner, OpenMoko wants to push things further and offer the open source device to everyone.
Resembling Neo 1973 in terms of design, the new FreeRunner will bring a faster 500 MHz processor, 2D/3D graphics, a completely new pack of open-source mobile applications and, of course, a similar touchscreen based User Interface. Neo 1973 received a great feedback until now, and since Neo FreeRuner comes with more features, it has all the chances to be a successful handset.
"FreeRunner is a significantly improved device from the Neo 1973. Our developers gave us great feedback as they explored the first version of the device," said in January 2008 Steven Mosher, Marketing vice-president at OpenMoko. "We added WiFi, motion sensors, faster processing, and improved graphics, creating a compelling mass market device for open source development. The open source community was key in achieving that goal. Without them this remix of the Neo would not have been possible."
There are no images with Neo FreeRuner yet, nor details about its dimensions, but we hope it will be a bit smaller than Neo 1973, which measures 120.7 x 62 x 18.5 millimeters and weighs 185 grams. However, even at this size, it will still be a great device, first of all because it is completely based on open source software, hence it's totally customizable and offers users a great freedom.
Besides entering the mobile market, OpenMoko will also make other products together with various device vendors, including Dash, creator of open source based portable navigation devices. Anyway, our main interest is Neo FreeRuner, so let's wait and see what exactly it can offer.