Chinese company E28 Ltd. has extended their mobile phone lineup with a new Linux-based handset coming in a classical candybar form factor.

The handset, dubbed E2831, comes with support for GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with auto roaming and has recently received the Federal Communications Commission's approval.

It comes with integrated support of VoIP in WLAN networks and the capability of auto switching between GSM and WLAN networks. Other features include a 2.2 inch 260k color touchscreen with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution, 1.3 megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, emulation of the QWERTY keyboard, a wide variety of messaging options including SMS, MMS, email (POP3, SMTP, eSMTP), Bluetooth and USB for connectivity and an Opera browser.

Powered by an OMAP TI 730 CPU it also packs 64MB RAM, 64MB NAND Flash and expandable memory through the included MicroSD card slot. Aside from that, the phone can be used for listening to music, coming with support for several audio file formats.

The design of the handset is not all that bad either, it sports keys very similar to the ones Sony Ericsson has started using in its newest mobiles and measures 112 x 50 x 12.5 mm.

Using Linux as an OS for mobile phones brings many advantages and among others, it will motivate developers to produce new applications, such as games or advanced music players, since the platform will be both stable and cost effective.

There is no information at all regarding the availability or price of this mobile phone, but chances are that it will be an Asia-only product.