Prepaid Opensource Phones
- Thread starter Meany105
- Start date
(naw)mcx
Rotary Wombat
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2005
- Messages
- 2,918
- Age
- 31
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
- Website
- www.godlikemcx.deviantart.com
In the UK? T-Mobile Pulse. Runs android.
klikklak
Oh neat, it's a ... field.
Symbian is open source nowadays, you'll be able to cheap ones for sure. Not sure about powerful though.
Ravnos
Asleep in Samsara
klikklak said:
The Omnia i8910 runs S60v5 (plus Touchwiz) and has a 600MHz Cortex A8 in it. I haven't used it so I can't comment on it but having used a friend's N97 and having owned a couple of S60v3 phones, I'm not really sure why S60 gets such a bad rap. Might be too expensive for what the OP is after, though. I would suggest an N900 as it meets the OP's other criteria but it's also probably too expensive.
Last edited by a moderator:
kuru
Laptop und Trachtenjanker
If symbian is an option and there's need for umts but not wifi then go for nokia 5230, Symbian OS5. Comes with free navigation/maps. Need wifi but not umts go for 5530.Ravnos said:
Edit: Build quality is not awesome on those, but they come cheap.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ravnos
Asleep in Samsara
kuru said:
The only problem is that most of the current crop of S60 phones come with sub-500MHz processors, and that won't change till the N8 comes out later this year. If that wasn't a concern, I would have recommended a 5800. They're fairly cheap, and while they're not the best phones out there, they're a pretty decent compromise on performance and features for the price. My experience with S60 has been that it does fairly well with more limited hardware than Android or WM, but it's still fairly underpowered. At the low-to-mid end, I'd rather have S60v3 or 5 over Android, but when you get into the higher end (N1, Milestone/Droid), I swing the other way.
Of course, I personally use an N900 these days, so my preference is "neither". But an N900 is a bit more spendy than a 5800.
Last edited by a moderator:
gruso
thunderbox
Maybe an iPhone 2G with Android installed.
http://androidalot.c...n-an-iphone-2g/
I'm (half) joking.
http://androidalot.c...n-an-iphone-2g/
I'm (half) joking.
klikklak
Oh neat, it's a ... field.
I'll be getting a N97 next week, they're dirt cheap now. I'll probably pay around 220€ with postage used from ebay. Has a dpad so maybe it'll be enough for my gaming needs, 3.5" should be good for scummvm at least. I only wish they'd have all the goodies too, like say infocom interpreter or something. But well, for gaming I still have my Wiz.
I can recommend the palm pre. I have mine since september 09 and it's an awesome platform. WebOS is really convenient (feels much nicer than android in my opinion), is being sold by O2 without contract or sim lock and they legally allow you to run unsigned code. It's running linux and the community is great, lots of homebrew efforts, thousands of homebrew apps and more to come. They just got x11 working now and have compiled firefox successfully. Also it is really easy to patch and modify WebOS through a convenient on device installer called preware which gives you access to the homebrew repositories.
The device normally runs at 500mhz for normal apps and 600mhz for 3d games but with the latest patches pretty much everyone has their phones clocked at 720 or 800mhz. I am running mine at 720 and the impact on battery life is neglectible.
The only troubles I have with the phone are the build quality which is rather flimsy compare to the motorola droid and similar sliders, but if you take care of your gadgets, that shouldn't be a problem. The second annoying thing is that the official app catalogue is still pretty underdeveloped. There are some 900 apps available in Europe as of yet, they have approx. 2000 in the US. The numbers grow larger every day though and apart from Docs2Go (which was promised to be ready on launch, but has turned out to be vapourware now) everything from media support and games to business apps, PIM and IM is pretty much covered and there are dozens of new apps added daily.
I guess it's up to personal preference. I really love having a qwertz keyboard and a touch screen, some people prefer touchscreen only. Same goes for tastes in OS I guess.
Go down to your local phone shop of choice and ask them to let you compare and use a couple of phones for yourself. Don't listen to internet chatter, I have found that information on cellphones especially is highly biased as there is so much fanboyism going on with this.
EDIT: A couple of official games and homebrew games that are awesome!!!
-ScummVM runs flawlessly and looks great on the crisp screen, played through the dig on the train, now I am trying to get through shadow of the templars...
-visualboyadvance runs gba games fairly decently on 500mhz. haven't tried since I overclocked, it's probably way better now, though playing with the touchscreen is weird... well it's got a keyboard as well. I still prefer an actual gba or gp2x though
-Need for speed underground!!! I wasted hours with that. Looks so great with OpenGL ES! Great selection of cars, great soundtrack and smooth gameplay.
-Sims 3 is pretty good, too. Although it bums me out that I can't freely modify my house in the game, except for furniture etc and building upgrades.
-Assassins Creed... yes, assassins creed. I don't need to say more^^. Well I do. It's more of an action jump'n'run style game but still very cool, lotsa freerunning to do and stealthy missions.
-The Settlers has just come out, haven't played that yet but the screenshots and gameplay videos look cool and I'd love to play settlers on the go.
-Driver. Open world mafia driving game, almost like the PC version apparently. Haven't played that either.
... and then there is some sort of GTA clone which looks a lot like San Andreas which I really want to try as well.
The device normally runs at 500mhz for normal apps and 600mhz for 3d games but with the latest patches pretty much everyone has their phones clocked at 720 or 800mhz. I am running mine at 720 and the impact on battery life is neglectible.
The only troubles I have with the phone are the build quality which is rather flimsy compare to the motorola droid and similar sliders, but if you take care of your gadgets, that shouldn't be a problem. The second annoying thing is that the official app catalogue is still pretty underdeveloped. There are some 900 apps available in Europe as of yet, they have approx. 2000 in the US. The numbers grow larger every day though and apart from Docs2Go (which was promised to be ready on launch, but has turned out to be vapourware now) everything from media support and games to business apps, PIM and IM is pretty much covered and there are dozens of new apps added daily.
I guess it's up to personal preference. I really love having a qwertz keyboard and a touch screen, some people prefer touchscreen only. Same goes for tastes in OS I guess.
Go down to your local phone shop of choice and ask them to let you compare and use a couple of phones for yourself. Don't listen to internet chatter, I have found that information on cellphones especially is highly biased as there is so much fanboyism going on with this.
EDIT: A couple of official games and homebrew games that are awesome!!!
-ScummVM runs flawlessly and looks great on the crisp screen, played through the dig on the train, now I am trying to get through shadow of the templars...
-visualboyadvance runs gba games fairly decently on 500mhz. haven't tried since I overclocked, it's probably way better now, though playing with the touchscreen is weird... well it's got a keyboard as well. I still prefer an actual gba or gp2x though
-Need for speed underground!!! I wasted hours with that. Looks so great with OpenGL ES! Great selection of cars, great soundtrack and smooth gameplay.
-Sims 3 is pretty good, too. Although it bums me out that I can't freely modify my house in the game, except for furniture etc and building upgrades.
-Assassins Creed... yes, assassins creed. I don't need to say more^^. Well I do. It's more of an action jump'n'run style game but still very cool, lotsa freerunning to do and stealthy missions.
-The Settlers has just come out, haven't played that yet but the screenshots and gameplay videos look cool and I'd love to play settlers on the go.
-Driver. Open world mafia driving game, almost like the PC version apparently. Haven't played that either.
... and then there is some sort of GTA clone which looks a lot like San Andreas which I really want to try as well.
Ravnos
Asleep in Samsara
xnopasaranx said:
I didn't realise the Pre had gotten so cheap over there. It's $0 on a contract here with Bell, but it's the CDMA model, and the contract is 3 years. If I could get a GSM Pre with either Robelus or Wind 3G for cheap, I'd probably pick one up to play around with and use as a backup for my N900.
Last edited by a moderator:
OrR
Corporate games suck.
I'd recommend either the N900 or the Pre. AFAIK, the Pre is only available unlocked from Germany with the letters y and z swapped on the keyboard. It sells for as low as 300€, though, and it's one of the best gadgets I have ever owned, right after my Zodiac. It's not completely open source but very hackable and the community is awesome. B)
Thanks for all the replies, but I can't spend more than 200 dollars (that's stretching it) on a phone, but I have used palm phones before, and I even have an old palm pilot (still works even after seven years of heavy use) but is the palm pre backwards compatible with most say treo games???
