Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ubuntu Edge

indiegogo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 390 posts

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#211

Post by slgeorge »

cs702 wrote: post #43

The $32 million fundraising goal might seem overly ambitious, but it's actually more realistic than it appears at first glance, because at $600+ per unit the campaign needs only around 50,000 buyers worldwide to be successful -- or a bit over 2% of Ubuntu's enthusiastic user base, which was estimated to be greater than 20 million in 2011.[1] PS. I just ordered one, as I LOVE the idea of an unlocked phone designed and…

One of the things that's interesting about the phone industry is that in general there's no equivalent of the special tech-focused PC platforms. So Ubuntu Edge is a way to unlock both a new software platform (Ubuntu phone) but also to bring forward a set of hardware technologies that won't be in the mainstream for a while.

It's a really high target caused by how expensive these platforms are to manufacture. But if we can get enough interest it will allow us to bring a great new phone to market!

ps I work for Canonical so should be considered a bit biased ;-)

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#212

Post by seabrookmx »

DocG wrote: post #166
lettergram wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 40,000 people are willing to fund the initial production going mainstream would be easy. I believe in the video they even said that if enough people were interested they could get more backing.

I think video said if this thing succeeds, then there might be similar future projects. If not, there wont be next edge or similar projects. "The Ubuntu Edge is an exclusive production run, available only through Indiegogo" But there is no going mainstream, it is the whole point. This is not the mainstream pc/mobile. Good quote from comment section: "It's a premier, demonstration platform, not a mass market device."…

Except it's a horrible comparison, because an F1 car is orders of magnitude higher in performance than an everyday car. The Edge on the other hand, has a lower resolution screen than the Galaxy S4, a consumer device.

They claim the performance will be amazing, yet don't even specify which CPU/SoC they will be using (only claiming it will be a quad, also available in the Galaxy series).

128gb of storage? Big deal. My Galaxy S3 with a 64gb SD card has that much too.

Cool phone, and I love the smartphone/PC convergence they are striving for - but comparing it to the engineering marvel of an F1 car is a little outlandish.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#214

Post by seabrookmx »

ubersync wrote: post #209

Am I missing something? How is this phone any different from say Google Nexus 4, or Samsung Galaxy S4? E.g. Google Nexus 4 has almost the same specs other than RAM, Storage and Dual LTE. But it is only for $300. More specifically, how does the Formula 1 analogy fit in? This phone is priced about the same as iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and has almost the same specs.

It isn't. The F1 analogy is horrible IMO.

This thread is full of fanboys.

What's cool is that it will be the first available device where users can test an Ubuntu smartphone that can be used as an Ubuntu PC when docked. They've been showing this off for years but as far as I know it hasn't hit any actual devices.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#215

Post by seabrookmx »

fingerprinter wrote: post #155
tjdetwiler wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with (1)... that will probably be average hardware for 2014 (for high end devices because lets face it, all high end devices have roughly the same specs). You make a lot of assumptions with (2) as well. Given Canonical has 0 experience in putting out HW I wouldn't assume a top notch product since details like build quality and materials are important. (3) would be a negative for me... you would get the slo…

You think 4 gigs of ram, sapphire display and 128gb ssd are going to be the norm in 2014? Not very likely. That would be just about double the Samsung S4 right now. I don't think it is very likely for 2014. 2015, maybe though. And I don't think Canonical is going to build the phone but work with someone to do it. > (3) would be a negative for me... you would get the slowest, least power efficient, and most app-baron…

The S4 has a 1080p screen (better than the edge) a Quad (comparable to the edge) and with SD cards, can be expanded to 128gb of storage on the cheap.

Not to mention the app selection for Android is unbeatable. Sure it didn't have many apps in the early days, but because it was one of the first to market, it will retain this lead. Look at HP's touchpad, BB10, and Windows Phone - they've had years to catch up and have failed.

The edge is a niche device and has it's place, but I'd say should be avoided by the average user.

For $305 the Nexus 4 is the no-brainer.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#216

Post by ersii »

zanny wrote: post #198
Shorel wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find how many Steam subscribers are running Ubuntu and buying games, and subtract that number from the total estimated Ubuntu users. Count me in the 'buys games' lot.

Ubuntu is a very reasonable average joe OS. It is actually really crappy for gaming - when I was using Ubuntu at the Unity switch around 10.04, there were tons of absurd full screen and tearing bugs in games. Even now that most of that is fixed, Unity/compiz is still vastly outperformed by everything else when running full screen opengl apps. On Gnome / KDE I never encountered those.

I'd encourage you to try it again. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 on my Dell XPS 13 (Sputnik Edition of course) - and I have no problems with playing Steam games.

I havn't really had any problems playing any game that works on *NIX so far - not that there's all that many.. but still.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#217

Post by KnightHawk3 »

sublimit wrote: post #190
rlpb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the money is for building the hardware too, not just the software.

That's no excuse for an $800 price tag. It just means they're charging customers for their bad decisions (as in not using others' hardware).

It's meant to be cutting edge new hardware, which will not be found in preexisting smartphones (Because it's a hardware project.)

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#219

Post by objclxt »

freehunter wrote: post #50
sciurus wrote: post #4

"If we don’t reach our target then we will focus only on commercially available handsets and there will not be an Ubuntu Edge." That makes so much more sense to me that I'm having a hard time understanding why Canonical would even attempt to design and manufacture their own handset.

For the same reason Microsoft made the Surface and Google has the Nexus devices. "This is how it's done" sets a very strong precedence for OEMs to follow. Canonical can set the bar high right off the bat to avoid being like the first few years of Android phones.

> For the same reason Microsoft made the Surface and Google has the Nexus devices.

The Nexus handsets are basically third party handsets with some input from Google, but primarily engineered and built by the hardware partner (LG, Samsung, etc). It's not really comparable.

Microsoft do engineer and build the Surface themselves, but last time I checked they just took a $900 million loss on it. Hardly great stuff.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#220

Post by ericfranklin »

"We'll replace glass with sapphire crystal. A material so hard, you'll need diamonds in your pocket to leave a scratch"

I got a laugh from this because the back of my iPhone 4 had a few big scratches in it literally from carrying diamonds in my pocket (My company sells lab-grown diamonds).

Post reply on HN