I just got my first Linux phone

[bigtomrodney]

I just got a new phone and I'm glad to say it's a Linux powered one. I know that's less impressive these days, because it's an Android phone and that pretty much means half the market

Here's the phone I got:
HTC Legend

I have to say it's a great experience. I have no affiliation and I'm not pluggin here, I just really like my new purchase. I discovered that it even has rsync installed so I can do some magic. I've installed a cool ssh app called ConnectBot which is pretty slick. I used a port of PuTTY on my Nokia before which was pretty good but this seems a bit cleaner.

It has played pretty well with my Ubuntu install but to be honest I've only run a few bluetooth and UMS operations. For those of you interested it ties in perfectly with the usual social stuff like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Gtalk...well the Google stuff is obvious haha

All around I have to say, I'm just very pleased. I was almost certainly going to buy an iPhone next but I'm glad that Android has matured the way it has. I don't know if everyone will agree but it's certainly more useful to me than the iPhone as it is, I know the first thing I'd do would be jailbreak it

[hungerformore]

is that phone for tmobile

[oz]

That's a great looking phone, and hopefully it works as well as it looks. Mine is a few years old now and it's about time for a new one, so I might consider one like yours if you report back that it's working out well for you. Thanks for the info!

[bigtomrodney]

is that phone for tmobile

I'm over in Ireland, we don't have T-Mobile here so I can't tell you. I was going to buy mine SIM-free/Unlocked but ended up getting it through Meteor over here.

I'm actually not sure if it's on sale officially in the USA. Generally though there are a lot of Android phones and they all look pretty good. The one thing that HTC offer on their phones is an addon called HTC-Sense. It gives a few extra options and enhancements to the Android environment.

I'll report back how I get on over the next few days but it's been going great so far. One of the ones giving a great laugh so far is the barcode-scanner. I can scan any item, it'll decode the barcode and look it up online automatically. I get price comparisons and the works. Even better is that it works with data matrix barcodes or "2D-Barcodes". I was able to encode my email address and some other cool info into one of these as a demo. I can imagine that there could be some cool uses for these. Imagine if by just scanning an advertisement you can check out their details online, or printing one of these on your business card so that it could be read immediately into someone's addressbook. An even cooler application is that you can install apps directly by scanning one of these things. Check out the page for that ssh app Connectbot - you just scan your computerscreen and your phone finds the app in the appstore.

Right, I'm ranting now so I'll leave you guys to it. More to come later

[MikeTbob]

That is one sweet phone, let us know how it performs......just by looking at the specs...I think it's going to run like a champ for a long time to come. I really like that Alloy casing...NICE!

[bigtomrodney]

Well it turns out my phone was smart enough to figure out that my Facebook friends were the same people as in my Gmail addressbook and again the same as in my phonebook. Better than that it was polite enough to only suggest this quietly in their entries and avoided anything invasive or presumptuous such as going ahead and merging them.

I've had one slow-down on a heavy site with a flash video (surprise) and one crash of the Android Marketplace. With the latter you'd never know, by the time it told you it had restarted itself and was ready to go again. I'm really impressed all around, it's hit the magic sweetspot between something that can do it all for someone who won't be bothered but is still pretty hackable if you want to get into the nitty-gritty. I guess I'll have to see how easy it is to build Android myself and reflash it

[jasonresurrection87]

does anyone know about the verizon droid and the linux/android for that?

[questio verum]

does anyone know about the verizon droid and the linux/android for that?

You can find tech specs for most phones online. This one's no exception. I've been using it since the first week or so it was out. Kudos to whoever Motorola farmed their screens out to. The screen resolution is probably about as good as it'll get for this form factor. It basically doubles what the iphone offers. It has a nicely responsive touch-screen feature, too. Verizon did the upgrade to Android 2.1 but to be honest, I don't notice much difference.

Being a linux device, there are gobs of apps out there. And just like desktop linux, not every app is flawless. Or free. I've settled in with the apps that I will likely be keeping. The 'for-fee' apps I was willing to buy were the weight circuit & cardio apps. The cardio app interfaces nicely w/ the GPS. The GoogleMaps app is impressive for a cell phone, but not perfect yet. The GPS feature is the best I've seen on a cell phone. The built-in youtube app is just plain awesome. If you use gmail or facebook, it will load them into your contact list with just a few screen taps. I think it will do the same with Yahoo, but since I don't use Yahoo, I can't verify that. My bank makes an Android 2.0 app, so making transfers, paying bills, & checking balances is quick & easy. I cycled though a dozen or so time wasters, and found one that I liked enough to keep - Labyrinth.

Apps, if not built into the os, are available through a built-in 'market' feature. Many are free, and many not. If it's niche, it's probably not free. The phrase "can of worms" comes to mind. On one hand, I don't mind rewarding talent. On the other hand, I don't like being asked to pay up-front for goods of unknown quality. I'm sure there'll be no shortage of rants about that.

Having used the phone for a while now, I'm still happy with it. I do have a few gripes though. The device is fully software-driven. With that comes a few quirks. Sometimes the screen is *too* responsive. The phone app is poorly designed in my opinion. You have to punch through too many menus, and that means you can't simply press one button to back fully out of the phone app. Clumsy. Of course there is a slide-out keyboard with a d-pad. But I never use it. Doesn't solve the phone app problem anyway.

Aside from the hard-to-avoid fingerprint buildup, and the occasional butt-dial, brought on by the hyper-sensitive touch-screen... it's an ok phone. I might add that I'm very hard on cell phones. Most people, er.. make that 'most geeks', would rate it better than "ok". I would recommend the 3-piece ribbed hardshell case, if you decide on this phone. It looks flimsy, but it's deceptively well constructed. Probably saved my phone at least a dozen times. I hope some of this is helpful. You should check out all the different providers for their offerings too. They leapfrog each other all the time. Last time I checked, the HTC Nexus had bragging rights. Not sure who carries it though. Happy hunting!

qv

[Rubberman]

I just got a Google NexusOne at the Linux Collaboration Summit a couple of weeks ago (thank you Google!) which is also an Android phone. Now that I am back from my trip I can't wait to root it and start playing with the internals! There are some things that aren't as polished as the iPhone, but overall after using it for almost 2 weeks I am a happy camper! Heck, it even has video recording as well as snapshot capability with the camera! How cool is that?!