Ubuntu Touch: a Linux OS breaks onto smartphones and tablets – The Verge

The most powerful Ubuntu phone is still not good enough

2016-02-23T05:48:23-05:00

If there's one thing tech enthusiasts love more than an underdog, it's an underdog with high specs. The Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition is just such a device. It's powered by the same 14nm Samsung Exynos processor as the flagship Galaxy S6. It has a 21-megapixel camera with laser-assisted phase-detect autofocus and a Hi-Fi audio chip from ESS. Clad in an aluminum unibody shell and sporting an AMOLED display, it's as modern and good looking as any smartphone out here at Mobile World Congress. But it runs Ubuntu, and that makes it too much of an underdog.

With the two Goliaths of Android and the iPhone dominating the mobile landscape, most attempt …

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The second Ubuntu phone is coming out this month

2015-06-02T05:00:02-04:00

Canonical, the creator of the Ubuntu operating system, took a long two years to get its first smartphone to market after first detailing its plans in 2013. Its next phone won't take anywhere near that long. Canonical today announced that the second Ubuntu phone - the Aquaris E5 HD Ubuntu Edition - is coming in mid-June, only four months after the Aquaris E4.5 UE saw release. Like its predecessor, the new device is being built by Spanish manufacturer BQ, but Canonical promises the Aquaris E5 HD features some improvements over its older sibling.

Primary amongst these is the larger screen. Where Canonical's first phone had an underwhelming 4.5 …

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The Ubuntu phones are an audacious attempt to take on Android

2015-03-04T09:15:23-05:00

The mobile journey of Linux-based OS Ubuntu has felt like an eternity. Canonical, the company that leads development on the platform, first announced the smartphone OS back in 2013; after an unsuccessful dalliance with crowdfunding, Canonical said over a year ago that phones from BQ and Meizu would launch with the platform in 2014. That goal was missed, but the BQ device was made available a few weeks ago, and it's on show at Mobile World Congress alongside a Meizu counterpart.

Ubuntu is late to the smartphone party, and not in a way that could be described as fashionable. But Canonical remains bullish on the future of the platform. "We're …

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The Ubuntu phone is real and going on sale next week

2015-02-06T09:30:03-05:00

It's been a long road, spanning more than two years of adversity, but Ubuntu finally has a smartphone to call home. It's called the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition and is built by Spanish company BQ. This little-known manufacturer of tablets and e-readers is adapting one of its Android handsets to run Ubuntu and selling it for €169.90 (just over $190) in a series of flash sales across Europe. It's an unusual way to release a phone: followers of the @ubuntu and @bqreaders Twitter accounts will be the first to be alerted any time the Aquaris E4.5 UE becomes available to buy.

The modest price is matched by this first Ubuntu phone's barebone spec s …

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First Ubuntu smartphones launching this year

2014-02-19T12:20:58-05:00

Ubuntu (STOCK)

Ubuntu smartphones are finally coming to market. Canonical has announced that Meizu and bq will both begin selling Ubuntu smartphones before the end of the year. The phones will be made available globally, though given the manufacturers on board, they'll likely be targeted toward emerging markets, where Ubuntu will have an easier time standing out beside iOS and Android. There are no details yet on what the phones will be like, but we could learn more next week at Mobile World Congress. Engadget also reports that Canonical is also promising that two manufacturers with "household names" will begin making Ubuntu phones in 2015.

It's been a lo …

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Ubuntu’s smartphone OS will be ready to launch on October 17th

2013-09-19T13:58:59-04:00

ubuntu phone

The Ubuntu Edge smartphone may have missed its crowdfunding goal by a huge amount, but the Ubuntu Touch operating system is far from dead - it now has a planned release date of October 17th. That's according to a blog post from Canonical employee and QA community coordinator Nicholas Skaggs, who said that Ubuntu is "committed to delivering an image" of the OS for supported devices (Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10). That's backed up by a post on the Ubuntu Phone Team mailing list that confirms "phone 1.0 will be a reality" in four and a half weeks. In the meantime, both posts implore interested users to download the current image …

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Ubuntu Edge smartphone misses its crowdfunding goal by over $19 million

2013-08-22T03:01:22-04:00

Ubuntu Edge

When Canonical launched its crowdfunding campaign for the Ubuntu Edge smartphone last month it set an ambitious goal: raising $32 million through Indiegogo. As it turns out, that goal was a little too ambitious, as the campaign has wrapped up nearly $20 million short. After 30 days, Canonical was able to raise just over $12.8 million from more than 27,000 backers.

While the campaign rocketed to nearly $3.4 million within the first 24 hours, the influx of donations quickly slowed at that point. It led Ubuntu to reset the pricing scheme several times. Under the original structure, the first 5,000 backers would receive a phone for $600, while …

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Can the internet raise $32 million to build the Ubuntu Edge smartphone?

2013-07-22T11:17:44-04:00

ubuntu edge rumor

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is launching a crowdfunding campaign to finance its first Ubuntu smartphone, the Ubuntu Edge. For the company to succeed with its plans, it'll need to raise $32 million in just under a month. The Ubuntu Edge will be a 4.5-inch 720p smartphone with a multi-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and an unprecedented 128GB of storage. It'll be LTE-ready and run the touch-optimized Ubuntu Linux, of course, which we've had the opportunity to play with a few times over the past months. Users committing to either $600 today or $830 thereafter will get an Ubuntu Edge in May 2014.

As we noted when the device leaked earlier …

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Ubuntu Edge phone emerges ahead of ‘groundbreaking’ Canonical event (update)

2013-07-22T09:48:29-04:00

ubuntu edge rumor

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, looks set to become the latest software maker to launch its own smartphone. Renders of a device labelled "Ubuntu Edge" were shared on the company's website before an Ubuntu event later today. The images depict a harshly angular device with a distinctive wedge shape at the top, two volume keys, and a power key. There's also another key at the top, but it's not clear what that'll be for. There are no physical buttons for navigation - the OS is gesture-based, after all. Here's our early preview of the OS from Canonical's January launch event:

If Canonical is launching the Ubuntu Edge today, we expect …

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Verizon becomes potential launch partner for Ubuntu phone

2013-07-11T16:02:03-04:00

Ubuntu (STOCK)

Ubuntu is slowly making its way toward consumers' smartphones, and it looks like Verizon has taken an interest. The telecom giant has become a member of the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group, a number of companies partnering with the open-source operating system's developer, Canonical, to give feedback on the software. Members are also given the chance to be one of Ubuntu's mobile launch partners - though that doesn't mean that Verizon will necessarily be one when the platform launches next year.

Verizon isn't the only big name partner on board to help out Canonical: T-Mobile's parent, Deutsche Telekom, is among the group, as is China Unicom an …

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