Innovations News

There’s no doubt that Apple has done a fantastic job with the iPhone, both in the hardware and in the software. It has single-handedly transformed the once-turgid smartphone market into a total money spinner.

Every manufacturer has had to rethink its strategy to compete, giving Linux the perfect opportunity to test its mettle.

The striking thing is how comprehensively Linux has succeeded on mobile phones. Linux has become the OS equivalent of the ARM processor, sneaking to market dominance through its fantastic versatility, performance and cost.

This success is a significant vindication of what Linux stands for and how its works. It shows that in the ultracompetitive world of the mobile phone, at a hardware level, marketing, branding and style don’t matter.

What manufacturers want is an operating system that delivers, and that’s why they’re choosing Linux. We’ve looked at three Linux-based phones that give the iPhone ecosystem a run for its money. There’s the Palm Pre, running WebOS; Nokia’s Maemo 5-based N900, and the HTC Legend, running Android. Each gives Apple’s device a run for its money, and they beat it today in significant areas. So which is best for you?

So let’s look at hardware first:

Palm Pre: hardware

After building a business on niche ‘Personal Digital Assistants’, Palm tried for years to re-align itself with smartphone-wielding business executives by embedding its old feature set within a Blackberry-like mobile phone.

With the Palm Pre, the company has finally hit its target. The smooth contours and gloss black design of the device made a considerable impact on the market, and it’s a decent size and design.

The addition of a vertically scrolling keyboard, which appears from the lower side of the unit with a soft click, is a step up from the embedded versions of older Palm devices. But it’s still too small if you have large hands and fingers, especially as it’s designed primarily for two-thumb use. Getting your right thumb to hit the H key after your left thumb has just hit T can be problematic, but as with all such devices, you do get used to it.

The lower section of the display is used to hold commonly used icons, as well as the all-important Call button. Just click on this to either dial someone from your address book or enter the number manually, and the entire package feels more portable and manageable than older HTC devices, as well as the Nokia N900.

The original Palm Pre also features a single button beneath its capacitive multitouch 3.1 inch 320×480 display. Pressing this will minimise any running application and enable you to run another at the same time, a feature no doubt designed for maximum impact in a world dominated by the currently mono-process iPhone.

But the button has been dropped in the new Palm Pre Plus, which also doubles the internal memory to 512MB, and doubles storage space to 16GB of Flash memory.

More importantly, it also increases the space slightly between the keys, potentially aiding fat finger input, but we weren’t able to get our hands on a device to be able to say whether it worked or not.

Inside the case, there’s an Omap 3430 ARM CPU and enough battery life to last you around five hours of talking and a reported thirteen days if you’re waiting for a call. You can also change the battery if you need to, in contrast to the sealed, locked-down iPhone.

The silicon also includes the C64x co-processor, which should be able to boost playback of Ogg Theora files, as well as Google’s new VP8 video format.

The graphics themselves are driven by an integrated PowerVR SGX 530 core, which is slightly less powerful than the PowerVR chip reported to be in the iPhone 3GS (it’s impossible to make authoritative comparisons, as Apple doesn’t publish exactly what its devices use).

Finally, a modern phone wouldn’t be complete without all kinds of sensors. The Palm Pre features an accelerometer, a proximity sensor to help when making calls, and a GPS for navigation. There’s also a pretty good camera, featuring 3.2MP capture along with an LED flash and geotagging, but there’s no autofocus. Version 1.4 of the OS, released in February, added the ability to capture and edit video.

Nokia N900: hardware

The most impressive thing about the N900 is its screen. It easily trumps the Palm Pre for resolution, and in our opinion, clarity. 800×480 is a big step up in size. iPhone 4 has a 960-by-640 resolution.

But there’s one big drawback: the touchscreen is resistive, and that means no multitouch. Nokia puts a brave face on it, but there’s no doubt this feels like a serious drawback. As if to make the point more clearly, the N900 even comes with an embedded stylus, just like the bad old days of Windows Mobile, but you could argue that the ability to use a fingernail is an advantage.

Its CPU is the same as that found in the Palm, an Omap 3430 with C64x coprocessor. But this one is running at its full clock speed – 600MHz rather than the 500MHz used in the Palm.

Memory capacity is a little mix-and-match. There’s 256MB of physical memory on board, but up to 768MB can be used from flash memory as a kind of swap file for processes running in the background.

In a more useful step back to Windows mobile devices, flash memory is installable using a Micro SDHC card slot, and the device can access up to 32GB of extra storage.

The N900’s battery is of a slightly higher capacity than the Palm, pulling in 1320mAh as opposed to 1150mAh on the Palm, but the higher clock speed takes its toll. We were only able to get around eight hours of normal use with the N900, compared with at least double on the Palm.

Under the surface, there are the obligatory axis sensors that can switch the screen between landscape and portrait mode, as well as a GPS and proximity monitor, just like the Palm Pre and most Android devices.

Another worthwhile feature is the ability to connect your N900 to a TV, using the audio and video cables provided. But the most important physical characteristic of the N900 is the slide-out Qwerty keyboard. It’s backlit and provides more space than the equivalent keyboard on the Palm Pre.

But it’s still cramped, and even worse, each key is arranged in a strict matrix. The letter Q is directly above A, for example, while P is in a column on its own on the far-right. The Palm Pre keyboard has a slight offset, and as a result is much easier to use.

The added camera bevel on the back of the device also means that you can’t rest the N900 flat on a surface, which makes typing even harder, although the bevel does hide an angled stand for watching media on your phone.

Add this to the lack of input correction, and you’re left wondering about whether the added weight, size and complexity of a real physical keyboard is the best possible solution for the N900.

HTC Legend: hardware

There are dozens of different Android devices, all with different specifications, from the size of their memory to the resolution of the screens. Which one you choose generally comes down to price and performance, but the dominant manufacturer is currently HTC.

It builds Google’s Nexus One, currently the flag bearer of the enterprise, as well as its own Android devices, the two most recent of which are the HTC Desire and Legend.

The HTC Legend shows how far HTC has come with its designs since the release of the iPhone. It’s smaller, thinner, lighter and has a better, brighter, capacitive OLED screen, even if it is at the same resolution.

The most striking part of the design seems to have taken a leaf out of Apple’s book, as the entire case is made out of a single piece of aluminium.

The front of the device has five keys: one for accessing the home screen, another for opening the menu, one for Back and another for Search. Just below these is an optical track button, which seems to operate a little like the underside of an optical mouse. It depresses, as you’d expect, but you can also move your finger across its surface to move a hidden cursor around the screen.

You’ll also find a 5MP camera, complete with autofocus and flash, a micro-USB slot for connection to your computer, and on the inside, the standard array of GPS, proximity, G-force and ambient light sensors.

A hidden MicroSD card slot is present for storage, and you’ll need to add this to the price as you’ll need storage to hold apps, photographs and data.

Unlike earlier HTC models, there’s no slide-out keyboard. Android’s on-screen replacement is just as viable as the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, although the smaller screen forces the keys to be a little closer together.

The haptic feedback, an effect that quickly vibrates the device when you press a virtual key, is a useful addition that can help when you type quickly.