4 ms·

Don't think the phone is 100% in house. They're using a base OEM model from someone that happens to have opensource drivers for everything (which makes me think

Don't think the phone is 100% in house. They're using a base OEM model from someone that happens to have opensource drivers for everything (which makes me think it's an older model). But even just for the software, it seems low.

bradfa 9y ago
They say the hardware will use an i.MX6 or i.MX8 SoC, which I assume implies they are using the Freescale/NXP SoCs. i.MX6 isn't really intended for use in phones (afaik) and I don't know of any recent phones which use i.MX6 in them. i.MX8 isn't publicly available yet, but possibly they could leverage some other vendor's hardware phone design using i.MX8. However, based on the schedule they show in the pledge info, they already have the "PureOS I (CPU)" step mostly completed and they plan to be booting the hardware before the end of 2017, so this seems to make i.MX8 unlikely imho.
- swiley 9y ago
  i.MX6 was used in the kindle I believe, which I would be using right now if there was an easy way to add more storage.
  - bradfa 9y ago
    Some Kindles may use i.MX6, likely simply because some i.MX6 versions have an integrated e-paper drive subsystem which avoids the need to use an external e-paper controller. I believe early Kindles used the Epson e-paper drive controller.
    - petecox 9y ago
      Perhaps we'll see an e-ink smartphone other than the recently announced Yotaphone 3!
kogepathic 9y ago
> They're using a base OEM model from someone that happens to have opensource drivers for everything (which makes me think it's an older model). I... don't think that's the case here. In the specifications they state: CPU separate from Baseband My reading is that modem is connected to the CPU via USB. The only other project I know of that was looking at doing such a thing were the OpenMoko guys (GTA04 with an OMAP3xxx, I think? My memory is fuzzy on this). AFIAK, there are no 3G/4G modems with an open source baseband. So the traditional route for libre/privacy conscious people has been to isolate the baseband from the application processor via USB. Normal phones have the baseband and SoC integrated on the same SoC and connected via a high speed serial bus. On further reading, it's going to be an i.MX6 (because i.MX8 is not available yet and you don't typically use unreleased SoCs for your libre hardware) which is pretty inefficient by modern ARM SoC standards. So this is essentially a small tablet running Linux with an integrated cellular modem.
- sounds 9y ago
  Yup. On their site: "will work with 2G/3G/4G, GSM, UMTS, and LTE" If it's using something like this: http://a.co/9IVPmkI http://a.co/9IVPmkI -- then maybe it's using the USB pins on a mini PCIe card. I think it would be wise to wait until they have committed to a particular cell modem. Most people will not be able to use a phone day to day if it suffers from: • Dropped calls • Bad call quality • Low speed data (anything less than 4G/LTE)
  - kogepathic 9y ago
    > then maybe it's using the USB pins on a mini PCIe card. Every mini-PCIe cellular modem I've seen interfaces via USB and not via native PCIe. You can even buy adapters to use a mini-PCIe modem as a USB modem. [0] I don't think this is standardized, but it seems to be the defacto standard for all modems in this form factor. Now this may change once LTE/5G speeds regularly exceed what USB 2.0 is capable of since mini-PCIe does not provide pins for USB 3.0, the standard is too old. I would guess they'll move to NGFF as that's already the case for newer business notebooks which offer a WWAN slot. [0] https://www.amazon.com/PCI-E-Adapter-Module-Support-connector/dp/B01FCU61TG/ https://www.amazon.com/PCI-E-Adapter-Module-Support-connecto...

bradfa 9y ago

They say the hardware will use an i.MX6 or i.MX8 SoC, which I assume implies they are using the Freescale/NXP SoCs. i.MX6 isn't really intended for use in phones (afaik) and I don't know of any recent phones which use i.MX6 in them. i.MX8 isn't publicly available yet, but possibly they could leverage some other vendor's hardware phone design using i.MX8. However, based on the schedule they show in the pledge info, they already have the "PureOS I (CPU)" step mostly completed and they plan to be booting the hardware before the end of 2017, so this seems to make i.MX8 unlikely imho.

swiley 9y ago
i.MX6 was used in the kindle I believe, which I would be using right now if there was an easy way to add more storage.
- bradfa 9y ago
  Some Kindles may use i.MX6, likely simply because some i.MX6 versions have an integrated e-paper drive subsystem which avoids the need to use an external e-paper controller. I believe early Kindles used the Epson e-paper drive controller.
  - petecox 9y ago
    Perhaps we'll see an e-ink smartphone other than the recently announced Yotaphone 3!

kogepathic 9y ago

> They're using a base OEM model from someone that happens to have opensource drivers for everything (which makes me think it's an older model). I... don't think that's the case here. In the specifications they state: CPU separate from Baseband My reading is that modem is connected to the CPU via USB. The only other project I know of that was looking at doing such a thing were the OpenMoko guys (GTA04 with an OMAP3xxx, I think? My memory is fuzzy on this). AFIAK, there are no 3G/4G modems with an open source baseband. So the traditional route for libre/privacy conscious people has been to isolate the baseband from the application processor via USB. Normal phones have the baseband and SoC integrated on the same SoC and connected via a high speed serial bus. On further reading, it's going to be an i.MX6 (because i.MX8 is not available yet and you don't typically use unreleased SoCs for your libre hardware) which is pretty inefficient by modern ARM SoC standards. So this is essentially a small tablet running Linux with an integrated cellular modem.

sounds 9y ago
Yup. On their site: "will work with 2G/3G/4G, GSM, UMTS, and LTE" If it's using something like this: http://a.co/9IVPmkI http://a.co/9IVPmkI -- then maybe it's using the USB pins on a mini PCIe card. I think it would be wise to wait until they have committed to a particular cell modem. Most people will not be able to use a phone day to day if it suffers from: • Dropped calls • Bad call quality • Low speed data (anything less than 4G/LTE)
- kogepathic 9y ago
  > then maybe it's using the USB pins on a mini PCIe card. Every mini-PCIe cellular modem I've seen interfaces via USB and not via native PCIe. You can even buy adapters to use a mini-PCIe modem as a USB modem. [0] I don't think this is standardized, but it seems to be the defacto standard for all modems in this form factor. Now this may change once LTE/5G speeds regularly exceed what USB 2.0 is capable of since mini-PCIe does not provide pins for USB 3.0, the standard is too old. I would guess they'll move to NGFF as that's already the case for newer business notebooks which offer a WWAN slot. [0] https://www.amazon.com/PCI-E-Adapter-Module-Support-connector/dp/B01FCU61TG/ https://www.amazon.com/PCI-E-Adapter-Module-Support-connecto...