Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Well, I threw out a rope asking for questions, and you guys threw me back a noose. So many questions! I’ll try to answer as many as I can throughout the review, and I’m hoping I can get an interview with someone from Canonical to answer the more technical questions.
I’m purposely going to skim through the obligatory first switch on and basic usage as these things are mentioned in almost every review. I want to get to the real meat of things which is what you folks have asked.
Turned On
The first thing to do with the phone is to insert a SIM card. This is the first unusual thing about the Ubuntu Phone; it can take two SIM cards. Also, since many of you asked, yes, it is unlocked. When you first switch on the phone, don’t panic about the long boot time, it’s much faster thereafter. You are asked to sign in using Ubuntu One. That confused me. I know Ubuntu One only as the cloud hosting that was closed down a while back. Anyway, I signed up for an account and was signed in to my phone. You can also add accounts from Evernote, SoundCloud, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Fitbit, Instagram, Vimeo, and Google.
Swiping
Since using Ubuntu on a phone is different from Android and iOS, you’re greeted with a tutorial that tells you all about the swiping. Ubuntu Phones use swiping from all sides of the screen and can have either a short swipe, or a long swipe. For example: a swipe for a short distance from the left to the right will bring in the side menu, but swiping longer will wipe away the current screen and return you to the Today scope. A short swipe from the left will switch to the previous app, a longer swipe will show a carousel of previously run apps to switch to. Scopes?
Speaking of scopes. Scopes are effectively screens that you can swipe between. There’s no desktop on Ubuntu Phones so you’re greeted with the Today scope which shows you basic info such as weather, missed calls, news, etc. It’s known as an aggregated scope as it pulls its info from elsewhere. Swipe right to left and you’ll see the next scope, and so on. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen will get you a list of possible scopes which you can add by pressing the star icon, or hold down on a scope in the list to rearrange your scopes.
Available scopes range from Amazon to eBay, BBC News to Flickr, Grooveshark, Soundcloud, Vimeo, YouTube, and everything in between. Just remember though: most of these scopes are really just links to their mobile website in a pretty webapp.
The Apps
The phone comes with apps for phone calls, SMS, contacts, camera, gallery, playing media, reminders, tasks, but also webapps for Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Twitter. It even comes with Cut The Rope, the first well known title to get an Ubuntu edition.
For messaging, a lot of you asked about WhatsApp. While there’s no version, as of writing; the phone does have Telegram which lets you message in a similar vein to WhatsApp, but it does require that your friends also have Telegram installed.
Regarding contacts. While I did add my Google accounts, it didn’t sync my contacts across. It did say something about syncing, but my contacts were (and still are) empty. You do need to enable access to G+, Gmail and Contacts in the account settings. Even with them on, I got no contacts. What about you, travellers… does it have maps to stop you from getting lost? Yes it does. It uses HERE Maps by default. Of course, you can install a Google Maps webapp if you like. HERE (from Nokia) has similar functionality to Google Maps – with satellite imagery and navigation. You can have map/satellite views – with public transport and live traffic layers if required. Navigation can be via car, walking or public transport.
Adding Apps
In the Apps scope, at the bottom, there’s a nice big red button to take you to the Ubuntu Store. It’s from here that you install new apps. Initially you see an ‘app of the week’; then scrolling down you see top apps, game of the week, etc. At the top is a drop-down menu with categories, or you can press the magnifying glass icon to search for apps. Having found your app (reviews and ratings are shown on the app page), you simply click the ‘Install’ button and wait for your app to install. Easy as that.
Many of you asked about Google apps. Well, the good news is that there are apps to get you Gmail, Maps, Drive, and the like. One particularly handy app is simply called Gmail (the app is by Canonical), and it’s a webapp that grants you access to Gmail, G+, YouTube, et al, and lets you sign in with multiple accounts and so on. Very handy. There’s even an app for Google Drive. You can’t edit documents with it, but you can view them.
Speaking of cloud storage. Dropbox? Yes, there’s an app for that too. Several of you asked about OneDrive. Yes, there’s one for that too, and, while on the subject of Microsoft, there’s also a webapp for Outlook. As the creator JoshStrobl says: any missing functionality is the fault of Microsoft. These webapps are, again, mobile web pages. What you get here is what you get in a mobile web browser.
Several of you crazy people asked about the availability of a terminal within the Ubuntu Phone. I’m happy to report that there is a terminal app that can be installed. Now, I’m no expert (not by any means) at the terminal, so I tried only some basic listing and directory commands, but they all worked as they would in Ubuntu (desktop). I typed apt-get and it gave me the help for it. Same with ssh. So it would seem that it’s a fully functioning terminal.
I’ve yet to find a document viewer app that will display .DOC or .ODT files, but there are several text and PDF viewers that work just fine and at least one app that lets you create markdown documents in ODT/PDF.
If you’re curious about what’s in the Ubuntu Store, there’s an unofficial site here: https://appstore.bhdouglass.com/apps which shows the apps available.
Settings
System Settings > Network
This lets you turn on/off WiFi and, of course, connect. Mobile lets you turn on/off mobile data and roaming. It’s here that you see the first mention of 2G/3G. That’s right. No 4G. But that doesn’t worry me as I have no 4G reception where I live. Bluetooth. This is where it’s a bit odd. It seems that while the Bluetooth is, technically, functioning, it won’t accept incoming files/connections. I got it to recognise my Nexus 5, but it wouldn’t accept anything I sent over. Looking at the specs, it says (and I quote): “software not currently integrated”. I can only hope they integrate it soon. I hardly use Bluetooth (if ever) but it seems a lot of you like it.
System Settings > Personal
In here, you can change the default background and set your sounds for ringtone and messages. There are pages of languages to choose from. I’m pretty sure you’re covered here. Accounts is where you add your Facebook/Google/UbuntuOne, and notifications is where you can turn on/off popups from Telegram, Gmail, Twitter, etc.
System Settings > System
Pressing the Battery icon gives you a nice graph of your battery usage while Brightness lets you alter just that. Phone lets you turn on/off button sounds, while time & date let you alter that too. Security & Privacy is certainly something a lot of you were concerned about and in here is where you can set a lock type (code or passphrase) and time until lock. Set a SIM pin, show/hide stats on the welcome screen, and where to search (phone and/or internet). Location Access shows you which apps would like that property and whether it is on/off for that app. Diagnostics lets you send (or not) crash data to Canonical. Lastly, Updates lets you check for software updates to install.
The only two remaining options are ‘About this phone’ (which gives serial, IMEI, storage, software and update info) and ‘Reset phone’.
Hardware
Quite a few people are doubtful of the hardware. While the phone is mid-to-low range with only 1GB of RAM, it can still handle Ubuntu. Swiping is smooth and while there is sometimes a swirling circle when something is loading, it’s a second at very most. Hardly the end of the world!
Battery life is as good as any other phone. I spent several hours tinkering with it, installing and uninstalling apps, keeping the screen on while typing this review and, after three hours, it’s barely dropped by 20%.
Some folks were asking about storage. While it does only come with 8GB, Ubuntu uses 2.5GB and, after installing quite a few apps, I still have 4GB free on the device. The phone does accept microSD cards so storage shouldn’t be a problem.
Don’t expect DSLR photographs with the camera, but it’s certainly more than capable of taking a good photo. Indoors it does look grainy, but outdoors it looks OK. The back camera is 8MP with the front one being 5MP, and video being in full HD quality. To get your media to/from the phone, you can use either something like a Google Drive, or DropBox app, to send it to the cloud for later retrieval. Or, if you’re old school and want to use a cable, then it showed as a portable media player in my Kubuntu 14.10. I dragged photos (taken with my Nexus 5) to it and they showed up just fine in the Gallery app.
Some people are also confusing the Kickstarter Ubuntu Edge phone with this BQ one. This one certainly, not sure about future ones, does not boot Ubuntu to a desktop PC/monitor from a dock.
Updates are done, as stated previously, using the System Settings. No sooner did I have mine out of the box and booting than it was telling me there was an Ubuntu update and several app updates, so here’s hoping the updates continue often.
So far, I’m really impressed with the Ubuntu Phone. It’s quick, smooth, cheap, uses Linux, and has good app support – even this early. I like it. What annoys me from other reviews and naysayers is that those people seem to forget that this is a phone that’s coming in at under €200 (€169.90 as I write). It’s great value for money.
Availability
This is the tricky bit. Since demand is unknown, the phone is available only through so called ‘flash sales’ on the BQ.com website. You need to keep an eye on various Ubuntu and BQ sites and social media pages to check availability. Sorry non-Euro’s, the sales are in the EU only.
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Ubuntu On My Device?
Several folks asked about the possibility of installing Ubuntu Phone on their existing device. While I know very little on the subject, it seems it can be done. A compatibility list is being kept at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
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SPECS: Screen Dimension: 4.5” Technology: IPS multi-touch screen, 5 capacitive points. Protective Dragontrail display Layer Resolution: qHD 540 x 960 - 240 ppi (HDPI) Aspect ratio: 16:9 Dimensions and weight Dimensions: 137 x 67 x 9 mm Weight: 123 g Processor CPU: Quad Core Cortex A7 up to 1.3 GHz MediaTek GPU: Mali 400 up to 500 MHz Memory Internal memory: 8 GB Ram: 1 GB Battery LiPo 2150 mAh Connections dual micro-SIM micro-USB OTG slot, Bluetooth® 4.0 hardware compatibility (software not currently integrated). 3.5 mm TRRS headphone jack (CTIA) MicroSD slot, up to 32 GB Connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth® 4.0, Bluetooth® 4.0 hardware compatibility (software not currently integrated). 2G GSM (850/900/1800/1900) 3G HSPA+ (900/2100) GPS and A-GPS Interface Operating System: Ubuntu Languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, and many others Camera Rear: 8 Mpx (Dual-flash and autofocus) Video resolution: Full HD (1080p) Frontal: 5 Mpx Sensors Brightness sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer, eCompass, gyroscope Other system functions LED notification, microphone, noise canceller