Well I am one of the people that have been selected for the Qtopia Greenphone grant.  My application proposal was to do content post via the greenphone using  XML-RPC calls to the Drupal Content Management System.  I discussed this with my professor [Dr. Charles Wallace] and he is allowing me to do this to finish up a few credits I need to earn my degree in Software Engineering from Michigan Tech.  So over the next few months I will be developing this application and releasing it to the open source community.

A few problems I have already noticed while starting to play with the phone. The reception seems poor on it. Although I am not in my normal coverage area this may change, but I was able to yank my SIM card out of my current phone and just toss it in the greenphone, turn it on and it connected to my provider.  Also there is no way of notifying me that I have voicemail. Some other limitations I have found is that since it is using a 2.4.x linux kernel there is no support for microSD cards over 512Mb. So that sort of ruins the idea of it replacing my portable mp3 player. It also supposedly supports video, but I haven't tested this yet.  A few other issues I have for it is that it doesn't have built in WiFi support but supposedly can connect if I get a WiFi microSD card.  The battery doesn't seem to last very long, but that could be because I'm doing the initial burn in for it's lifespan, so that may change with time. There is also no internet browser for it, which I was very disappointed with, but there are rumors floating around that Opera is being ported to it.

Another issue I have found is that there is no package repository.  I own a Zaurus SL-5500 which runs a 266Mhz ARM processor and uses Qtopia as the desktop environment. Where as the greenphone is very simliar using a 312Mhz ARM processor and the same type of desktop environment. There is package repositories for the Zaurus, but I haven't found any for the greenphone.  I am considering setting up a repository for packages if there is enough interest on the forums. I will continue to post my thoughts on the greenphone as my project progresses. Below is a video I made that gives a basic visual of it. Either way I would like to thank Trolltech for hooking me up with the phone.