July 4 was the date, but hey, what's the harm in opening up the floodgates just a handful of hours early? Get past the lack of 3G, EDGE, camera, and a rock-solid set of tested, commercialized apps, and open-source phoning nirvana can now be yours for $399 on the plastic.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Last we heard form Openmoko, it was packing and shipping the open-source FreeRunner for an early July release. So, here we are in early July and wouldn't you know it, the FreeRunner will be available for order starting Friday, July 4 with shipping to begin on Monday, July 7. As for details, we got 'em. The shipped version of the phone will come in both 850Mhz and 900Mhz Tri-band GSM flavors with a 2.8-inch VGA touchscreen, WiFi, AGPS, GPRS 2.6G, Bluetooth 2.0, 128MB WSDRAM, and 256MB NAND flash. If you're down with all that, look to pay $399 on Friday at www.openmoko.com.

Unless you're very, very special, you haven't yet had an opportunity to run your hands over Openmoko's latest open-source creation, the FreeRunner, which was announced several months back with the hope of a spring release. Unlike the Neo1973 before it, the FreeRunner's said to be chock full of enough spit and polish to take on an audience larger than the original's hardcore developer base, and while a springtime date with destiny is now out of reach, it looks like they'll only miss the mark by a few days. A recent message from Openmoko's VP of marketing on the community listserv said that the retail phones should be packed and shipped by tomorrow and -- if all goes well, of course -- should clear customs by the first of July, meaning buyers should be able to get them delivered in the first week or two of the month. If they'd been able to squeeze in 3G, we'd hardly be able to contain ourselves, but even as it is, we suspect there's enough buzz to get units sold; let's just hope they're already hard at work on version three.

[Via The Inquirer Spanish]

The FreeRunner is FreeRunning a little late on its way into devs' hands, but that's not stopping OpenMoko from shipping out a few units early to VIPs, apparently. Monochrome Mentality was the lucky recipient recently of one of the very first FreeRunners served piping hot off the assembly line, and the impressions are generally positive. Buyers will notice the spit and polish the second they lay eyes on the box the FreeRunner comes in, a sign that OpenMoko's trying to move their open-source model away (well, not necessarily away) from the hardcore geeks and toward a broader consumer market. WiFi and motion sensors are the hallmark features the FreeRunner boasts over its Neo1973 predecessor, but visually, the new model takes a more subdued approach with black rings replacing the silver ones. Minor modifications include programmable LEDs embedded in the buttons, host mode support for the USB port (pretty cool!), and a whole pile of accessories in the box -- a good thing, considering the $399 price tag.

OpenMoko's first model, the Neo1973, has been sold out for some time now -- a testament to the popularity of the open-source phone concept, yes, but also a huge pain in the rear for new folks looking to get in on the action. That drought is thankfully about to end, though, with the introduction of the FreeRunner, a refreshed model that carries over the best parts of the Neo (think VGA touchscreen) while adding a few key features like three-axis motion detection and a faster processor. The group has just announced pricing on the latest model, and it comes in at a very consumer-friendly $399 -- unlocked, naturally -- which should allow a whole new group of hackers and Joe Regulars to join in the Linux free-for-all. Anyone needing ten or more will get an even better deal: $369, to be exact. It looks like the company's studying production samples right now, and if all goes well, we'll still see them in the pipe before the month's out.

[Via PHONE Magazine]

We're not too sure what to make of Koolu's Works Everywhere (W.E.) phone, but if the company actually manages to deliver on its spec sheet, we'll be duly impressed. It looks like the W.E. will run Android on top of a newer rev of OpenMoko's Neo1973 / FreeRunner hardware, with a VGA screen, 400Mhz processor, tri-band cell radio, WiFi, 256MB of flash, GPS, and MicroSD expansion, but we're not buying it when the company promises compatibility with 700MHz networks in the future -- Verizon hasn't really said what system it's going to deploy on its new spectrum. What's more, the website says the W.E. Phone will only be made available to Google Apps customers through wireless ISPs in the summer of 2008 -- totally fishy. Considering the day, we called and confirmed that it's real, but we'll wait for some more details before we give in to that sweet Debian tartan weave.

[Thanks, Stephen]

By the very nature of the organization, details of OpenMoko's upcoming FreeRunner are no secret -- quite the opposite, in fact -- but it's always refreshing to see the new kit out and about, doing what it does best (pictured here on the left). This image comes to us from the Bossa Conference in Brazil, where OpenMoko's Mickey Lauer talked up the Neo1973 successor, showed off the device bearing ever-so-slightly updated styling over its big brother (and over the model we saw at CES), and went over a laundry list of its impressive features. Three-axis motion detection is going to be a big win for devs and hobbyists looking to maximize the FreeRunner's potential, but other goodies include Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi (allegedly 802.11n, but that sounds a little optimistic to us), and a Samsung-sourced core humming along at a solid 134MHz better than the model it replaces. Would be nice if we could touch this thing at CTIA next month, yeah?

Without going into too much detail, Digitimes reports that OpenMoko president Sean Moss-Pultz has promised a new version of its Neo1973 open source handset to be unveiled somewhere in the next couple months, making both CeBIT and CTIA distinct possibilities for the big news. Given the scarcity of specifications here, it's entirely possible Moss-Pultz is referring to the retail version of the FreeRunner -- a phone we saw in very, very early form at CES -- but obviously, if we had our druthers, we'd much rather see another volley of brand new hardware come out of this. More news on this as we get it.

Mobile Linux flagbearer Trolltech appears to be carrying on at a nice clip in the wake of its acquisition by Nokia, and for its Qtopia Phone Edition platform, things just got a little sweeter. The company is using MWC as its stage to announce version 4.3, which is actually a good deal more revolutionary than its one-tenth increment would lead on. Biggies in the new build include a new UI theme designed to be finger-friendly (which makes total sense considering Trolltech's endorsement of the keypadless Neo1973 as the hackable, Linux-based mobile of choice for the moment), the "Qtopia Sync Agent" which ushers data between a Qtopia device and Microsoft Outlook, and support for Real's Helix DNA media engine, among other things. The goods are already available in beta, open source form from Trolltech's site, so hack away.

[Via Geekzone]

So this is a really early version of the FreeRunner, but mad love to FIC for bringing it out for us all to play with nonetheless. The first thing you'll notice is that it's still sporting its predecessor's "Neo1973" branding, an indiscretion we were promised would be put to bed prior to the scheduled spring launch to OpenMoko's developer community. Anyone used to toting a smartphone of average size could totally get used to carrying the FreeRunner around, which we think is probably key to the device's success outside the enthusiast community. The current build of the software, though, is another matter entirely -- it's in a pretty raw alpha state right now and hugh swaths of core functionality appear to be missing. Then again, they've got a few good weeks until spring, and even then the FreeRunner will find its way into hackers' hands before the masses; they've got some solid-feeling, solid-spec'd hardware here and we're still really hopeful that the final product is going to rock.

So far, OpenMoko's Linux-based open source phones have amounted to little more than a twinkle in the eye of Joe Consumer, instead getting fast-tracked into the hands of developers who hope to make the whole package stable and functional enough for the average buyer to give a flip by the time they're widely available. We'd say that's a solid policy -- especially if these guys hope to fight the oncoming Android steamroller -- and the next volley is about to get fired in the form of the "Neo FreeRunner." The spiritual successor to the original Neo1973 (pictured), the FreeRunner is being billed as a "compelling mass market device" thanks to some key additions: WiFi, motion sensors, a faster 500MHz processor, and 3D graphics acceleration. OpenMoko's previewing the phone at CES next week with shipments following on to developers in the spring in two triband GSM versions, one with North America-friendly 850MHz and the other with 900MHz. Consumer sales are expected to happen after that (shortly after that, hopefully) once the dev community blesses it with solid code.

Seeing the quirky, totally open Greenphone exit stage left brings a tear to our eye, we admit, but at least the torch to a promising successor. Trolltech -- maker of the Greenphone and the Linux-based Qtopia platform it runs -- has announced that they've sold clean out of the handsets having accomplished its reason for existence: hyping Qtopia itself. Trolltech readily admits that it's a software company, and now that Qtopia's out there in developers' hands (and possibly now with a strong ally in Motorola), it returns to its software roots and points in the direction of OpenMoko's up-and-coming Neo1973 open source phone for future devs looking to follow in the Greenphone's footsteps. Of course, the consumer version of the Neo isn't out just yet, but Trolltech says it hopes to be making announcements about support for additional devices in the near future -- so any way you slice it, the spirit of the Greenphone plods happily on.

Trolltech and OpenMoko are pretty much the two patron saints of open source phoning at the moment -- and seeing how it's a nascent market (to say the least), hooking up is probably the right move to make. Trolltech, maker of that crazy green (and aptly named) Greenphone, has ported its Qtopia Phone Edition software stack to OpenMoko's hardware, giving hackers tooling around with their Neo1973s another platform with which to play. Concurrently with the announcement, Trolltech has revealed that its entire Qtopia reference platform is now available under version 2 of the GPL; previously, parts of the package were only available under a commercial license, so this is a pretty big win for the open source community. Whether this all translates to a better experience once the Neo1973 moves from developer platform to retail device remains unclear, but it certainly can't hurt -- and it might mark the passing of the open source torch from the Greenphone to OpenMoko's efforts.

[Via MobileBurn]

Naw, it's not really the truly open and hackable software-defined radio based cellphones we've long lusted after, but the OpenMoko Linux / GNU based GSM platform (and hardware) is finally up for sale. $300 brings home an OpenMoko Neo 1973 (aka Neo Base kit), perfect for getting your OpenMoko app dev project started. $450 brings home the Neo Advanced kit, "everything the mobile device hacker wants to get down and dirty with the first freed phone". Happy hacking.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

End users still have a while to wait for a final, finished product -- October's the current estimate -- but developers looking to get cracking on OpenMoko's open-source handset need only wait a few more days. July 9 is the chosen date for pushing Neo 1973 dev kits out the door in two configurations: Neo Base for $300 and Neo Advanced for $450. Neo Base will include the first-gen handset plus garden variety accessories you'd expect to find in a retail package (headset, stylus, pouch, USB cable, and the like), while the Advanced package adds in some additional hardware for really ripping the phone to shreds and tricking it out. The goal is to make sure devs have a healthy catalog of apps ready by the time Joe Consumer gets his hands on one in a few months, at which point the hardware will be even better with the addition WiFi, 256MB of onboard Flash, two onboard accelerometers, and a faster core. We're countin' on ya, code heads!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]