By The General Mobile DSTL1 is a good looking Android handset that was spotted in late January and then made an appearance at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company behind the phone a Chinese ODM named Yuhua and they’ve got a new phone that is ready – right now – for an OEM to pick up and start making.
It’s called the Xphone-SDK and many of the elements, like the 3-inch Sharp touchscreen and tri-band GPRS/EDGE, are shared with the DSTL1. We’re hoping that a manufcaturer picks this up and works with a carrier to bring it live ASAP. It’s not amazing as you can see by the specs below, but it’s capable and you can never have too many Androids. Highlights include a 3MP camera (no flash), Bluetooth, WiFi and of course… ANDROID!
- Processor — Marvell PXA-310 624Mhz
- Memory — 128MB SDRAM; 256MB internal ROM
- Flash — MicroSD card slot for up to 16GB external
- Cellular — 900/1800/1900MHz GPRS/EDGE
- Display — 3-inch TFT WQVGA (240 x 400)
- WiFi — 802.11b/g
- Bluetooth — Bluetooth 2.0
- Camera — 3Mpix camera (no flash)
- Video playback — H.264, streaming, 3GPP, MPEG4, Codec 3GP
- Audio playback — G-streamer based engine supports major codec media files, including MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, MPEG4, WAV, MIDI
- Image support — JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF
- Web and messaging — HTTP, WAP Push, xHTML, SMS, MMS
- Other features — Data kits for USB/JTAG connectivity
- Battery — 1000mAh
- Operating system — Android (Linux/Java)
[Via LinuxDevices, AndroidAuthority]
Would certainly like to see this … but obviously it’s pointless until there is a fully functional image of cupcake since there is no keyboard. I really don’t mind the cheap chinese knock off … $100 for a phone running android that looks this slick is fine with me.
Looks like vaporware to me. Until I see photos of the product in the wild running Android, I don’t think it will ever see the light of day. There will be some revisions to the original concept and possibly die off slowly from the media and never make it to the market. From what I read, Kogan hit a bump with the lack of a physical menu button and had to redesign quite abit to make it work with Android hence the holdup. I see that this device may lack some physical features that even Cupcake won’t address.
Lets asume the middle button could be either one of these items: Home Key, back button, menu butoon, or some type of directional pad with an enter key. Eliminating any one of those features will make navigating the device that much harder. Without the physical menu button you could not bring up additional options, without the home key how would you get back to the main screen, and so forth.
Android was designed to have some physical key presence. I don’t see how this device can successfully navigate Android and at this piont its probably just hype for investors.
1) not quadband GSM
2) no keyboard
3) chinese phone with only 1 SIM card? … I call shenanigans!
But… No GPS??
What? no FM receiver? With multi-wireless systems available within a single chip, (Broadcom BCM4325 and BCM2075) it is unacceptable to keep delivering products that do not have radios.
3 mega pixel camera & no flash is it still 2008??? % mega pixel & flash (xenon)????
No accelerometer?
No GPS?
256 mb of internal memory?
Sorry, this phone is not going to make the cut. At least not for android.
I am looking for a mobile with linux O.S. Really good feedback. Thanks to all who left comments. =)
Just in case someone comes across this article and its fallacious comments, I thought I’d clarify a few things.
This phone is out and has been for some time. It runs Cupcake, and there are currently betas of Donut.
I own the Sciphone N21. Exact same phone (not a knock-off, *SAME PHONE*). It’s cheaper. Difference being it comes with only one battery, no desktop charger, and a 1GB TF card instead of a 4GB.
The camera is a 5.0MP Sony, the screen is a Sharp resistive touchscreen, no 3G, it *DOES* have FM radio, takes two sims, and handles them pretty cleanly.
No GPS or accelerometer, but does have a tilt sensor so the screen can flip modes when rotated.