Ubuntu smartphones to cost between $200 and $400
The first Ubuntu smartphones are expected to be shipped in autumn this year. Meizu and BQ will manufacture the first Ubuntu smartphones.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical which develops Ubuntu, has said that the smartphones running Ubuntu mobile operating systems “will come out in the mid-higher edge, so $200 to $400.”
“We are going with the higher end because we want people who are looking for a very sharp, beautiful experience and because our ambition is to be selling the future PC, the future personal computing engine.” Shuttleworth said while speaking at Cebit, which is the world’s largest and most international computer expo.
Canonical expects to have its highest-end Ubuntu phone to become full PCs when docked with a monitor, mouse and keyboard. The company has already tied up with phone manufacturers like Meizu and BQ earlier this year to produce the first Ubuntu smartphones. Recently, Canonical failed to raise $32m earlier in an effort to develop the Ubuntu Edge which would have been a premium smartphone with prices ranging from $600 to $830.
Shuttleworth has said that the firm was not targeting iPhone users, who he said have an “emotional connection” to the Apple ecosystem and was therefore only competing against Android which he believes “wasn’t designed or built to be a user’s personal computer.”
The firm is yet to reveal the specs of the upcoming phones that will be developed by Meizu and BQ. A Canonical spokesperson has confirmed to Ars Technica that the prices quoted by Shuttleworth for the upcoming smartphones are the off-contract, unsubsidized guide prices.
Source: The Inquirer