BQ Aquaris E4.5 is the first Ubuntu phone,on sale today

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BY Unknown 23:11 0

BQ Aquaris E4.5 is the first Ubuntu phone,on sale today

The wait is finally over for the Ubuntu OS to become commercially available on a smartphone. As planned, the BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubunto Edition is being launched today in Europe.

The Aquaris E4.5 is not an entirely new device, it's been available for some time booting Android KitKat. The specsheet of the smartphone is nothing to write home about, but it's still a balanced package.

The name reveals the screen size of 4.5 inches, and the qHD resolution of the IPS panel results in a pixel density of 244ppi. Running the show is a Mediatek chipset with its Cortex-A7 CPU clocked at 1.3GHz. A single gig of RAM is onboard as well as 8GB of internal storage, of which 5.5GB are available to the user. A microSD slot offers expansion up to 32GB.

The dual-SIM phone is limited in connectivity options, only packing radios for 850/900/1800/1900MHz GSM bands and 900/2100MHz 3G. Battery capacity is 2150mAh, stuffed in a 137 x 67 x 9 mm body weighing 123g.

Hardware is not the main topic here, though, the new OS is. The Ubuntu for smartphone has long been in the works, and after years of development British company Canonical has managed to bring it to market. The new mobile OS is unique in concept, ditching the common app grid in favor of content-grouped tabs. Dubbed Scopes, the innovative interface learns from previous experience and aggregates user-specific content in easy to navigate panes.

The BQ Aquaris E4.5 will be available online starting today for a price of €170. Stay tuned to the @bqreaders and @ubunto twitter accounts to find out how and where you can grab one.

BQ Aquaris E4.5 is the first Ubuntu phone, launches next week

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BY Unknown 02:44 0

BQ Aquaris E4.5 is the first Ubuntu phone, launches next week

The ever elusive 'Ubuntu phone' concept is finally about to become reality. After the failed Ubuntu Edge campaign, Canonical (the company behind the OS) turned to partnerships with mobile device makers in order to get its software into the hands of consumers.

We've been hearing that the first Ubuntu phone will launch soon for a very long time now, but that's actually going to happen next week, believe it or not. That said, the first Ubuntu smartphone will be anything but a flagship.

Meet the BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition. It's basically got the exact same hardware as the already available BQ Aquaris E4.5, only that runs Android. Hence the "Ubuntu Edition" moniker.

The phone has a 4.5-inch 540x960 touchscreen, an 8 MP rear camera with dual-LED flash, and a 5 MP front-facing one. Powering things up is a MediaTek chipset with a 1.3 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 processor, aided by 1GB of RAM. Internal storage is 8GB, and the handset comes with dual-SIM support.

Interestingly, BQ will make the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition available through a series of flash sales, the first of which will happen sometime next week. This emulates the model successfully employed by many Chinese companies, especially Xiaomi. The phone will only be out in Europe.

It will be sold unlocked for €169.90 (that's around $192). You'll be able to get a "SIM bundle" at purchase from one of the following carriers: 3 Sweden, amena.com in Spain, giffgaff in the UK, and Portugal Telecom. The device will obviously work on other networks too.