Aava Mobile reveals Virta 2 smartphone development kit, we go hands-on
By Sean Hollister 
posted July 12th 2010 9:12PM
posted July 12th 2010 9:12PM
Whereas the original prototype had a thin, flimsy shell, the Virta 2's gone downright rugged, ditching the iPhone chrome for a more durable gunmetal frame, and there's a full compliment of sensors (compass, accelerometer, ambient light and proximity) alongside quad-band radios, WiFi, Bluetooth and a pair of cameras for your video chat testing needs. At €1900 (roughly $2393) per unit, the dev handset isn't exactly cheap, but where else are you going to get an Atom Z600 to play around with? Devices ship late August or early September, and Aava expects the platform (but not this exact handset) to see commercial availability next year. Find preorders at our source link, if you've got the bankroll.
So the first Moorestown handset will run Meego after all. All is right with the world
@Edobe Yeah good thing. Now I'll be waiting for a handset from Nokia that would run Meego. Note that N9 MIGHT not run Meego coz:
1. Nokia said that N8 is the last N-series device to run S^3. This means that they could go for meego OR S^4. No one can tell.
2. They might just create a whole new series of devices that run the MeeGo instead of bringing it to N-series.
And I think 2. is a great idea. Hope Nokia would do that.
@statickeith
Yes, it is very much possible to have a new series. Remember the leaked Nokia house, which had S-series. Also recently read somewhere, i think in BoFA analyst research report on Nokia(NOK) published on July 7(I think), where they mentioned S-series for Meego. But again, nothing is confirmed until Nokia reveals that in Nokia world.
@Edobe
What a great hand on...
@huzzlehoff
Maybe if it had run the droid they were looking for..
@statickeith
Didn't they say N8 will be the last N-series to use Symbian?
(meaning there won't be any future N-series or they'll run different OS like MeeGo)
I don't recall them saying S^3, but Symbian all-together ... meaning S^4 will hit another series but not the N-series.
Anyone here that can clear this confusion?
@JonE
Guess so
@Kangal Yeah. All the upcoming N Series devices will soon run Meego. While the other handsets will be on S^3/4.
Coo
Did you guys atleast bother to test the call quality on this phone, unlike the iphone 4?
I was gonna post a funny comment but..
@Mr Hett Then you got high?
@Mr Hett: Are you posting from your iPhone4?
you know what? they should mass produce this
hmmm. 4 comments on this, 556 comments on iphone 4 problems.
@ryandavid1a
Tells you what Engadget has become doesn't it?
Mob mentality at its greatest....
@ryandavid1a thats why im hoping Meego to take over the whole smartphone market. In fact, hoping to create a whole new category. May be something like a 'superphone'
It has quite a lot of potential and with proper hardware and software finish, Nokia and Intel can "reinvent" the SMARTPHONE.
@BrookLynnsFinest
...here you are defending Apple in a post which has nothing to do with them.
Tells us all we need to know about you.
Blind ignorance at it's finest.
@statickeith
lol! yea....meego>Android, iOS,
good luck with that
@johnston9234 and windows mobile
Great device. Very heavy price.
For some reason I have more interest for Meego on tablets.
The interface I saw for the tablet as well as the hardware seems better suited for this application. Actually, Meego is the only OS that makes me wants a tablet...
Still looking forward to Meego as a whole.
Still cost less than the beer smelling iPhone prototype
Hum, new hardware, but with the N900 @ $400 approx. is starting to look good compared to the $2k +. 1 ghz versus 1.5 I guess is the big diff, any others folks can think worth the $2k ?
@dougbeebe
It is purely a development device built like a tank, with top of the line material and components. Anything that is not mass produced is going to cost a lot of money, given the R&D that goes into its production.
@dougbeebe
The N900 will sort of work, except that multitouch is a hardware requirement and the OS is too big for the internal memory.
I suppose non-corporate developers who want to work on this will need more parts for their beagleboards.
@labrat yeah Meego FTW
@kapanak, yeah I understand that, I guess it's not cheap to be wearing true developer shoes, even if you try to stay as open source as possible, let alone, not be open source and go to the dark side. :)
@dougbeebe
Really this has nothing to do with the software. It's purely hardware related costs.
Standard Mobile phone = production run of 10's of thousands if not 100's to millions.
Dev Device = run's in ~ 100's to thousands. Consumer devices have the luxury of spreading R&D over orders of magnitude more devices.
That and as a company you can always crank up the cost of a product if it's meant to make the client money. Dev devices often get lots of extra mark up.
doesn't one of those screens look like an old version of OSX?
Hopefully Aava survives. Don't want to see Nokia swallowing them.
But then it might be for a better as pretty much non of these companies see the mass production phase.
I would love to see Nokias Harmattan-Meego running on Z600/moorestown, but i'm still a bit out of how they will get +24h of battery life for it.
Seems to sport somewhat high resolution?
@microlith and M3 , I am fully aware of up front hardware cost, especially in a R&D environment. I use to work at a R&D center years ago, but now that I am not, I still desire the new toys to play with, just wish I could afford them. Guess I need a new job at another R&D center or wait to see what develops.
I really don't get the point of a moorestown phone that doesn't run windows. The whole point of ultramobile x86 processors is to get a full desktop experience (complete with the metric shit-ton of existing windows software) in your pocket. If you're going to toss out windows and start from scratch with a new OS, then you're FAR better off with an ARM chip. They're cheaper and much more efficient for devices like this.
@Chip
Its a linux based OS, so x86 makes a lotof applications easier to port.
Intel also want to compete in the market, competition is allways good.
And we dont really know aout efficiency, perhaps the first generation will use more power, but give better performance. And the second only slightly more power and deliver really well on performance.
Why diss something that has not even reached the customers in its first generation.