Ubuntu For Android Announced

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Coming as another pre-Mobile World Congress announcement, the folks over at Canonical have officially announced Ubuntu for Android. Of course, we have seen the earlier “Ubuntu on Devices” bits on the past. But that aside, the more interesting factor here, Ubuntu for Android sounds like it could give some serious competition to Motorola’s Webtop.

In fact, we may go as far as saying that the Ubuntu for Android may be a better experience. But alas, we have yet to use this latest and therefor cannot really comment in terms of how much better it may (or may not) work. Still, we are having a bit of a hard time masking our excitement. Anyway, the folks over at Canonical have stated that “in every dual-core phone, there’s a PC trying to get out.” And well, enter the Ubuntu for Android set-up which promises to bring a “full Ubuntu desktop” from your “docked Android phone.”

Of course, as that first bit goes, there are some hardware requirements. For example, you will need a dual-core 1GHz processor. The other requirements include having 512MB of RAM along with 2GB of free storage space, HDMI out with USB host mode and video acceleration. Additionally, this will require Android 2.3 Gingerbread “or any subsequent version.” In short, think newer model phones. But then again, that is most likely not going to be an issue because we are still waiting on a release.

In terms of when this can be expected, that still seems to be up in the air a little bit. However it was noted that;

“Newer multi-core processors are up to the job, and Ubuntu is the killer app for that hot hardware. It’s the must-have feature for late-2012 high-end Android phones.”

Otherwise, the feature set looks to include goodies such as secure full-featured web browsing, unified contacts, calendar coordination, messaging and calls, integrated settings, photos and social networking. Some of the default apps for Ubuntu on Android include the Chromium web browser, Thunderbird email client, Gwibber, VLC Player, Ubuntu Music Player, Ubuntu Photo Gallery, the Android dialer and Google services to include Calendar and Docs.

Bottom line, if you were excited about the Motorola Webtop setup but feeling like it was missing something, you may want to check out Ubuntu for Android once it comes available later in the year. And with that, we hope to hear a bit more once Mobile World Congress kicks off.