Canonical looks to Indiegogo to crowdfund the Ubuntu Edge smartphone

Ubuntu developer Canonical has started a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo. The aim of the campaign is to raise $32,000,000 to develop a new smartphone, dubbed the Ubuntu Edge. The smartphone will be able to dual-boot on both Android as well as the open-source Ubuntu Mobile operating system. Getting your hands on the phone could be a pricey affair, however, since the minimum backing required to get the handset is $830 (Rs 49,600 approx).

It IS quite a good looking phone

The handset itself is quite powerful. It is going to have at least 4GB of RAM and Canonical has stated that it will be scouring the earth for the “fastest available multi-core processor”. For the display, the company is opting for a safe 4.5-inch screen size with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, which it deems is perfect for the gesture-heavy UI of Ubuntu mobile. The display will be protected not by Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail. Instead, Canonical will be shoving pure sapphire crystal on to the handset. To top things off, it will have 128GB of internal storage space, an LTE chip and HDMI port.

Other features include an 8 megapixel low-light camera on the back, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera, Bluetooth 4, NFC, an MHL connector, Wi-Fi. All of this will be kept alive by a Silicon-anode Li-Ion battery with an unspecified capacity.

On the software side of things, the Ubuntu Edge will dual-boot with Ubuntu phone OS and Android, and will also have the capability to turn into a full-scale Ubuntu desktop PC whenever it is connected to a computer. Ubuntu desktop can be launched from either Ubuntu phone or Android.