The BQ Ubuntu Phone Will Be Stocked With Binary Blobs

[droidhacker]

I don't get it, why do manufacturers still put up with this? Cheap chip prices aren't everything.

What makes it even worse, is that they aren't *so* cheap that you could justify it on a cost/performance balance... mediatek *performance* is HORRIBLE. Bad enough that you could buy a "lower spec" qualcomm at the same price, and end up with a better cost/performance ratio.

[Cerberus]

Oh this is ridiculous, Mediatek is the worst SoC vendor and this is non-debatable. Many Android phones were stuck on Android 4.2 until very recently because of Mediatek. Their support package is a buggy mess of Android-only blobs that's never updated. Allwinner almost seems like a saint compared to Mediatek. AFAIR Google even tried to convince Mediatek to open up their stuff because of the popularity of their SoCs, but they weren't successful at all.

I don't get it, why do manufacturers still put up with this? Cheap chip prices aren't everything.

True for Android but it does not seem to affect Ubuntu Touch. As for the bolded part yes the prices are everything for most manufacturers (cheaper chipset means more profits), and even big manufacturers purposefully drop support for their phones in order to force you to buy new ones, it is all about the money, like Sony didnt update Xperia S to 4.4 even though it is more than capable of powering it, or like Samsung didnt update S3 to 4.4 claiming performance issues but then they made S3 Neo with 4.4, and the irony is that 4.4 was designed to perform better on weaker devices, brands are also to blame, not only chipset makers, they dont want to support phones that are 1-2 years old, especially if they are a cheaper model, they want us to buy new phones, for them it is not economically feasible to support "old" phones, especially if they werent their top models when they came out, if they supported older phones with latest Androids many people would not buy new phones, but they would instead save money and buy something else.

[chrisb]

And like I explained in another thread that is not a problem for updates on Ubuntu Touch as it is designed differently from Android, new versions can use "old" drivers just like newer Linux distributions often use "old" drivers that just work even though they havent been updated regularly, Android requires mandatory new drivers when major revisions of Android come out, but it seems Ubuntu Touch does not require that.

Sorry, but this isn't true.. new software will expose latent bugs in drivers. It's inevitable, and it happens all the time with Android. Unless you plan to never, ever release new software, or change the behaviour of existing software, then at some point you hit driver bugs. Ask Google how well the Nexus line is doing with that. Also, security vulnerabilities in drivers... if you never update the drivers, the holes never get fixed. It happens.

[jimbohale]

What makes it even worse, is that they aren't *so* cheap that you could justify it on a cost/performance balance... mediatek *performance* is HORRIBLE. Bad enough that you could buy a "lower spec" qualcomm at the same price, and end up with a better cost/performance ratio.

Do you really believe that it is that easy to purchase Qualcomm hardware? They had to start somewhere, and I suspect that mediatek was the only one who would cooperate. I think that if what you are saying was possible then that's what they would have done, given that they are probably not idiots and have some experience with hardware manufacturing when you clearly don't. Do you think that SoCs are spawned from pixie dust? They have to get a manufacturing deal, and if it's low volume chances are someone like Qualcomm isn't going to care very much and isn't going to work with them.

[curaga]

Allwinner should, and they shouldn't be measurably more expensive, maybe even cheaper. Likewise Rockchip is told to be very cooperative to small batches.

[danielgd]

AFAIR Google even tried to convince Mediatek to open up their stuff because of the popularity of their SoCs, but they weren't successful at all.

Android One is based on Mediatek SoC, so maybe Google did convince them.

[speculatrix]

I think only a few people actually expected a device that would even make RMS happy, but Mediatek is one of the most Linux hostile companies out there.

http://www.xda-developers.com/have-y...e-license-fee/

A friend of mine makes systems with embedded SoCs, and he says it's a waste of time trying to get any sort of technical information from Mediatek even before buying their stuff, and abandoned the attempt to use their product.

I suspect you need to be a really big customer to get their attention. Sony have used them for one of their latest phones, and I wouldn't even be surprised if they get only half-hearted support from Mediatek... that basically means long term support for the phone by Cyanogenmod or others once Sony abandon it, is never going to happen.