Ubuntu Edge, a revolutionary new smartphone that tried to gather enough funds in one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns ever made, is still wanted by many Linux and Ubuntu fans.

Back in July 2013, Canonical proposed a new type of smartphone, an extremely powerful device that would be built with the best the industry had to offer at that point. It's safe to say that it attracted a lot of attention and that people keep wondering if there still is a chance to see something like it.

The crowdfunding campaign aimed to raise $32 million (€25.3 million), but it fell short and only managed to gather $12.8 million (€10 million). Even with less than half of what it needed for this project to succeed, Ubuntu Edge still remains one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Ubuntu Edge lives?

Canonical's founder, Mark Shuttleworth, has been asked numerous times if Ubuntu Edge will eventually be built. Right after the campaign failed to raise all the funds, Mark didn't say that it would never happen. In fact, he said this: "All of the support and publicity has continued to drive our discussions with some major manufacturers." There was still some hope.

Not many things have been heard since then, and Mark eventually said that Edge would not happen and that the focus of the development team was on the upcoming Ubuntu Touch. Ubuntu Edge is still a desired item, something that people talk about, even if it never actually existed.

Ubuntu Edge would have been very hard to bend

The main reason this phone was so attractive was the fact that it was supposed to incorporate the best hardware that could be found at that time, a quad-core processor, at least 4GB of RAM, and internal storage of 128GB. These specifications might have been even better by the time it launched.

The case was supposed to be built from an amorphous metal, machined, light, and extremely strong, the silicon-anode Li-Ion battery was the best of its kind and still experimental, and the screen would have been pure sapphire glass. By the way, the company that makes said sapphire glass was bought by Apple a few months after the Ubuntu Edge campaign fell through.

Ubuntu Edge is still an inspiration

People still remember Ubuntu Edge because it had something that no other device had – the customer in mind. Canonical wanted the best they could find for a very slim niche of users that could afford it. It was like a supercar. Very few people can afford a Bugatti Veyron, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us don't enjoy seeing it in action.

It also demonstrated another thing. Current hardware companies, like Apple, Samsung, HTC, and all the rest are more interested in the immediate profit than offering something interesting and unique. They always choose the safe option. Ubuntu Edge was anything but that. It was exciting, beautiful, and captured the imagination. And people still want it.