These days there is more competition in the mobile space than there ever has been, between Android and iOS with the Lion's share of the market and Microsoft and RIM fighting for third place, there doesnt' seem like there's room for anyone else. Well, now there's also Tizen, Firefox OS and now Ubuntu Phone throwing their lot into the ring to see if they can make a go of it in the mobile space and while there's little to suggest that they'll make any headway into the arena it's good to see some competition emerging in the mobile OS game and for me, a big Ubuntu fan of years, to see them entering the space is particularly exciting.

Hardware running Ubuntu Phone has little to no details and it's said that phones already running Android will become a sort of testbed before partnerships with companies are formed. Meanwhile, if you want to get a taste of Ubuntu on touchscreens and in a mobile context, then the Kite tablet might be a good option for you. The Kite tablet is a device that runs Android 4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 for ARM all on one device, dual-boot style. Pretty cool, right?

Specs wise, the Kite comes packing the following:


10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 IPS display

Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core processor

2GB of RAM

32GB of internal storage

a front-facing VGA camera with rear-facing 2-megapixel shooter

So, while there's no Tegra 4 or S4 Pro on offer there is a decent display resolution that should look pretty good in Ubuntu and while there's, unfortunately, outdated versions of both Android and Ubuntu onboard, it's an interesting concept nonetheless and for just â‚¬309 it's not too bad a deal. We'd like to see Jelly Bean make it on to the device but Android 4.0 is not the end of the world and Ubuntu 12.04 is a LTS release that will be supported for some time to come. The real question is though, would you use Ubuntu on a tablet? The answer to that question would have been a resounding no for myself but, after seeing what they can do with Ubuntu phone I've had a change of heart and think this might be an awesome piece of hardware to try out.

[Via: Engadget]