Aava Mobile announced an “open” Aava smartphone reference design that employs Intel's “Moorestown” CPU, with current or planned support for Moblin Linux 2.1, Android, and MeeGo. Meanwhile, LG will port its Moorestown- and Moblin-based GW990 phone to MeeGo, says an industry report.

Finnish startup Aava Mobile says it is aiming its Aava design at smartphone, handheld, and tablet devices. The current prototype primarily targets smartphones and runs Intel's long-awaited "Moorestown" version of the Intel Atom.

Promised by Intel for more than a year now, Moorestown is said to be more compact and power efficient than today's Atom processors, making it more competitive with ARM processors in the mobile device market. In February of last year, LG and Intel announced they were working on a new line of MIDs based on the latter's Moorestown processor. The design has since morphed into the GW990 smartphone (see farther below).

Aava Mobile's Aava phone design
(Click to enlarge)

The Aava design will run on the telephony-enabled Moblin 2.1 for Handhelds, as well as Android. Later this year, it will also support the upcoming MeeGo distribution announced by Intel and Nokia earlier this week. MeeGo is a merger of the Intel-backed Moblin and another open source Linux operating system, the Nokia-backed Maemo. (MeeGo appears to adopt the core, as well as most of its UI elements from Moblin, and incorporates the Qt UI toolkit from Maemo.)

The 4.92 x 2.52 x 0.46-inch  (125 x 64 x 11.7mm) Aava reference design was demonstrated by Aava at Mobile World Congress this week running Moblin v2.1 (see video farther below). The phone features a 3.8-inch, 864 x 480 TFT capacitive touchscreen that offers haptic feedback, as well as an "extended" mode, which is said to touch-enable the front cover.

The Aava phone offers standard high-end smartphone features including a microSD slot, GSM and WCDMA with 3G support, as well as WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. A micro-USB port with on-the-go (OTG) capabilities will support a wide variety of peripherals, says Aava Mobile.

The phone is said to offer full HD video playback, and offers both a five-megapixel still camera, and a two-megapixel videoconferencing webcam. Videoconferencing, as well as voice support, also seems to be the aim of the dual microphones with echo cancellation. The phone also provides accelerometers and other sensors, says the company.

Another view of the Aava design
(Click to enlarge)

Specifications listed for the Aava reference design include:

• Processor — Intel Atom "Moorestown" with ST-E modem baseband
• Memory/flash — MicroSD slot
• Display — 3.8-inch, 864 x 480 TFT capacitive touchscreen
• Cellular — GSM/EDGE quadband; WCDMA triple-band (Band I, II and V) with 2Mbps uplink and 7.2Mbps downlink
• Other connectivity:
  • WiFi
  • Bluetooth
  • GPS
  • Micro-USB OTG
• Camera — 5-megapixel (optional 8-megapixel) with LED flash; 2-megapixel videoconferencing camera with facial and gesture recognition
• Audio:
  • 3D sound
  • FM radio
  • Stereo mic with echo and background noise cancellation
  • Stereo speakers
• Sensors — Ambient light; proximity; 3D compass; accelerometer
• Other features — Vibrate; haptic feedback; volume, camera, and power buttons
• Operating system: Moblin v2.1; Android; MeeGo (later this year)

Claiming to offer an open hardware and software platform, Aava Mobile has sponsored a competition to design an ecosystem of hardware docking peripherals that tailor its devices for specific vertical industries and functions. A design from Daniele Pesaresi is shown below, and a link to a slideshow of other designs may be found at the bottom of the story.

Potential Aava-based designs from designer Daniele Pesaresi
(Click to enlarge)

Stated Markus Appel, CEO of Aava Mobile, "Aava Mobile saw an opportunity to make an entirely open mobile device. We are open on the hardware side with our standardized I/O ports and the ecosystem of peripheral docking devices that openness encourages, and we are open on the software side with our Moblin and Android operating systems."

 

Aava demo at MWC
(Source: NetbookNews on YouTube)
(Click to play)

Stated Pankaj Kedia, director of global ecosystem programs in Intel's Ultra Mobility Group. "Aava's reference design is an excellent example of what is possible with the Intel Moorestown platform across Linux-based Moblin and Android OSes."

Report: LG's Moorestown phone to go MeeGo

A presenter at LG's press breakfast yesterday confirmed that the manufacturer's LG GW990 smartphone, will "transition" to MeeGo, according to a GearLog report from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As the report noted, the confirmation was not particularly surprising since the future of Moblin v2.1, which the GW990 prototype currently runs, appears to be limited now that the OS is merging with Maemo to create MeeGo.

LG's GW990
Source: Intel
(Click to enlarge)

The GW990 phone is the first device to run Intel's Moorestown processor, and the first to announce support for Moblin v2.1. Whether it will be first to run MeeGo depends on whether Nokia first transitions its Maemo-based N900 smartphone to MeeGo, says the story. So far, Nokia has not confirmed any specific devices that will run MeeGo.

The GW990 is scheduled to ship in Korea during the second half of this year, which will likely beat any phones to market that are based on the Aava design. LG has no plans to bring the phone to the U.S., says GearLog.

Availability

Aava Mobile did not detail when the Aava design or phones based on it will be available, but judging from the video above, the design appears to be ready for OEMs and ODMs to take it for a spin. Phones based on the Aava prototype may come to market later this year, according to a comment made by an Aava demonstrator in the video.

More on Aava may be found at Aava Mobile's web-site, here, and a gallery of peripheral designs and customizations for the Aava design may be found here.

The GearLog story on the LG GW990 may be found here.

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