A Chinese ODM (original design manufacturer) will ship a mobile phone based on Linux and Qtopia in Q1 of 2005. Yuhua TelTech's “Normandy” phone will use Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE), an application stack for mobile phones that includes a PIMS and other PDA-like features.

YuHua is based in Shanghai, and was founded in June of 2001 by American Chinese engineer Wu Xiaozhong. It aims to become a competitive international R&D center, according to its Website. The company has already produced a number of phone designs, including several with dual LCD screens supporting open and closed operation and 300K pixel cameras.

The Normandy platform is described as a “content-rich handset” combining leading technology with innovative design. Yuhua CEO James Wu said, “Qtopia Phone software gives us the freedom to innovate and bring to market quickly a phone with the precise branding and user interface that we want. With Normandy, we're meeting strong demand for a rich, new user experience that fully takes advantage of today's leading-edge software, and we expect it to be a major success.”

Normandy is expected to ship in China in the first quarter of 2005, possibly making it the first phone to hit the market based on Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition smartphone software stack.

Qtopia Phone Edition

Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE) is a port of Trolltech's Qtopia application stack for PDAs optimized for smaller display screens, low memory use, and both touchscreen- and keypad-based user input. QPE is highly configurable, Trolltech says, and designed for minimal key input.

QPE includes a PIMS (personal information management suite) with contact manager, calendar, and task list, as well as productivity, messaging, telephony, and multimedia applications. It also includes games and configuration utilities, and a synchronization framework that works with Microsoft Outlook or with free desktop PIMS software distributed by Trolltech.

Additionally, Trolltech says QPE uses Qt/Embedded as its main API (application programming interface), enabling developers to customize and extend QPE.

Trolltech announced QPE on October 31, 2003, before launching it May 28. QPE recently won the best embedded solution award at the San Francisco LinuxWorld Expo. For more details, be sure to read our indepth Qtopia Phone Edition Special Report, featuring many screenshots and diagrams.

Trolltech's Qt/Embedded has been used in phones such as the A760.

 
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