There are going to be a lot of bad puns with the name of the new Access Linux Platform (ALP) device “First ELSE”, so we might as well have our own. Aside from the name, everything else (there we go again) about this mobile phone is nothing to joke about.
Access and Emblaze Mobile (now ELSE Mobile) have been working together to deliver this LiMo compliant mobile device to the world. Their combined efforts took a good two years to see some tactile fruit, but the results seem certainly worth the wait.
With the current mobile industry reaching a major turning point, it seems like the arrival of this ALP device is quite fortuitous, as it stands the mobile phone industry states sees the arrival of new OS platforms (the Maemo and the Bada), major updates to existing OS (WinMo 7 and Android Flan) and of course, the ever constant iPhone. With all the new things coming out next year, it’s the perfect time to see the launch of a totally new device.
The First ELSE packs a 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen with a very high def resolution of 854 x 480 pixels. That’s impressive quality putting it up to the standards being set by the XPERIA X10 and HD2. It uses a TI OMAP 3430 processor and sports a huge 32GB of internal storage. The rest of the specs are not surprising for a smart phone; 5 mega pixel camera, Bluetooth, USB, GPS and WiFi.
The lack of a confirmed micro SD card slot raises that feeling of data stagnation you can get from an iPhone (yes, because it really is a hassle to hook up the iPhone to a computer). Hopefully, if this will not have SD card support, then let it just be accessed by a computer easily without the need for special software.
The real star of this phone is the ELSE Intuition interface. Initial videos of the OS are quite promising, showing a one-touch oriented navigation system that is not only intuitive but impressively stylish to look at too.
