After spending two months with the new phone, and one week abroad, we finally deliver our verdict.
Last month's cover feature was all about Ubuntu’s new mobile operating system. But we didn't include an objective look at the first mobile device it's available on: BQ’s Ubuntu Phone. This was for two reasons. First, we'd only had the phone for around a month and had yet to be brave enough to leave our regular phone, a Nexus 5, at home. Second, Canonical and BQ were pushing out a new update almost every day, and we wanted to give them both a chance to catch their breath. Almost two months later and the updates have abated, and we’re finally prepared to give our opinion on what is without doubt a monumental release for Canonical.
Well start with the hardware. BQ is Spain's largest smartphone manufacturer, and the Aquaris E4.5 is already one of its established models as it’s also available as a mid-range Android device. This is good, as it means the Ubuntu Edition is built on solid hardware foundations. The brightness and quality of the screen (540 x 960 - 240 ppi), for example, are exceptional. The phone's construction is also very good, being slightly smaller and lighter in weight and size than the higher specification LG Nexus 5.
There are two micro-sim card slots, so you can run the phone with two different networks/accounts. This is especially useful if you do a lot of travelling, as you can pick up a Pay As You Go sim while abroad rather than paying roaming fees. And while internal storage is 8GB (with around half free after the operating system is installed), there's a micro SD card slot for up to 32GB of additional storage. The CPU is a modest quad core that runs up to 1.3GHz, and the phone felt nothing but snappy while we were using it. Perhaps the only omission in the specification is the 4G, but that this price threshold, you could argue that people in the market for a 4G device would need a higher specification of phone.
After booting, the first screen you usually see displays the time and a circular dial beneath. This dial is an attempt to illustrate your social interactions with the world, as the dots within their positions will grow depending on what you do and what you receive. You can swipe this screen to the right or left to reveal the unlock 'Enter passcode' prompt, and regardless of whether you do this, you can always swipe from the left edge to reveal the launcher icon toolbar.
No direction home
This doesn't make much sense to us, because even if you press the camera icon, in the hopes you can take a quick photo without unlocking the device, it won't work. In fact, none of these icons will do anything unless you proceed through the unlock process, making their appearance here redundant. They could possibly be used for notifications - the number of unread Gmail messages shown on the Gmail icon, for instance - but the only notifications you currently have access to from the unlock screen are missed calls and messages.
The phone's 4.5-inch screen is the perfect size for Ubuntu's gesture system, as you need to get your thumb swiping across every screen edge to get the most out of the system. Swiping down from the top is the trickiest, especially if you've got small hands, but the notification system it displays is seamless and powerful and, to our minds, the best example of Canonical's user-interface design.
Similarly, swiping in from the right for task switching is also effective, although it takes considerable effort to reprogram your muscle memory if you've used Android, especially as there’s no back button, and we'd sometimes prefer to see the name of an application as well as its preview. Scopes, activated with a long swipe from the left, are the standard way of interacting with the operating system and they're a huge part of Ubuntu's innovation here. They work in a similar way to scopes on the Ubuntu desktop, aggregating content for a single view - different music sources for playback, for example, or news from both Engadget and the BBC.
Scopes for improvement
We can see lots of potential for scopes, but we do feel they shouldn't be the only point of entry to the operating system. Quick access to the apps scopes would be useful, for example, and we don't understand why the Ubuntu Store is a scope while System Settings isn't, for example. The only way we found of getting from one scope to another is by finding a spare bit of background and swiping across this. This space is usually the small 'breadcrumb' trail at the top of each scope, but it takes some finding on longer pages, and there’s no quick way of getting from the left scope to the right scope, which is awkward when you have many. Some sort of rapid scope switching, as offered by the task manager, would help.
We're not going to criticise the Ubuntu Phone for its lack of apps. As Linux users, we're used to this chicken and egg conundrum; Canonical has done a great job helping developers, and there are plenty of new applications appearing. If WhatsApp is important to you, you may want to hold off for a while. But the default apps are fair game, and we miss a decent email client. Dekko for IMAP access is the best we've found, but it needs some attention.
Another disappointment is the inability of third-party music apps to stream music in the background, or even when the screen is off. We remember when the iPhone couldn’t do this either - a necessary API lock-down to make sure the phone was secure, but our Spotify addiction won’t be satisfied until the complex issues governing this non-feature are addressed. Media playback provision is otherwise excellent, with the default video and music players coping with everything (locally) we threw at them. Most of our other essential requirements were also filled. Web browsing, ePub reading (with Beru), messaging, contact management, OpenStreet Maps (OSMTouch) and Twitter are all handled by modern, capable applications. It's also brilliant that there’s a file manager and terminal.
With its 2150mAh battery we got around 24 hours use out of the Aquaris. This is a little longer than our Nexus 5, but we'd imagine Canonical isn't sending back as much of our personal data as Google's device. This is still a phone that's going to need charging most nights, but we've noticed a considerable improvement in battery life with some of the many updates that have been pushed out since we got hold of the phone.
The most important question to answer is whether Bq's Ubuntu Phone can replace your Android or iPhone. If you're a Linux enthusiast, we think this is easily a yes, because you'll understand many of the challenges and shortcomings. For a wider audience though, we think it's going to take some time. There need to be more user-interface refinements, more app development and a wider choice of hardware options. And we sincerely hope this happens.
A great phone with tons of potential, slightly let down by its immaturity when faced with the competition.