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It’s Official – Koolu Supporting Android with Freerunner

A beta release of Koolu's version of Android will be available starting the first week of December as one of options for operating systems on the Openmoko phone.  We were the first site to report on these rumors last month, later providing images of the handsets.  No longer conjecture, we're excited to see Android on another hardware design.

"Openmoko welcomes Koolu's efforts to optimize the community lead port of Google's Android platform on the FreeRunner.  That's the benefit of having an open platform. Their market focus complements ours. The Open Source community wants choice and Koolu and Openmoko deliver it." - Steven Mosher VP of marketing Openmoko.
Koolu begin officially offering FreeRunners with Koolu's image of Android in the first quarter of 2009.  Until then, the beta version will give a glimpse into what different hardware does for Android.  We're curious to see what Koolu's version of Android looks like.  It's not like the G1 was loaded down with bloatware or T-Mobile specific apps.
We noticed that over on Koolu's website, they are offering a $399 unlocked version with the beta install.  Not too shabby eh?


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  • Micah

    Whats the deal with keyboard input. Do they have one written, or are they waiting for the one rumored to come out next year (january?).

  • chefgon

    The handset pictured isn't really compatible with the G1's implementation of Android (which is what it appears to be running). It has no keyboard and appears to be missing the Home, Menu, and Back keys that applications rely on. It is definitely running a higher resolution than I've seen before (VGA?) which should be nice. As far as I'm aware there isn't even an option in the emulator to run at VGA resolution so I wonder how well currently released apps will adapt to it.

  • Jim Ancona

    The Freerunner does have aVGA (480 x 640) display. While Koolu's port hasn't been released to the public so far, there is an image available and I've got it on my Freerunner. The phone does have two buttons, power and aux. So in the image I have, Back is mapped to Aux, Menu is mapped to a quick push of the Power button and Home to a > 1 second push of power. Currently there is no virtual keyboard, and many features don't work. The apps that I've tried seem to handle the VGA resolution fine.

  • Matt

    Hey man, you really need to link to the meat of the article...like I dunno...koolu.com? Ugh.