OpenMoko users open up about their phones

Let's say you want to load your MP3 collection onto your fancy smartphone using your favorite jukebox software -- and not some application chosen by the phone manufacturer.

Or you want to install (or maybe even write) some cool new software on your phone, but you're fed up with having the range of available apps dictated to you by "the man" (in his black turtleneck sweater).

Then again, maybe you just want to go through the phone's software, line by line, to make sure that it isn't sending all your corporate secrets to some e-mail server north of the border.

With most phones on the market, you're not at liberty to do all of those -- or even any of them, with some models. What you need is a smartphone that's free.

So how come you don't have one? The phone companies would love to give you a free phone. Don't believe me? Look through any mobile network operator's sales brochure and you'll find they're giving away a bunch of smartphones. Orange, for instance, lists 28 models as "free" at the moment, including the sparkling new HTC Touch Diamond, the Sony-Ericsson W980 Walkman -- and the BlackBerry 8820 that cost my boss $150 last year. (Don't tell her.)

Of course, they're not really free. You have to sign an airtime contract for 12 months, maybe longer. So not only are you tied to the man's idea of cool downloads, his favorite jukebox, and his mail carrier (whoever that might be), you also have to stick with his choice of network operator for the next year.

Such restrictions are driving an enthusiastic, albeit small, group of smartphone users to choose a phone that's free (as in speech), if not free (as in beer).

To find out more, I turned up one Friday night recently at La Cantine, a relatively new bar on the edge of one of Paris' main business districts. There was free Wi-Fi, and some of the mostly young, mostly male, drinkers were playing with their mobile phones.

Unusually for a crowd like this, I couldn't see any iPhones, even though sales of the 3G model had got off to a flying start following its launch here in July.

There were, though, rather a lot of OpenMoko Neo Freerunners for such a small gathering.

I'm more likely to be knocked off my bike by a passing motorist than to see one of these phones on an average day in Paris, so I knew I'd found the venue for the first meeting of Freerunner owners organized by the phone's French distributor, Bearstech.

The Freerunner costs around $399 or €320, if you can find one in stock, and comes with a charger, a 1200 mAh battery, a stylus and a MicroSD memory card. You choose your mobile operator and slot in their SIM (Subscriber Identity Module).

The phone is a black slab of plastic with rounded ends, one of them pierced by a huge hole for attaching a lanyard. It has a touch-sensitive screen and one button, the power switch, which inevitably invites certain comparisons ...

"The screen's a bit smaller than the iPhone's, but it's got twice the number of pixels," one owner told me. (That's 2.8 inches and 480 x 640 pixels, compared to the iPhone's 3.5-inch, 480 x 320 screen.)

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.