An Android Smartphone Displays Google Website
An Android smartphone displays the Google website in this picture illustration in Seoul September 7, 2011. Reuters/Truth Leem

Canonical seems to be set to release a smartphone that is based on Ubuntu OS platform in partnership with BQ of Spain, which is renowned for making tablets, smartphones and ebook readers in Europe. The BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition was launched in Europe on Feb 9.

The BQ Aquaris E4.5 smartphone has been available with the Android 4.4 KitKat OS since quite some time. However, it will be released in what is said to be a new version that runs on Ubuntu operating system, reports GSM Arena.

NDTV reports that the Ubuntu OS for phones was previously known as the Ubuntu Touch OS. According to Canonical, this phone will be available in different parts of Europe in the coming weeks. This will be done through a flash sales system along with a price tag of euro 169.90.

As of this writing, both BQ and Canonical have not revealed or mentioned anything to do with the availability of the handset outside European. One thing that may be of much interest is that the partnership of Canonical partnership with BQ is about one year old and that the Spanish manufacturer together with Meizu of China did not honor their original 2014 timeline in launching the phone. This could also mean that since BQ has now announced its Ubuntu based phone, it would also be expected that the Chinese manufacturer would also make a similar move soon.

The Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition is a dual SIM with identical specifications that seem alike the original model but the USP of the device is that it does not feature Android but the all new Ubuntu OS. According to GSM Arena, the 4.5-inch display of the device supports a screen resolution of 540 x 960 pixels with a pixel density of 244 ppi.

The phone is powered by Cortex-A7 a quad-core processor by MediaTek that churns out a processing speed of 1.3GHz, a Mali 400 GPU and 1 GB of RAM. The internal storage of the device is 8 GB of which 5.5 GB space can be used by the user. The microSD slot supports up to 32 GB of microSD.

The primary camera of the device is of 13 MP whereas the one sitting on the front is of 13 MP. Lastly, it is packed with a 2,150 mAh battery.

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