Meizu has confirmed that the first Meizu MX smartphone running Ubuntu will be release in the first quarter of 2015.
It looks like Meizu will not be releasing their first Ubuntu phones this December after all, but in early 2015.
Meizu has recently confirmed that, Canonical’s CEO, Jane Silber, signed an agrement with their Vice-President Li Nan to ship Ubuntu phones in the first months of 2015, in both Europe and China.
Most likely, a release date has not been set because it depends on when an Ubuntu Touch RTM that meets all the planned features will be available.
Bq will also release the first Bq Aquaris Ubuntu phone in 2015.
Also Bq, the other Ubuntu Phone partner held a media event last week, but they did not say anything about their first Ubuntu phone. They have presented their Bq Aquarius 10, Bq Aquarius 10 3G and Bq Aquarius E5 4G devices.
I may be mistaking, but the Ubuntu Touch developers are referring to the Aquaris E4.5 (codenamed Krillin) in the mailing lists so that may be the first Bq phone running Ubuntu.
While nothing has been confirmed, this is what Rodrigo Prado, deputy manager of Bq has said in an interview, in the Spanish press:
“The development of an operating system is a very complex task. I think there are only three companies in the world [that has] its own mobile operating system. As we square the hardware over software quality equation, we get the terminal. It will be a 4.5-inch smartphone much like [the] Aquaris. Ubuntu set a date of 2014, but [I] think 2015 is a realistic figure.”
The story so far:
As a reminder, Ubuntu Touch is officially supported only on Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 2013, while the first two manufacturers to release Ubuntu phones are Meizu and Bq. Both Meizu and Bq will be using the Ubuntu RTM version of the OS, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and is the most stable Ubuntu Touch branch.
While Meizu releases premium phones in China, Bq developes cheaper phones for Europe.