If you wanted a computer in your pocket, you’d probably think that by buying the latest and most expensive smartphone around that’s exactly what you’d be getting, simply because it allows you to do almost everything you can on a computer.  But in truth, that’s really not the case because as we all know, even the best smartphones around have their limitations in comparison to a full-fledged PC.

That could soon change. By this time next year, there could very well be one very elegant looking, monstrously-powerful smartphone that can actually become a computer, if, and only if, we can set a new world record for crowdfunding.

Canonical has just launched an Indiegogo campaign for its concept Ubuntu Edge smartphone, with the hugely ambitious goal of raising $32 million in the space of just one month. As far as crowdfunding projects go, that’s an eye-watering figure – the current record on Indiegogo stands at just $1,665,380, while rival site Kickstarter’s biggest campaign to date saw $10,266,845 raised for the Pebble smartwatch.

Can Canonical pull off the impossible? That’s debatable, but with its devoted legion of loyal followers, it surely has a shot. It’s gotten off to a great start too, raising almost $3.4 million in funding at the time of writing, 24 hours after the campaign was launched.  Okay there’s still an awful long way to go with so little time, but there’s definitely lots of interest.

If you want to support the Ubuntu Edge, you can pledge $20 to secure a place at the Founders Page, or else go the whole hog and put down $830 to secure one of the limited edition phones, and a place in the Founder’s Page. For the really generous, there’s also a $10,000 option to buy 50 Ubuntu Edge devices (three people have made this pledge so far), together with VIP invites for the Ubuntu Edge unveiling, email access to designers and engineers building the phone and a place at the Founder’s Page. Finally for the real high rollers, you can commit $80,000 for the enterprise bundle which includes 100 Ubuntu Edge’s, access to best practice workshops, plus 30 days of online support for CIOs and IT managers.

But why in the world did Canonical launch a crowdfunding project to make this phone happen? Surely it makes more sense to develop the phone, build it, then just sell it? Well, it might do if your name is Samsung, but we must remember that Ubuntu is open source which means Canonical’s cash flow is quite limited. In other words, it’d be impossible for them to actually build this phone with no back up.

Canonical states on its Indieogogo page:

“It’s all about scale. To offer the final product at a competitive price we need to produce enough volume to bring the unit costs down. At the same time, we want to be selecting parts that are not yet proven for multi-million-unit production. This is the balance we found. A lower funding target might seem more likely to succeed, but the individual perk amounts would have to be significantly higher. We believe this funding target and these perk levels give us the best chance of success,”

Crowdfunding their phone definitely makes sense – after all, Ubuntu is and always will be open source, and so all Canonical is doing is putting the fate of the Ubuntu Edge into the hands of the people who’ll use it, just like the operating system itself.

Ubuntu Edge vs The Rest

 

Now that we’ve cleared whole crowdfunding issue up, let’s talk about the device. Make no bones about it, whatever your personal feelings about Ubuntu, the Edge promises to be one spectacular high-end device.  To show you what we mean, lets take a look at how it stacks up against some of the best smartphones built so far – the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Apple iPhone and Nokia’s Lumia 1020:

Design:

 

Canonical Ubuntu Edge: Textured aluminum shell

Samsung Galaxy S4: Special polycarbonate body, slim bezel, wide display, unique textured design

Apple iPhone 5: Anodized 6000 series aluminum body, ceramic glass or pigmented glass inlays that gives it the two-toned look, diamond-Cut beveled edge, first Retina display with integrated touch technology that makes it the thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone – according to Apple.

Nokia Lumia 1020: Premium polycarbonate with matte finish available in yellow, black and white.

Dimensions:

 

Ubuntu Edge: Height 124 mm x Width 64 mm x Depth 9mm, Weight – not yet available

Galaxy S4: 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm, 130g

iPhone 5: 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm, 112 g

Lumia 1020: 130.4 mm x 71.4 mm x 10.4 mm, 158g

Display:

 

Ubuntu Edge: 4.5in 1,280 x 720 HD sapphire crystal display

Galaxy S4: 5-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 1080 x 1920 pixels, ~441 ppi pixel density, topped with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, multitouch

iPhone 5: 4” Retina display with 1136 x 640 resolution and 326 ppi, Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating on front, multitouch

Lumia 1020: 4.5 ” ClearBlack AMOLED with super-sensitive touch technology featuring PureMotion HD+, Brightness control, High brightness mode, Refresh rate 60 Hz, easy to clean sculpted glass, Nokia Glance screen, Lumia Color profile, Wide viewing angle, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, Sunlight readability enhancements

Processor:

 

Ubuntu Edge: The “Fastest multi-core CPU,” according to Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth.

Galaxy S4: Exynos 5 Octa 5410, 1.9GHz quad-core or 1.6GHz octa-core processor, depending on what region you’re from

iPhone 5: A6 – Apple engineered chip – dual-core 1.2 GHz

Lumia 1020: Dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4

Storage:

 

Ubuntu Edge: 4GB RAM, plus 128GB storage

Galaxy S4: 16/32/64 GB storage, can be upgraded with up to 64GB of storage via microSD, 2GB RAM

iPhone 5: 16/32//64GB with free 5GB iCloud, 1GB RAM

Lumia 1020: 2GB RAM, 32BG mass memory, 7 GB free SkyDrive cloud storage

Operating System:

 

Ubuntu Edge: Dual boot Ubuntu mobile OS and Android, fully integrated Ubuntu desktop PC when docked

Galaxy S4: Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean

iPhone 5: iOS 6

Lumia 1020: Windows Phone 8

Cameras:

 

Ubuntu Edge: 8mp low-light rear camera, 2mp front camera

Galaxy S4: rear camera – 13MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, front camera – 2 MP, 1080p@30fps, dual video call, Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, HDR

iPhone 5: 8MP iSight camera that features Autofocus, Tap to focus, LED flash, Backside illumination sensor, Five-element lens, Face detection, Hybrid IR filter, ƒ/2.4 aperture, Panorama and improved video recording feature now with face detection and enhanced image stabilization, 30fps; 1.2MP FaceTime camera with 720p HD video and Backside illumination sensor

Lumia 1020: front – HD 1.2 MP wide angle, 1280 x 960 pixels, f/2.4, capable of video recording, still image capture, video call; rear – 41 MP, PureView, 7712 x 5360 camera resolution, with autofocus , Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, 1/1.5 inch sensor size, f/2.2 aperture, 26mm camera focal length, 15cm minimum focus range, JPEG camera image format, Xenon flash, 4.0m flash operating range, with on, off and automatic flash modes.

Wireless:

 

Ubuntu Edge: Dual-LTE, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, NFC, GPS

Galaxy S4: 2G GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, 3G HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100, 4G LTE, GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Infrared port

iPhone 5: GSM model: GSM/EDGE; UMTS/HSPA+; DC-HSDPA; CDMA model: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B; LTE; Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n; 802.11n on 2.4GHz and 5GHz); Bluetooth 4.0; GPS and GLONASS

Lumia 1020: GSM network: 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz, GSM max data speed DL: EGPRS 236.8 kbps, GSM max data speed UL: EGPRS 236.8 kbps, LTE network bands: 1, 3, 7, 8, 20, LTE max data speed DL: 100 Mbps, LTE max data speed UL: 50 Mbps, WCDMA network: 900 MHz, 2100 MHz, 1900 MHz, 850 MHz, WCDMA max data speed DL: HSDPA – 42.2 Mbps, WCDMA max data speed UL: HSUPA – 5.76 Mbps,  Bluetooth 3.0, WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n, WiFi channel bonding, NFC for payment, Sharing, Pairing, Tagging

Sensors:

 

Ubuntu Edge: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor, compass, barometer

Galaxy S4: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, temperature, humidity, gesture

iPhone 5: Three-axis gyro, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, Compass

Lumia 1020: Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyroscope, Proximity sensor, Magnetometer

Battery:

 

Ubuntu Edge: Silicon-anode Li-Ion battery

Galaxy S4: 2600 mAh Li-Ion removable battery, Stand-by time – up to 370 h on 3G, Talk time – up to 17 h on 3G, and up to 62 h of music play

iPhone 5: Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G; Browsing time: Up to 8 hours on LTE, Up to 8 hours on 3G, Up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi; Standby time: Up to 225 hours

Lumia 1020: 2000 mAh built-in battery with a maximum 2G talk time of 19.1 hours, maximum 3G talk time of 13.3 h, music playback time of 63 h, video playback time of 6.8 h, maximum WiFi network browsing time of 5.5 h, and supports wireless charging via an accessory cover.

Miscellaneous:

 

Ubuntu Edge: Stereo speakers with HD audio, dual-mic recording, Active Noise Cancellation, MHL connector, 3.5mm jack,

Galaxy S4: Smart Screen – Smart Stay, Smart Pause, Smart Rotation, Smart Scroll; Air Gesture, WatchOn, ChatOn, AirView, Group Play, S Health, wireless charging cover, S Translator, Sound and Shot, Dual Shot, Cinema Photo, Drama Shot, 3.5 mm jack

iPhone 5: Retina Display, iSight camera, Ultrafast Wireless, Maps, EarPods, Lightning connector, enhanced Siri, Passbook, Panorama mode, iCloud, AirPlay – provided you have an Apple TV, AirPrint – provided you have an AirPrint enabled printer, 3.5 mm jack

Lumia 1020: 3.5 mm audio jack, micro USB, USB 2.0

Verdict:

 

It’s too early to say whether or not the Ubuntu Edge can compete with the other high-end smartphones available, since its technical specifications haven’t been etched in stone – according to Canonical, these could change as it moves towards final production. Even so, with 4GB of RAM and a massive 128GB of storage space, this will be one powerful phone. Add to that its ability to boot both Android and Ubuntu, as well as the Ubuntu desktop version when connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and the Ubuntu Edge looks certain to be an attention-getter, IF Canonical can hit its $32 million goal.

For the other specs, the Lumia 1020 still wins hands down in the camera stakes, while the Galaxy S4’s Jedi-like smart features makes it far more interesting than the other devices.

What Canonical needs to focus on, aside from the internal components or having a very powerful processor, is making the Ubuntu Edge look sleek and tough, something that would say, “I’m a hardcore developer, bow down mortals!”