An Ubuntu phone that doubles as a desktop is coming this year

By Lee Mathews www.geek.com

Canonical’s crowdfunding campaign for the Ubuntu Edge may have fizzled out, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Someone else has taken up the torch and is building an Edge-like phone, and it’s going on sale this year.

It won’t be the first smartphone on the shelf running Ubuntu, of course. The BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition launched last month. The Aquaris, however, lacks one of the core features that had people so excited about the Edge. Out of the box, it doesn’t let you hook it up to a monitor and use it as a desktop PC.

This new phone, however, will allow users to do exactly that. Mark Shuttleworth revealed as much during an interview this week, though he didn’t have many other details to share. Shuttleworth didn’t discuss any specifics about the hardware , and he didn’t share any clues about pricing, carrier support, or even where it would be sold. He did say that it would launch in 2015, so we’ll assume that means you have six months or less to wait for its arrival.

By the time it arrives, it may not be the only smartphone on the market that can pull double duty as a desktop. Microsoft showed off Windows 10’s Continuum functionality doing the same thing on a Windows phone at Build 2015.

As for whether or not Canonical might take another crack at building their own flagship device, Shuttleworth says that the company isn’t thinking about trying to resurrect the Edge any time soon. He did, however, say that if the right hardware partner came along that it’s something they’d consider, so it’s not off the table for good.