Cosmo smartphone gets physical keyboard, second screen and Linux support

Planet Computers, which previously released the Gemini PDA, has raised money through crowdfunding to make a new model. The Cosmo Communicator is a 6″ smartphone with a 2″ outer screen and a physical keyboard.

The Cosmo Communicator will have a clamshell design, with a 5.99″ LCD inside with a resolution of 2160×1080 pixels. The other half of the phone will consist of the physical keyboard, with backlit keys.

Planet Computers places a second screen on the outside of the housing. That is a 2 “OLED screen with a resolution of 570×240 pixels. The device will run on a MediaTek Helio P70 soc, which consists of four Cortex A73 cores and four Cortex A53 cores. MediaTek announced this soc for midrange smartphones at the end of October. .

Planet Computers combines the soc with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of flash storage. The device will have a 4220mAh battery and will weigh 320 grams. The Cosmo Communicator will run on Android 9 Pie, but will also receive support for Linux operating systems. The Gemini PDA that Planet released earlier has support for Ubuntu, Debian and Sailfish.

At the time of writing, 1180 backers have jointly committed more than 633,000 euros to the project on Indiegogo. The minimum amount to allow the project to go ahead was 177,000 euros. If everything goes according to plan, the first copies should be delivered in May 2019. During the crowdfunding campaign, the device costs 486 euros for the early birds, or 530 euros. The device will then receive a suggested retail price of 799 dollars, or about 709 euros.