[Mikeb85]

It's hard enough installing Ubuntu onto a normal computer (well, not really, but for the masses it is), installing a new OS onto a smartphone is much more difficult.

I agree that they don't really need this phone, rather they should try putting out a 300-400 phone, along the line of the Nexus, that carriers can offer for 0-99 dollars on contract.

[gizmo686]

Using existing hardware does not mean making the end user do the install.

[zanny]

It is easier than installing Windows (partition layouts in the Ubuntu live cd are much nicer than what Windows provides).

You can also get a machine with Ubuntu pre-installed and supported, see system76.

They will have commodity Ubuntu Touch devices next year. They won't be powerful enough to take advantage of the convergence features Canonical wants to push, this device will. Carrier devices will also be horribly crippled by vendor bloatware to an even worse extent than Android because Canonical is literally selling the soul of its OS for potential market share.

You can already put Ubuntu Touch on a Nexus 4, and I bet next years Nexus Tier will see an Ubuntu Phone version as well. No problem there, nothing to do with this crowdfunding campaign. This is all about making a phone with extremely high end hardware and storage to act as a desktop replacement, period.