Debut Ubuntu phone's first flash sale announced, more to come

The first Ubuntu phone goes on sale in a limited run Wednesday, but don't worry if you miss out: there'll be around three more "flash sales" before the end of the month.

The BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu edition is the first phone that will let phone fans snap up an Ubuntu-running device for themselves. Best known as an open-source operating system for computers, Ubuntu is expanding to phones as part of a plan that will see the software power everything from TVs to drones. And to kick things off, the BQ phone will be up for grabs between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. (CET) on Wednesday 11 February.

Ubuntu is developed by British company Canonical. Canonical is showing off both the BQ phone and the forthcoming Ubuntu version of the Meizu MX4 at the Mobile World Congress 2015 industry trade show, which opens on 2 March. Before that, Canonical is expecting to run three sales, with up to five possible depending on how they go.

The Aquaris E4.5 is not an entirely new device, it's been available for some time booting Android KitKat. The specsheet of the smartphone is nothing to write home about, but it's still a balanced package.

The name reveals the screen size of 4.5 inches, and the qHD resolution of the IPS panel results in a pixel density of 244ppi. Running the show is a Mediatek chipset with its Cortex-A7 CPU clocked at 1.3GHz. A single gig of RAM is onboard as well as 8GB of internal storage, of which 5.5GB are available to the user. A microSD slot offers expansion up to 32GB.

The dual-SIM phone is limited in connectivity options, only packing radios for 850/900/1800/1900MHz GSM bands and 900/2100MHz 3G. Battery capacity is 2150mAh, stuffed in a 137 x 67 x 9 mm body weighing 123g.

Hardware is not the main topic here, though, the new OS is. The Ubuntu for smartphone has long been in the works, and after years of development British company Canonical has managed to bring it to market. The new mobile OS is unique in concept, ditching the common app grid in favor of content-grouped tabs. Dubbed Scopes, the innovative interface learns from previous experience and aggregates user-specific content in easy to navigate panes.