5:08 of nope

Of course it’s an empty box, Canonical is a software company and it’s very unlikely that a working prototype will get made until the campaign gets funded (if it ever gets funded).

I’m really interested to see where this project is heading at. I’m not a huge fan of mobile stuff because I’m a hardcore desktop user, but they deserve credit for trying this.

Canonical is not a multi-million dollar company, they’re not Red Hat and I don’t even think they’re a profitable company yet. If they had the money to produce a prototype before the campaign, I believe they would have.
The handset itself is not that important. If they can’t raise enough money they will ship Ubuntu on some other device and still get what they wanted to achieve.
As for the software, yes, they are reinventing the wheel, but so are FirefoxOS and Tizen. There are currently 3 big players in the mobile OS market (Android, iOS and Windows), 2 of which are completely locked down, so why not bring a few more open platforms in the party ?

I refuse to donate to Canonical in general. Kubuntu are still owed all their donations that Canonical have got from their website. I spoke to Jonathon Riddell about it and he is still waiting to see any kind of donations. Also Canonical don’t really help upstream at all, and that is another reason for me not donate to this product.