Any hardware differences between production and pre-release?

[bugelrex]

Any concrete statement as to whether the production units are identical in hardware to the 300 pre-release units. Eg such as
- screen material. Micheal Jervitz from my-symbian claimed to have an easily scratchable screen.
- digital compass
- slide mechanism. I think chippy from umcportal had a dead screen
etc etc?

[Thor]

- screen material. Micheal Jervitz from my-symbian claimed to have an easily scratchable screen.


It was never an easily scratchable screen, sand will scratch many things, and is not something you would normally have in your pockets, unless you live near a beach, in which case, get a screen protector/case. A sapphire crystal coating is the only thing that will protect it effectively enough from scratches, and you'll only find those on the overpriced, under-featured "high-end" phones such as Vertu, Tag Heuer, etc. Even then, a sapphire crystal can be scratched by diamonds or anything of a similar hardness. Sapphire or diamond crystal covering will make the N900 way too expensive.

[bugelrex]

It was never an easily scratchable screen, sand will scratch many things, and is not something you would normally have in your pockets, unless you live near a beach, in which case, get a screen protector/case. A sapphire crystal coating is the only thing that will protect it effectively enough from scratches, and you'll only find those on the overpriced, under-featured "high-end" phones such as Vertu, Tag Heuer, etc. Even then, a sapphire crystal can be scratched by diamonds or anything of a similar hardness. Sapphire or diamond crystal covering will make the N900 way too expensive.

Since Micheal has access to many difference devices, I was assuming his assessment was already 'relative' to other devices he's used. I.e it seemed to imply *HIS* n900 scratched easier than other Nokia devices he's used in the past.

[DaveP1]

Actually, coins and keys tend to be the biggest problem. Also some cable connectors (including some earbuds) are coated for hardness. Chromium is very high on the Mohs scale and is the bane of screens, especially resistive screens which have to have the resistive layer on top.

[geneven]

It seemed to be sorta established that complaints about the easily scratchable screen were actually reports that the thin screen protector that is meant to be thrown away anyway was scratching. We got that a lot when the N800 came out, too. The screen protector isn't that easy to spot.

[dammsaint]

maybe those products can help you

Screen Guard (http://cgi.ebay.com/2-X-New-Screen-Protector-Guard-for-Nokia-N900-Rover_W0QQitemZ380176064005QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPDA_ Accessories?hash=item5884425e05)
Cover (http://cgi.ebay.com/3-X-Rubberized-Hard-Cases-Cover-Skin-For-NOKIA-N900_W0QQitemZ170404226476QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPDA_A ccessories?hash=item27ace225ac)

[Venomrush]

The hardware will be exactly the same.
Any changes they make need to go through FCC again and I don't think that's possible within a month time (Maemo summit until today)

[sjgadsby]

It seemed to be sorta established that complaints about the easily scratchable screen were actually reports that the thin screen protector that is meant to be thrown away anyway was scratching. We got that a lot when the N800 came out, too. The screen protector isn't that easy to spot.

Nokia fixed that problem with the N900. The shipping screen protector is opaque black.

[daperl]

Nokia fixed that problem with the N900. The shipping screen protector is opaque black.

Maybe that's both the easter egg and a hardware difference: a clear screen protector.

[r0eladn]

with very high pressure sand can slice through 2 inches of stainless steel.

[olighak]

with very high pressure sand can slice through 2 inches of stainless steel.

Or use water under 3500bar pressure to do the same.

[drew]

So they only delayed shipping for firmware/software issues?

[schaggo]

Which doesn't seem to be out of place regaring a certain thread which appears under "Active Topics": " 'Out of memory' and UI freezes on N900" (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34150)

[lorelei]

The hardware will be exactly the same.
Any changes they make need to go through FCC again and I don't think that's possible within a month time (Maemo summit until today)

not wanting to nitpick, but maybe hardware changes went for certification before the summit..which may lead to different HW between the summit and the retail version.

In any case I doubt that there were any HW changes that close to the release...it's not something you usually do a few months before releasing a product (at least in theory...we all know that practice is a different beast :))

[range]

So they only delayed shipping for firmware/software issues?

You didn't really think that they would be able to change hardware during two to three weeks or even a month?

[ragnar]

I think you could be pretty sure that if the hardware would gain some new abilities that we would certainly promote them. The equation of "let's delay to make HW improvements and let's not tell about these improvements" doesn't make much sense.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Which doesn't seem to be out of place regaring a certain thread which appears under "Active Topics": " 'Out of memory' and UI freezes on N900" (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34150)

Which from everything I have seen is ONLY happening to people using "extra-testing" repo as un-optified packages are filling up the root partition. This is not something which can be fixed on the device itself, but delaying will have allowed more time to get the packages themselves fixed and moved over to "extras".

Basically, if you use software from "extra-testing", expect "out of memory" and other random glitches. Only users who know how to fix such problems are meant to use that repository.

[lma]

Which from everything I have seen is ONLY happening to people using "extra-testing" repo as un-optified packages are filling up the root partition.

That may be part of it in some cases, but there's an actual bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5450) that leaks around 3.5MB every time the GTK icon cache is updated (eg by installing/uninstalling stuff). So staying away from extras-testing isn't enough to avoid / filling up for the time being.

[chemist]

with very high pressure sand can slice through 2 inches of stainless steel.

so does water! whats the point in your info? I could use bare bodies to do that as long as the pressure is high enough.

[schaggo]

I think you could be pretty sure that if the hardware would gain some new abilities that we would certainly promote them.
Hmm... they didn't even promote all the features the current, "long time announced" hardware has. The FM-receiver for example only got very rarely mentioned and is nowhere to be found on the (my local) Nokia site.

I could use bare bodies to do that as long as the pressure is high enough.
Made me giggle :D

[DaveP1]

so does water! whats the point in your info? I could use bare bodies to do that as long as the pressure is high enough.

May I suggest pop singers and reality show participants? And please YouTube any experiments for posterity. :D

Regardless of what can cut through what (nobody's mentioned light yet), the problem with the N900 is that it has, for better and for worse, a resistive screen. One of the "for worse" parts of resistive screens is that they have to be able to deflect in order to measure the resistance. Since it is very costly to produce a screen that is both flexible and highly scratch resistant, resistive screens tend to scratch more easily that capacitive screens which can use glass as the top layer. I would not try the following with the N900::

http://phandroid.com/2009/11/11/motorola-droid-scratch-test-with-car-keys/