Yep, it's final design. I'm not sure what "hole" you mean (the oval thing under kickstand isn't hole, it is, actually, pretty polished place for inserting your finger[nail] to open kickstand), while camera "hole" have, of course, retractable cover.

As for kickstand shape, the 1st priority of this project is functionality, with aesthetic going as far as it doesn't hinder the former. Giving kickstand a fancy shape would weaken it, no to mention that I don't see the point of having spiral kickstand, or whatsnot... In fact, I see it as counter-productive. Probably, it's the reason, why I don't have *design* anywhere in job title

The alu backcover kickstand is complete opposition of nicely "designed", but completely unusable, vanilla N900's kickstand. New leg have corrected angle (when you lay your N900 on desk with it extended, it doesn't face sky anymore), device stand sturdily even when you write on it while it sits on desk, etc. That was the point of new kickstand. Ideally, I would replicate N8**'s kickstand that everyone loves, but it is not possible/feasible for backcover, flat or fat. High chance of implementing it in whole body replacement.

Anyway, as mentioned many times, all files are on gitorious, so if you can design something better and make machinable g-codes out of it, just "fork" and send a pull request. Every contribution will be dully considered (and if sensible, talked here).

/Estel

Could you put links to the files, and other links in the first post? Makes them easier to find. I already lost them.

Repeating a link, just in case somebody looks for it...
https://gitorious.org/fremantle-backcover-replacement

For Qi charging to work it will have to be externally applied, maybe with adhesive. The universal pads have a shield on the back to keep the battery casing from draining away the inductive power transfer, it will work to prevent that with an Al cover as well.

Just FYI, personally I think the kickstand looks good enough. I mean, I understand where you're coming from, aesthetic preferences for humans are largely founded on prior experience and vague mental associations, and I can see how that can look unappealing to some. I like it though.

In fact, while I would enjoy the once-upon-a-time discussed 'full body' kick-stand, I find this one sufficiently pleasing, more so than the stock camera+kickstand thing. I think the biggest part that hurts the aesthetic is the hinge attachment points break the smooth plane of the rest of the cover (but I can understand that it's like this, since it probably has to be made out of a different piece (I imagine the only way you could 'embed' the kickstand into the backcover without it having a noticeably 'separate' attachment is with one of those obscenely expensive 3D printers that can print metal with like, lasers and metal powder, you know, black magic sort of stuff). But anyway, it bothers me less than the blue band on the inside of the camera lid, or the camera cover being protruding in the first place, on the stock backcover.

So yeah, to me it looks good. *Shrug*

Anyway, this just got me all excited about getting one of these eventually.

Still pushing for that idea in the "full-body" phase. Might be tricky to pull out effectively - for cutting such leg, without pressure-molding, you need to cut it from thick aluminum brick, and as result you get inner-part of that "brick", that is just a little smaller of what you would need for parts of body. So, the full-body leg, suddenly, require the same amount of start material, than rest of unit (whole body). I'll try to come with some solution for this, maybe some clever idea will come up.

[QUOTE=Mentalist Traceur;1438542] I imagine the only way you could 'embed' the kickstand into the backcover without it having a noticeably 'separate' attachment is with one of those obscenely expensive 3D printers that can print metal with like, lasers and metal powder, you know, black magic sort of stuff)/quote]

Yep, exactly like that. And even then, I suspect that the part acting like hinges would be too weak, if made from laser-welded* metal powder - actually, as mentioned in one of earlier post, I needed to replace aluminum hinges with brass ones, for the durability reasons (of course, colour after lacquering stay the same).

As for progress, quite busy at the moment - producing complete units for pre-ordering donors

/Estel

The 810 used a cut & bended alu plate as stand, no? I liked that, but it had another fail because the closed stand blocked some ports.


(anyway, just my opinion, don't mind me as I'm in the market for another phone and neither this nor neo900 will tick all marks)

Quick message...
I would be interested in having Neo900 (have already pre-ordered) with Black Aluminium replacement body. With connectors for external antennas, too... Pre-orders for full-body are still accepted, right? For how long?
And about logo on the back cover: is it limited to the area 'inside' the kickstand? Because a lighthouse, for instance, pictured around the camera flash-light would be... interesting. Just a question...
Thank you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Nice to hear that Yes, they're accepted, at least since design freeze of whole body replacement (aka something like two-three months before I start manufacturing units that are directly going to pre-ordering people).

No, thank YOU The logo for donors/pre-orderers isn't limited to anything, as long as it's doable/feasible, and you're able to provide suitable 2D image of it in the format that I'll announce soon (still figuring out which one will be hassle-free for me, and accessible to non-CNC people at the same time - anyway, you can count on some variant of vector graphic, for sure. SVG should be safe to declare as convertible to anything I'll decide on).

I'll happily discuss details of personalization with everyone individually, so everyone can, always, ask me if some crazy idea is OK or a no-go. Apart from the points above, the only remaining rule is that implementing idea can't require enormous work from my side to apply it to the cover. All flat surfaces are "safe" to request engraved things on them. Curved ones not so, as it would require adding 3th dimension to engraving it, aka quite a hassle to implement - unless you grab sources from gitorious, fork, and code it yourself for 100% fit, then it can even be covered in 3D magic runes

Summing it up, I will LOVE to personalize pieces for people that helped/are helping to make it happen. Just keep it sane

/Estel

Don't recall if anyone mentioned this, but I think not.

When I was initially thinking about whether to go with 'un-changed aluminum look' or the black one, my biggest thought was that the metal band around the screen would still be black, which to me would look unappealing.

But today I noticed that there is by now a LOT of generic 'white' body replacements for the Nokia N900, and they all have a fittingly silver-y looking screen-surrounding band. Here's one example of such auction, but you should be able to easily find more:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/White-Housin...-/121433760971

Just thought I'd mention it here, in case someone was also considering an aluminum looking one but was put off by the screen metal band thing being black.