Originally Posted by mrsellout

A device as beautifully designed as the n9 deserves better than a iphone hand-me-down (not that I'm knocking your fine efforts). Why not design our own case and use a 3d printer to fabricate it?

Building my own 3d printer is my project for the summer, so I'm holding off doing this just yet, but I thought I'd put the idea out there.

Originally Posted by godofwar424

Well it would be costly for one person to produce a few hundred units let alone a few thousand on a home built 3d printer

Also will require ALOT of effort on your part, and then we have to go about the circuit board and the programming of the device ect.

Originally Posted by mrsellout

Ah no I wasn't clear, we pick a good mini keyboard, and then design our own slide mechanism. The drawings can then be uploaded online for others to customize (if they want) and take to a local 3d printing outlet to manufacture.

Originally Posted by godofwar424

The minikey wont work from the looks of it, it doesnt have a removable device holder and its built too perfectly for the iPhone

I LIE! It should work, there's screws and stuff on the MiniKey Im tempted to just buy it and try!

EDIT: Went and bought one, will post pictures when finished and will let you know how it works! Don't have the hard case yet, so going to use the standard rubber one initially.

Originally Posted by Kabouik

Was your NUU Minikey delivered Godofwar424?

Originally Posted by godofwar424

Yes it was!

After alot of stupidty from the Courier it was finally delivered, unfortunately been very busy as I have started training for a London Olympics job so not much time to post

BUT I do have very good news, the keyboard works excellently! Also I am in the process of creating a custom bracket for our N9's that can be directly screwed onto the NUU MiniKey!!

You can order it from this 3D Printing company atm

http://www.shapeways.com/model/61228...d-n9-case.html

I am going to look into Injection Moulding as well to see which finish would end up better

Spent all night measuring and creating the bracket for our N9's, hope you guys enjoy the early version, I will post back with more info on the Injection Moulding idea!

PS. This bracket will only work for the NUU MiniKey as it has been designed purely for it, using the stock baseplate for iPhone as a template. It may fit other keyboards but I can't guarantee that it will!

Originally Posted by Kabouik

Excellent news! I did not think you were that much involved, and it's great to see that you have an actual project for the housing. Unfortunately the link does not work at the moment, but I'll check it later.

The NUU Minikey also exist in AZERTY, so I might give it a try soon, and report if compatibility is as good as with your QWERTY unit. Characters with accents could mess up. I won't order it now though, still trying to figure out how thick the N9 would be with it. I just picked my old N900 with me two days ago, and I found it suprisingly small compared to the N9. I mean, despite being thicker, it feeled more compact and I was actually surprised that the N9 changed my opinion about the N900 "bulkiness". So adding a keyboard to the N9 could make it a really difficult-to-carry-brick, or even create a time paradox, especially because it would also be thicker than the N900 with the NUU Minikey.

Buuuut. I think I'll purchase one anyway.

P.S.
By the way, could you please post some pictures of the N9 alongside the keyboard, or with one device onto the other (from above to compare their size, and from the side to compare thickness)?

P.P.S.
How fast is the connexion between the phone and the keyboard when you slide the keyboard out (I guess the bluetooth of the keyboard only turns on when you slide it out?)? Do you have to wait for several seconds, or is it unnoticeable?