Suggesting to add a poll in a new thread ...

@mods
please create a subforum (device/neo900) to hold such things. I feel there willl come a few more, for sure more than one/two thread(s) can hold.

I for myself would like to receive a full device even having spare one (so go ahead).
Are there still the two options:
- get full one?
- send in a used device and receive full Neo900? (even then go ahead)
joerg_rw wanted to check (or already denied due to much more assembling work) price?

egoistic view: strike all above and use all funds to get Dual SIM

Regarding the possible (and hopeful) future "excess" donation pool use, if we manage to gain more traction, and thus more donators, there will most likely be a limit on how many N900 cases can be salvaged (even counting people that already have a case AND would be willing to use it).
People selling N90 cases might also adjust their prices at some point if they see a consistent demand...

So if that limit is reached (or used cases become too expensive), I'd rather have excess donations go torwards producing cases.

PS: That's coming from someone who doesn't own a N900.
PPS: I have obviously no idea about how many cases can be had in the wild right now, so this is highly theoretical.
PPPS: It might have been touched on previous posts, but I think it's still relevant to the use of said "possible excess donations".

Cases are abundance, even in three (four?) colors, and sellers claim they can ramp up production to a few 1000/week. It's more about the nasty parts like SMIA95 camera socket, the 5MP cam module itself, the diplays and slider mech and particularly the domesheets, but at least for the latter we already explained our alternatives in feasibility study.
General rule: when we reach sales counts where supply gets short, we have sufficient volume already to create our own supply.
But yes, buying samples of all the available N900 mech parts to evaluate their quality is one usage of the complete fund. The question is if we will go and buy all the needed amount of all mech parts in advance and if we even can afford this. (the original idea been to do this when customers did final actual order and thus transfer the money to us. Only then we also know who wants a complete device and who wants the board only)


PS: We already checked all the switches and found our sourced parts to fit pretty good. We even seem to have choice of different tactile characteristics (operation force) :-)
/j

Yes, but watch out for quality. I have recently (read: a few months ago) purchased a white one from eBay on a whim and swapped one of my N900 into it. I plan to write up a proper review but in short...

There are a few niggles with it: the battery cover is not quite flash with the rest (it's about 0.5mm short - not enough to cause a problem but enough to feel it), the whole case creaks a bit, the buttons work but don't click like the original... but most importantly none of the magnets are present, which means the SD card and opening the keyboard are not recognized. Lastly, the lens cover does not have the reflective black/white thingy which means the phone thinks the lens cover is open permanently. All of these are surmountable but better known beforehand.

Pichlo, you just earned a 500 DocS-honour-points in gold :-).
That's exactly why we'd need to get samples quite some time before we start MP. MANY THANKS for the report, I'm looking forward to the verbose one incl the name of the seller, so we at Neo900-team can checkmark at least one of those sources and don't need to further deal with it.

/j

I'm still kind of undecided on that matter.
I tend to agree with you because I have two spare N900s in my closet of which I know the build quality is fine and afaik it's pretty easy to swap the board.
On the other hand I tend to disagree because I'm kind of all thumbs when it comes to sub-laptop level and I'm not under financial stress.

I guess it comes down to whether there will be idiot proof instructions for swapping the board.
And with idiot proof I mean suited for people who complain about invisible counters due to disabled JavaScript on their side.


I'm kind of hesitant to bring this up since it might cause all sorts of social problems like jealousy, finger pointing and even fraud, but personally I'd be ok with subsidizing the device of someone else. I wouldn't go as far as buying a whole device for someone else, but I think I'd go up to 10%.
If there are 200 buyers and 50 of them think the same way then 10 additional people with low finances can get their Neo900 for half the price.
Of course I wouldn't do this for everybody, but I'd do it for people who can and would add considerable momentum to the project in terms of HW/SW develompment.
I'm aware that "add considerable momentum" is a completely subjective term and given the fact that I've been absent from this community for more than half a year I couldn't even begin to tell who these people might be. But I'd put trust in some kind of community decision about who would qualify - if that works in a civilized way and doesn't deteriorate into what I've written in the first sentence of this paragraph.


Does that mean we will see harlekins [1]?


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VW...I_Harlekin.JPG

my n900 is dead in the water with the infamous "all telephony functions are disabled..." error. I've done the fix enough times it just stopped working altogether.(if you live a more "active" life, the springs will come loose again and again, will only last soo long).

that said, maemo 5 is fine, and the CSSU is great, except it feels a tad sluggish. the 1Ghz chip, and the LTE modem make it a worthwhile upgrade.

I'd also like to see the default image use a modern 3.x(3.10 is the new LTS), release with more recent ext4 patches, and use ext4 instead of ext3 on /.


Also, I don't need the latest and greatest 20MP camera, but something around on par with the carl ziess 5MP camera is a big plus. The n900's camera, while low res, was ****ing awesome, and a big selling point.

For me, I take notice to more of the little things. Also, the type and quality of the SD card reader is important. Class 10 cards are great, but UHT-1 and 2 are even better.

An audio jack that can be either input or output would be killer as well, especially if its high quality.

Cheaper series production should be top priority, I agree. Personally, I am going to buy Neo900 device, not "board-only" version - and then, when working setup is achieved on Neo900, and N900 is too-scratched-to-continue-using-it, send N900 to Neo900-developers-team so that they would 'cannibalize' working N900's parts.
Small question. In Wiki, it's said that camera lens size is too small for 5Mpx. Is it possible to get a compatible camera module which would have larger optics? I understand that it would stick out of the case, the optics would be vulnerable, et cetera, but is it possible to do as cameraphone variation? Considering that the same module would be compatible with Neo900/N900/N96/N85/N79, there should be a high demand for it. The two hurdles could be: fragility of camera module which can be broken during replacement operation, and necessity to modify case to fit the sticking-out optics. Considering that Neo900/N900 have option of Estel's aluminium case, modifying the backcover for different optics should not be very difficult.
Thank you for reading this fiction.
Best wishes. Thank you.
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...

I don't know of any such module, not even with faintly matching characteristics. And building or getting built such thing is way beyond our scope, it probably would cost a significant fraction of a million if not more.

Sorry, and thanks for the support.
cheers
jOERG

Who wants to buy my 2 N900 (both in good condition, everthing works)
so that I can fund Neo900 with the price I get......

Neo900 looks quite promising