I meant that I hardly can imagine that most Neo900 buyers will want to limit themselves to text-based browsers due to incredibly slow connection, hence making "why not Neo900 with Calypso" suggestions basically equal to "then no Neo900 at all, because number of customers could then be counted on hands".

The "shininess level" of Neo900 is obviously lower than Ubuntu Edge was supposed to have. We won't have fancy new generation CPU and GPU with tons of RAM. Our specs are moderate in comparison. But even if it won't have state-of-the-art performance, it won't be as underpowered as Freerunner was, so while browsing on Links is pretty much understandable on the Freerunner, on Neo900 would probably just be used to show off "hey, look how geeky I am!"

So while basic GPRS on Freerunner is just annoying, on Ubuntu Edge it would be a total bottleneck rendering whole device unattractive at all. The same applies to Neo900, despite of its significantly lower specs than what Canonical promised in their (in fact, failed - in opposite to our :P) fundraiser.

(the "fanciness" and "shininess" I'm referring to is obviously based on raw-performance alone - it should be clear to any geeky person out there that Neo900 in wider scope is much more shiny and fancy even without counting any performance at all! )

Hope it's all clear now

While I appreciate effort put into putting those photos and explanations here (no irony, it's even good enough to bookmark this post for all people that ask "why N950 have such strange tri-part back" or "but alu doesn't shield radios, N950 was alu!", instead of explaining it by hand every time), I honestly hope, that you were joking about that part with missing "little" detail

Then it's really good that no one asserted that, but you're, probably, perfeclty aware of all lengthy discussions and explanations that I've made in repl. body thread, on the topic of how replacement body will deal with the problem. Otherwise, you wouldn't throw lightly comments in the tone of "I don't belive it can work, so we're not want to be a part of it", right? Right?...

That was a good one. I actually chuckled on the sole thought.

Honest and sincere "thanks", but here I agree with you - the fact that I'll test it with Neo900 board is only related to that secondary board\spacer thing, I want to confirm first hand that no custom change from repl. body (especially, placement of cables connecting hirose U.fl connections from board, to body's build-in antennae connector-adapter) mix with Neo900's changes in unpredicted way (including prozaic things like cable becoming too short, or body not having enough place for cable, due to overall thicker motherboard, etc). Probability of such problems is low, but I like confirmed situations more

Thats actually a very interesting thing - you're sure that you want it discussed in this, already quite bloated thread? Well, I guess that if you asked, the answer is "yes", and mods can separate it anyway, so...

From my limited knowledge and (pretty lame, I must admit, as I'm not specialist) 4nec models of N950 antennas in context of surrounding "reflector" alu body, my view on purpose of those "coils" is to use circular polarization as a way to reduce "you're holding it wrong" aspect. While iPhone's version of this effect may be irritating, without those coils - IMO, N950 would act even worse, losing signal almost/completely, if held with screen facing signal source, anywhere except really densely RF'ed area. You will notice, that radius of coil base and tip, with total lenght of coil took into account, corresponds with multiplies of quarter wavelength of signal that said antenna is supposed to propagate, if you care to spend a little time measuring it, and calculating in 4nec or any other antenna design software of your choice.

Now, in simulations, this create theoretical radiation pattern's shape is "sneaking" around the edges of device toward screen sections, if you excuse the comparision. The problem is, IMO, that those "coils" are just too small for desired effect to manifest as it should in real world - the total wavelenght portion multiplier should be twice as high, at least (by making them twice longer, or doubling the radius, or mixing both effects, where the latter seems like most sane approach), to make resulting surface pattern's above-and-under screen portions roughly the same as front-facing (from antenna perspective, in reality, it's exactly back of the device) zone. It would make reception from back of the device a little less sensitive, but would give more uniform reception from all sides of the device.

Now, all of this is based on my humble research and even more "ashamed" knowledge, so I may be wrong in some parts, most parts, or about the whole thing. In such case, feel free to correct me with technical explanations, o'knowledgeable ones Seriously, every bit and piece on information helps in the project.

Cheers,
/Estel

I'd be perfectly fine with that if these days loading a simple website wouldn't require me to suck a zillion bytes through the wire (or air in this case) just to realize that this website doesn't work in a text browser at all.

Don't forget the other form/fit change, microUSB A/B which will need a bigger case hole. Your case would be signifigantly harder to enlarge that the stock one...

This project looks very cool. But according to your website it's going to cost at least €600 to buy which is almost £500!! You could buy a brand new phone for that, how could anyone play 500 quid for basically a pimped up old Nokia from 2009? It probably sounds like i have something against this project, I don't, but to charge that much money for a 5 year old Nokia... Even €300 seems a bit over-the-top.

It cannot be done cheaper given the realities of scale and supply and given that, the neo900 is for folk who grant such value for the very special things the device offers. So, not the device for those who don't value those features.

Recently I'd been thinking of getting a Nokia N900 but then found this thread on the Neo900, so i thought maybe this would be a better choice than getting the old N900, until I saw the price. True maybe i don't value what the Neo900 offers enough and would probably be better off just getting the N900. I just couldn't pay £500 for it.

When the n900 made by big corp Nokia was 1st for sale it was comparable in price to what a very small determined group and a much smaller company is now creating in the neo900...so there it is.
If you want a corps. desires you get a cheap device...
If you want a better device...the only thing on the table at all IMHO is either the neo900...or the pyra....both being work involving Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller.
Good luck to you if you go down the Android/M$/BB?/Icrap path....
I couldn't ...gives me acid reflux and I keep wanting to hurl up on whatever device I'm holding....my body is intent on rebelling against going with the pack...erm...school....um.....herd....that's it! herd! baaa!! baa!
Naw my sheep impersonation sucks ...I would make a really terrible sheep. Sigh. So for me there is no question about being content with being force fed some corp. idea of what I should have.

IIRC N900 was 599 EUR directly from Nokia webstore (plus shipping!). Nokia built (I guess) a 400k units in first batch. Nokia being a BIG company *is* able to negotiate special price - or even proprietary chips like the N9 1GB RAM+flash-NAND unobtainium PoP chip.
Get an iPhone that's cheaper if you think Neo900 is too expensive. [sarcastic edit] iPhone5s: 699EUR; us not using a SoC that integrates modem: +150EUR; us publishing schematics: +100EUR; us being FOSS and offering build-to-order: +150EUR; expansion port: +80EUR; hw kbd: +140EUR; decent touchscreen: +30EUR; us NOT BEING APPLE: +500EUR; Neo900 display resolution: -40EUR; Neo900 CPU grunt: -80EUR.
Can you do the math? Seems like we're roundabout a 1000EUR dumping the price. That's in line with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kgCaASk1yc http://www.omapworld.com/zoom.html zoom-II

[edit] get one of the new shiny cheap powerful phones, and accept that modem and CPU are same chip and share same RAM! We're not selling cheap stuff, we build and sell OPEN and SECURE stuff. Sorry this will cost you an extra 200 bucks - roundabout. We sure wish it wouldn't, but it's not our call. Get a Jolla, with snapdragon SoC that shares everything between CPU and Modem. It's a nice device, and I *really* wholeheartedly recommend it for all those who don't grok why Neo900 ist "that unreasonably expensive".

@endsormeans: afaik the Pyra will not offer phone funtions. For now we are sister projects. I hope we can stay to be...

Har har...love the unobtainium ....yep...sums it up succinctly.
It was a gawd-awful price here in canada....800 canadian maple syrup bucks. So spending the money properly on a wisely built successor is more than worth it.
@joerg : ya the pyra not having phone function is something I noticed....still...I consider the endeavour on par with what the neo900 is aiming at....just a better device than what is offered by the corps.