VGA with "Full HD" support would be a acceptable alternate to HDMI, but only component out with SD resolution is rather useless these days.

So, how is it going? When will the kickstarter-fundraiser-whatever for prototypes be started? What is known, what is not, how far along have we got? What are the latest news?..
Best wishes. Thank you.
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...

We'll start fundraising for development of prototypes in a few days, max a few weeks.
Those donations will get you (possibly more than) 100% of the amount donated as discount on the final device sales price.
We're also looking for investors who have a few k to gamble with, for this project.

We will start with development as soon as the minimal amount for the first of several steps in development came in, but we will stop the project if we don't reach our goal (which will probably be 200 donations aka "preorders", and 20k EUR) on a certain point in time, probably newyear. We are preparing a 25+ pages brochure to explain exactly what we plan to do and what we consider easy, difficult, or desirable but probably impossible. This is almost done for the hw side, what's missing is my part evaluating the maemo specific issues and their impact to the design.
I think we will start the donation site as soon as you can read about the project details in this brochure (called feasibility study), so you have a chance to make up your own opinion if this project makes sense for you. I told you we won't work behind walls :-)

Sorry when it seems like we're stalled, actually we're not, we're just busy. I'm currently fighting several battles, see council elections and related karma issue (which we luckily fixed now). The other guys are way more active than I am, right now. I'll fix this soon.

Stay tuned, something will happen this month.

cheers
jOERG



PS:latest news: we need to rethink the modem choice, since the Option 801 isn't ready for primetime yet, and we won't use vaporware to base Neo900 design on it. We're already looking into alternatives.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1374273

Thanks to forward this to repo and not making it private
No offence. Even having backupmenu renders N900 unsafe.
Just dig everything from eMMC, reflash and crack the code. Done.
But this though can be countered with simlock + smscon + truecrypt setup in case of thievery.
So the best security is always you!

Thanks for clearing that up.
I buy Jolla as primary everyday phone and keep Neo900 as a backup. Can't wait any longer 'cos my N900 usb broke.
I nevertheless can't stop using N900 -> Neo900. I upgrade
That hdmi is something I would have.

Both options will be "primary" in sense that both will be equally supported and encouraged. We just want to make it clear that one does not need to own N900 to be able to benefit from Neo900, or you don't have to cannibalize your N900 if you want to give Neo900 a try.

Even despite of us stating at each step that it's going to be a complete device, some news on various sites stated that it will be available only as mainboard replacement, which is plain wrong.

Of course if you're interested in just a mainboard to put it into your N900 shell, you're more that welcome to buy it cheaper than complete device and do that! Everything you'll need to do that will be included in the package and whole operation should be reversible (except making hole for USB connector slightly bigger to fit OTG socket, but I don't think that's a major issue)

I read through the thread and browsed the intardwebz a lot on the subject (it took me two nights). Maemo and all of that is still very new to me as I am much more a PDA person (since Psion Series 3c) than a phone person anyway.

To me a working, open mobile platform is a must. I have to be able to review and compile the software I run myself - even if I actually very rarely did it.

The thread had a lot of nice ideas. I suppose a good deal of them might actually be entirely viable - as a Mugen cover attachment or something like that. I know you guys know what you are doing, but please if giving us some tasty extra bit is even remotely difficult or risky - just make sure it's as easy as possible to attach and utilise externally instead. Please, don't endanger the phone itself at any stage. Possibilities in hackability should be limitless that way.

I am a software developer and a long time Linux enthusiast and I know that doubling or even quadrupling the amount of memory of a device makes a world of difference if the software in question is reasonably designed. Going from 256MB to 512MB or beyond is much more important than doubling the CPU speed in my opinion.

To me Neo900 is easily worth 700e even if it was just an N900 with 512MB memory, a sturdy USB port and a few closed source binary blobs available to get rid of.

I voted for 750e and I am eager to loosen a portion of it in advance if it helps prototyping in any way. If at any unfortunate event you couldn't provide the actual physical phone, please make sure that all the documentation will be available in an open fashion.

Best wishes

Thank you for this update. I do understand that compromises on hardware specifications will always be a possibility, but I do hope that the team finds a modem alternative that includes AWS HSDPA.

I appreciate the transparency and flow of dialogue you and Sebastian are maintaining during this phase, especially with end users with less technical development knowledge (like me). I think you are striking the right balance of openness to ideas from your target audience and frank explanations when requests are unlikely to be feasible. The regular status reports also inspire my confidence in your project.

Continued best wishes on this endeavor. We all expect that there will be bumps in the road to navigate. I hope you stay encouraged to see the project through to the end, your success will mean a lot to many of us!

This might seem paranoid but when I think about Snowden, Manning, Asange, and recent events in the extended Arab spring if I was on the ground protesting it would have been nice to have a sure way to non-destructively disable the modem hardware while still having full use of my N900. A hardware switch would be ideal but a snippable jumper or solder bridged pads to the power so someone in the know could disable or add a switch wouldn't cost anything but would give a major benefit to a small number of ultra-tinfoil hatted users.
Currently the modem comes up on bootup and then can be disabled after say 20 sec, easily long enough to take the IMEI and cell if not multi-cell triangulate.
Another thing for the tinfoil hat crowd is can we rewrite the IMEI on the planned modems as needed, it might be nice for those illegal immigrants and such who use burner prepaid SIM cards.
Did there ever turn to be documentation on modem access for SIM and/or uSIM toolkit?

I, unfortunately, moved away from the N900 a couple years ago when my USB port got flaky. I never got around to trying the N9, and went with an Android device instead. I've missed the N900 ever since. I would jump on the chance for an upgraded N900, so Neo900 sounds like just the thing. I've been waiting to see what happens with Jolla, but will gladly contribute to the success of the Neo900. I have very limited skills when it comes to helping port any software, but I will pledge to the kickstarter as soon as it is available.

@biketool i think even if you change the imei the phone still can be identified uniquely . I dont know about all but say mtk rdx in which imei writing is easiest i found they also contain board id mordem id some kind of other numbers so are they transmitted when the phone is turned on or on standby