Almost comflicted .. still going to wait for Jolla Sailfish .. I never owned an N900 (though I did covet one).
Introducing Neo900
11–20 of 110 posts
Re: Introducing Neo900
#12Re: Introducing Neo900
#13The basic idea is great, but the touchdisplay is shitty. I have a n900. Unfortunately Nokia abanded meamo.
It will be very tough to create a market and develop hardware. Hardware development is simply so expensive.
Re: Introducing Neo900
#14I stopped reading at "3.5" TFT, 800x480, resistive"
Why?
My current phone is 4.7", capacitive, with 1280x720. My next phone will likely be 5" or more, with 1920x1080. The perceived improvement in readability etc. in going up my current phone was fantastic - I've pretty much stopped using my tablets because I can now comfortably do so much more on my phone.
Using a phone that small with a resolution that horrible would be like being forced to wear glasses with mud smeared all over them. And have to pay extra for the privilege.
Re: Introducing Neo900
#15I stopped reading at "3.5" TFT, 800x480, resistive"
Why?
Because it is using a blurry and resistive (barely responsive to finger touch) monitor, making the experience of using the device way worse than the modern High PPI monitors used in other mobile devices on the market today.
The use of the term "TFT Display" is also a sign that they're not using any of the more modern types of panels like IPS. If they did they would have said so.
Re: Introducing Neo900
#16It looks thick. I don't know why, but it makes me not at all interested. Also, what was so special about the N900 and is that relevant in the market today? I'm genuinely curious, I don't know much about the N900.
Both me and my brother had one when it came out and I can honestly say it's the shittiest phone I've had.
But this is a matter of ideology.
Re: Introducing Neo900
#17It looks thick. I don't know why, but it makes me not at all interested. Also, what was so special about the N900 and is that relevant in the market today? I'm genuinely curious, I don't know much about the N900.
> Also, what was so special about the N900 and is that relevant in the market today?
N900 had:
- HW keyboard
- Pixel-accurate touchscreen (with stylus)
- Desktop-ish hacker/FOSS friendly Linux OS
Essentially N900 was the embodiment of the dreams of what Nokia could have been if it weren't for EVIL Elop and MS ruining everything, and that is why the device has small cult following.
There has been occasional HW keyboard equipped Android devices since, but they have usually been of limited availability, and while Meego lives on as Mer (and the rest of the family) it afaik is not really usable as daily driver (yet). And Mer has been adapted to fairly limited number of devices, none which afaik have HW keyboards (besides N9x0).
Re: Introducing Neo900
#18I wonder whether this has an open-source* baseband/firmware, and open-source graphics drivers. If not, it's not better than, say, a Nexus 4, which you can unlock and put custom software on it (e.g. Ubuntu Phone, I'm sure you could port Meego/Maemo/whatever it's called nowadays). The Nexus of course has vastly superior hardware. If I buy such a tinkerphone as this, I want to be able to play with it at all levels. For…
It has a keyboard. That makes it infinitely more interesting to me than a Nexus 4. I bet a lot of (former) N900 users will agree. While I never used an N900, I've used phones with and without keyboards over the past few years, and I'm not settling for a touch-only device.
There's also more and more of the base Android apps that are abandoned in favour of closed-source, Google branded apps. So there's that as well.
Re: Introducing Neo900
#19Your €500-700 gets you a replacement motherboard for your existing N900. Thinking about it, it’s not a bad solution: most people this is aimed at will already have a N900 they remember fondly. Pity you’ll still be locked to a resistive touch screen though.
The resistive screen on the N900 is excellent . Better than some capacitives I've used.
Second this; judging from all the hate resistives get, I'm starting to think that most people have never used a good one.
Re: Introducing Neo900
#20I wonder whether this has an open-source* baseband/firmware, and open-source graphics drivers. If not, it's not better than, say, a Nexus 4, which you can unlock and put custom software on it (e.g. Ubuntu Phone, I'm sure you could port Meego/Maemo/whatever it's called nowadays). The Nexus of course has vastly superior hardware. If I buy such a tinkerphone as this, I want to be able to play with it at all levels. For…
It uses an OEM modem module (non-free) and PowerVR graphics (non-free).
At the moment there is just no really viable open-source baseband/graphics hardware available (though people are working on both).
However, building working, commercially available phone platforms is an important step towards completely open mobile phones.
Compared to an unlocked Nexus 4, Neo900 has a few crucial advantages:
* most drivers are in the mainline Linux kernel, making it easy to upgrade the kernel. * the hardware will be completely documented, allowing me to add or modify sensors for research projects * there are two supported non-Android OSes with working kernels, existing communities and developers. * it has a physical keyboard
(of course, there are a lot of obvious disadvantages, too)