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According to http://neo900.org/faq http://neo900.org/faq, an assembled device is expected to cost from €600 to €850. For that price you get a bunch of obsolete[
by jmillikin 13y ago
According to http://neo900.org/faq http://neo900.org/faq, an assembled device is expected to cost from €600 to €850. For that price you get a bunch of obsolete[1] hardware packed into a case design so outdated it's still got a physical keyboard.
Also from the FAQ, their goal is to manufacture somewhere around 200 devices.
[1] http://neo900.org/specs http://neo900.org/specs
* CPU: Texas Instruments DM3730, 1 GHz
* RAM: 512 MB/1 GB
* Storage: 1 GB NAND + SD card
* Screen: 3.5" TFT, 800x480, resistive
* OS: Debian GNU/Linux
- MrVitaliy 13y agoI really, really want a physical keyboard.
- catmanjan 13y agoMe too, I've just bought a HTC ChaCha! I was disappointed in my research that Android phones haven't been built with physical keyboards in years! I don't like the sliding keyboard either.
- ekianjo 13y agoThere were a couple of Android phones in Japan with sliding keyboards, but they were kind of crap...
- barbs 13y agoThat's why I've held onto my Sony Xperia Pro for ages...
- brdrak 13y ago> Android phones haven't been built with physical keyboards in years Droid 4 is a currently shipping phone that has one. I've been using it since Droid 2. Don't care for the extra heft and sub par picture quality, but love the keyboard when an emergency comes up and I have SSH into a server while away from a proper computer.
- shinratdr 13y agoThis may be true, but it doesn't make a phone with one any less outdated. Almost every company has eliminated phones with physical keyboards from their portfolio, and even the company that pioneered them is downplaying them and has shifted them off of the flagship models. They're as outdated as rotary phones or cellphones with a physical number pad. Can you still buy them? Sure. Are there still those that desire them? Absolutely. None of that makes them any less arcane.
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoThe fact that they are actually practical makes them not "arcane." A rotary dial is an affectation for anyone; a physical keyboard is a valuable tool for some users. You seem to have a problem distinguishing between "useful" and "trendy," based on your other comments in this thread. Mass-market popularity of a feature has no bearing one way or the other on its usefulness or "outdatedness".
- shinratdr 13y ago> A rotary dial is an affectation for anyone; a physical keyboard is a valuable tool for some users. I entirely disagree. They are both simply examples of what one is used to and therefore prefers. The only difference between a "valuable tool" and an arcane affectation is your personal preferences. I have no problem distinguishing between useful and trendy. We're not talking about just mass market popularity, we're talking about these niche devices no longer existing. "Because it's trendy" isn't the reason that even companies that have no problem with spitting out endless models and variations have also abandoned hardware keyboards. A full size phone headset, a rotary dial, a landline. All arcane affectations in the eyes of most, useful tools in the eyes of those that swear by them. In 10 years, we'll look back on hardware keyboards on phones the way we look at floppy disks. Most already do.
- ekianjo 13y agoObsolete? So What? You get Freedom. You don't need to apply on XY Store or Play Stuff in order to create applications with it. That's worth something.
- untog 13y agoYou don't need the Play Store to make apps in Android, either.
- ekianjo 13y agoYeah, but you can't code directly in Android to develop your ANdroid app, as far as I know. You need a separate PC.
- jmillikin 13y agoAIDE[1] is an IDE for Android, which supports writing C++ and Java applications without a separate machine. User interface considerations restrict it to tablets, since programming on a phone-size screen would be unpleasant. [1] http://android-ide.com/ http://android-ide.com/
- ekianjo 13y agoOK, but is that even usable on a smartphone ? They apparently recommend to use this with a tablet equipped with a keyboard, which is a different form factor altogether.
- seany 13y agoI've never bought a phone with out a physical qwerty keyboard, and don't plan on changing that trend any time soon.
- shinratdr 13y agoThat's fine, you should just be aware that the rock you've tied yourself to is being tossed in the ocean by OEMs and it will gradually sink you to the bottom of technological progress.
- lelandbatey 13y agoProbably. But I'll still be able to get more work done than you because I can type much, much faster, and an order of magnitude more accurately. I'm sure Facebook is much more satisfying on a purely touch screen based device though. :)
- RussianCow 13y agoHow much work do you really do on your phone, though? Besides managing email, calendar, etc, a laptop or even a tablet seems better suited for "real work".
- lelandbatey 13y agoProbably. However, I do get much more work done on my phone than many people might imagine. With most modern phones, there's also a "glass ceiling" on how much work you can do on a phone. Because there's no physical keyboard, you can't do really serious text editing. You can't write long emails, you can't edit documents, and you can't do technical things. And these limits aren't because of the phone's small form factor, they're because of the imprecise input device (the software keyboard). I think if more people had hardware keyboards, you'd see more people getting work done on their phones.
- RussianCow 13y ago
- JohnTHaller 13y agoThe folks most likely to want the open aspect are also most likely to appreciate the physical keyboard. Heck, they'll probably type faster on them.
- pekk 13y agoArgue it's obsolete if you want, but it isn't progress to require me to use a touchscreen with my giant fat fingers
- shinratdr 13y agoActually, it's almost the definition of progress. So often for real progress to be made, those who swear by the old system have to be ignored and abandoned because the only feedback they can provide is "leave everything the same".
- ekianjo 13y agoYeah, that's why the mouse is still around and has never been replaced by anything else on actual desktop computers ?
- electrum 13y agoI replaced the mouse a long time ago with a Magic Trackpad and never looked back.
- ekianjo 13y agoI guess you don't have a gaming life.
- __--__ 13y agoI tried that. It was wildly inaccurate as far as gesture detection and even click detection. Two finger taps for right clicks would frequently be detected as a single finger click. The problems got worse the more advanced the gestures got. In theory, I love the magic trackpad. Now I just need one that works as advertised.
- shinratdr 13y agoThat has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said. We also still use cups to hold water and plates to eat food off of. What is your point? Some things don't progress? You're right. I don't see how that relates though.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gmuslera 13y agoThat N900 used to be the ultimate hackers phone because how open it was, in fact always considered it more a pocket computer than a phone. Afaik was the first smartphone were was tested taking HDR photos, had a bunch of special pourpose linux distros for it (i.e. NeoPwn, for network auditing) and some other things that we see as normal today, but probably first tested there). And really miss how comfortable was that keyboard compared with touchscreen ones, there are pretty few hw keyboard phones. Being even more open than the bundled Maemo, with more memory (if well 512k is the double of what it had, it is still small for current day uses) could be the phone version of the raspberry pi.
- ekianjo 13y agoBtw, since you mentioned pocket computers, the OpenPandora is basically the same thing as this new N900 (in terms of hardware) and can run several Linux Distros as well. Personally whenever I need to type something on the go, I use my phone to tether my internet connect to the Pandora and type with it. You can do serious work with it.
- rurounijones 13y ago> So outdated it's still got a physical keyboard. Yes please!
- InformalRelief 13y agoI like that it has a physical keyboard, what I can't stand is the resistive touchscreen. Back in the day, I would have totally gotten an n900 if it weren't for the screen (I tried it, just didn't work for me.)
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago> so outdated it's still got a physical keyboard. I'll take three, thanks.
- __--__ 13y agoI'm curious: has anybody here who advocates a physical keyboard tried swype? I also hate non-physical keyboards on phones, but swype makes it considerably easier than typing with two hands. I can type out long sentences quickly using just a single thumb. For me, that's a huge step up from needing two hands on the phone at all times.