Neo900

[Feathers McGraw]

Read about this the other week, an open hardware phone, very hackable:

http://neo900.org/

Looks awesome, but is really expensive, If it was about £350-400 I think I would get one.

I miss physical QWERTY keypads, but hate the little scroll pad on Blackberrys. The whole industry seems to have gone for big, flat screens (apart form that one curved phone), which is such a shame.

[woodsmoke]

Hi that does indeed look kewl!

And, a few years I would have jumped on it even with the price, and because it is open source, etc.

However, I would offer one caveat,

Think carefully on your lifestyle, if it is ordered, calm, sedate, then I would, myself, jump on it.

And that is because if something goes wrong you have a reasonable chance of getting a working phone back in a nominal time.

Myself, however, have had a lifestyle change which in no way did I expect! I, suddenly, last May got into S.C.U.B.A. and in a short while became involved in a group that gets disabled persons into S.C.U.B.A. as a therapy.

I cannot afford to be in a situation where I can't get a replacement phone very quickly since I interact with students when I am partway across the world.

So.....if your lifestyle fits it, I would go for it because you will be...........the COOL guy!

woodjealoussmoke

[Feathers McGraw]

Handsets are really cheap though, what would stop me from putting my sim card into another if something went wrong?

[SteveRiley]

Some new keyboarded phones are due...

http://www.androidcentral.com/verizo...werty-keyboard
http://www.androidcentral.com/lg-opt...-mobile-leaked

...but they have crappy specs.

Why do none of these manufacturers understand that there exists a not unsmall market who would happily pay for a high-end phone with a keyboard? Look at the comments on those articles and similar (go Googling for the model numbers). People crave keyboards.

[Feathers McGraw]

Same old story, every time.

It's strange, most handsets seem to be sold on the premise that you want to be able to watch films on them and take & view DSLR quality photos.

Personally, i'd rather have great battery life than a massive screen. If I want to do something that requires a big screen then I'll pick up a different device. NFC makes this easy enough.

The palm pre had a decent keyboard but shocking battery life. If they'd fixed that they might have been on to something. It also had wireless charging, which was slightly ahead of its time.

Maybe we're just weirdos, I primarily use my phone for communication...

[SteveRiley]

Maybe we're just weirdos, I primarily use my phone for communication...

What he said!

[Feathers McGraw]

Is the screen on the n900 really that bad? I heard it was pretty good (although it's capacitive rather than resistive, which is unusual, right?)

[kubicle]

Is the screen on the n900 really that bad?

He probably meant his screen was "bad" (broken/scratched)...so if he replaced just the neo motherboard he'd still be stuck with the bad screen.

I heard it was pretty good (although it's capacitive rather than resistive, which is unusual, right?)

The screen on n900 is resistive

[Feathers McGraw]

Fair, it may be worth it financially, though. In general, what were your experiences with the n900?

You're right, I got mixed up and didn't check before posting. It's different to a "normal" touch screen, and isn't so good for multi-touch, but is better for precision input. I think!