An Open Source Phone That’s Completely Unlocked, Hardware Too | Hacker News Reader

An Open Source Phone That’s Completely Unlocked, Hardware Too

fastcolabs.com

53 pointsdil870 comments

According to 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 For that price you get a bunch of obsolete[1] hardware packed into a case design so outdated it's still got a physical keyboard.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

  * 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

I really, really want a physical keyboard.

Me 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.

There were a couple of Android phones in Japan with sliding keyboards, but they were kind of crap...

That's why I've held onto my Sony Xperia Pro for ages...

> 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.

This may be true, but it doesn't make a phone with one any less outdated.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They're as outdated as rotary phones or cellphones with a physical number pad.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.

The 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".

> 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.

Obsolete? 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.

You don't need the Play Store to make apps in Android, either.

Yeah, but you can't code directly in Android to develop your ANdroid app, as far as I know. You need a separate PC.

AIDE[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/

OK, 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.

Is any IDE usable on a phone?

I am using Geany on an device which is the same size as the N900 (and keyboard equipped), and I have already developed several full applications with it. It's definitely usable.

If you don't mind me asking- why? Things like debugging seem like they would be a nightmare.

Simple. I use public transports a lot and it's impossible to open something as big as a laptop in such conditions. With something that small, I can do some work on the go, compile it and test it very quickly. Debugging isn't ideal, true, but again I can do a lot more with this instead of wasting time.

Obviously it's worth something, just not much. It's certainly not worth using obsolete hardware for pretty much all users, and the vast majority of developers.

We all draw a line somewhere, most of us just tend to draw it at what works best for us with the most reasonable tradeoffs. If an RMS-style "free device" is what works best for you, more power to you. It's not for most, and the tradeoffs this device makes so that it can exist make that abundantly clear.

> It's certainly not worth using obsolete hardware for pretty much all users

When it runs GNU/Linux, it's obviously not targeted, per se, at all users. It should be fairly clear right from the start. And they don't plan to manufacture millions of them, so they know what they are doing. Obviously there are still people, even if they are few, who want to have a general computing device in their pocket, that can run Python, compile stuff with gcc, and which is programmable, not like all other phones out there.

I've never bought a phone with out a physical qwerty keyboard, and don't plan on changing that trend any time soon.

That'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.

Probably. 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. :)

How 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".

Probably. 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.

I disagree. I have a hardware keyboard (and type pretty quickly on it), and I still don't do very much work on my phone. The difference between a physical and touch screen keyboard on a phone is significantly smaller than the leap from a phone keyboard (even a physical one) to a computer keyboard. Even if I could type half as quickly on my phone as my computer, I still wouldn't use it for any serious writing/editing.

Ah, see I really enjoy getting some work done on a small phone. It's not so much that I like typing on a small phone, and thus get lots of work done using a phone. For me it's the other way around; I like to get work done using a phone (because that's all I need to do some of my work) and because of that I need a small keyboard.

Also, you're totally right about the jump from phone keyboard to full size. If there's anything that'll take a long time (150+ words), I will want to use a real keyboard. In fact, here's how I'd rate various input methods for typing:

    Word Count and Usefulness of Input Device
    -----------------------------------------

    Software phone keyboard : 1   - 30  words
    Hardware phone keyboard : 30  - 150 words
    Crappy laptop keyboard  : 150 - 400 words
    Nice desktop keyboard   : 400+ words

Fair enough. I guess what it comes down to is I don't enjoy using my phone for work, whereas it seems like you do. So I only use it when I need to and don't have access to a larger device. In fact, I use AirDroid so that I can send text messages from my desktop when I'm on it. :)

> 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.

No, you really won't. Autocorrect and predictive keyboards work great; even with a stock setup, one can type at close to full speed on a touchscreen so long as you ignore the apparent (pre-correction) errors. Add to that the increased screen area of touchscreen devices, and you will find that they are actually more productive -- you can type slightly faster with a physical keyboard, but at the cost of much less context.

I got my current iPhone (my first smartphone) in 2011. Before that I had an LG Envy Touch, with a phenomenal keyboard. I type fast on my iPhone, but I reckon I'm still 1.5 to 2x slower than with a physical phone keyboard. You can really hustle with a physical keyboard. All that said, if a keyboarded smartphone was fast and bug-free-enough I'd jump ship for the keyboard alone.

I don't know about that. I own and have owned plenty of phones, of all three divisions (though some much less recently than others).

As an exercise, let us consider the usability of a terminal emulator on a somewhat-recent Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S3). This[0] is a screenshot of what it looks like if I want to type into a terminal emulator using a software-based keyboard. Notice that it is very cramped, and that few lines are available to see. It's pretty much a totally unworkable amount of space.

Now consider this hypothetical screenshot[1] without the software based keyboard. The difference in usability is night and day; the screen real-estate has more than doubled.

Not only does it mean you can actually use all the screen you have, you also get things that are really useful for dealing with text, things like arrow keys to move backwards and forwards exactly as many characters you want, or tab keys that allow for actual text editing/serious console usage.

I realize that for most people, these are total non-issues. And that's totally cool. I have also been in the position of not needing a high-functioning handheld device. However, there are thousands of phones for people who "just want to browse the web", or "just want to share pictures." However, there's pretty much no phones for people that want highly-functional handheld tools to get things done. That's what I'm looking for. Till then, I'll just have to hold onto my good old G2...

[0] - http://i.imgur.com/MJXgSum.png [1] - http://i.imgur.com/fG7TFLW.png

> one can type at close to full speed on a touchscreen so long as you ignore the apparent (pre-correction) errors.

And as long as you ignore the actual, glaring errors every time you use a word that hasn't been added to the dictionary yet. Oh, what fun it is to try to discuss technical subjects, or video games, or music, or pretty much any topic whatsoever that uses jargon or slang. The time lost to noticing an error, going back, correcting it, and regaining your flow can easily cut your effective WPM in half.

And that's not even considering the joys of terminal emulators, where autocorrect is so much worse than useless that it's generally disabled by default.

Obviously you've never tried to use a terminal on your phone. Touch screen keyboards are massively inferior.

This is `exactly` why I need a keyboard on my phone.

Try using ssh to restart a failed service, or quickly grep through a log file with the on screen keyboard...

I never use Facebook. Reading any sort of article certainly is though. So are all forms of remote desktop. This is a common misconception by those who swear by hardware keyboards, that the rest of us are simply fucking around on our phones, and those that do real work need a hardware keyboard.

They said the same thing about the GUI vs the CLI. Look how that turned out.

You're right in that the GUI is certainly a much more accessible tool than the CLI, but I and many others still stand by the CLI as a powerful tool and the preferred way to get things done (in many cases, though not all).

Likewise, a hardware keyboard for a phone is something I like, something I enjoy, and something I find useful for me. I totally understand that many users don't need it or don't want it. Mostly, I'm just unhappy that it's being abandoned so completely by manufacturers when there is a utility to it.

The 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.

Argue it's obsolete if you want, but it isn't progress to require me to use a touchscreen with my giant fat fingers

Actually, 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".

Yeah, that's why the mouse is still around and has never been replaced by anything else on actual desktop computers ?

I replaced the mouse a long time ago with a Magic Trackpad and never looked back.

I guess you don't have a gaming life.

I 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.

That 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.

Is using the keyboard with its tiny little buttons really that much better for you? As someone who can touch type reasonably well I have always found both the touchscreen virtual keyboard on my Android phones and the n900 physical keyboard rather annoying.

> Is using the keyboard with its tiny little buttons really that much better for you?

It's way, way better.

On my old Blackberry, I could type as fast as I could write by hand. (The Blackberry didn't even do any form of auto-correction or text-prediction).

I don't even have very large fingers, but there's a huge benefit to having the tactile feedback when typing quickly. Similarly, I'm dramatically slower on a full-size touchscreen "keyboard" than on a physical keyboard.

Of course, this effect is more noticeable the faster you type. I notice it a lot, because on a physical keyboard, I can theoretically type ~100 wpm[0]. In practice, this means I end up typing as fast as I think (which is obviously slower than 100wpm).

On a touchscreen "keyboard", I can't type as fast as I can think, and it's incredibly frustrating to keep halting my train of thought so what's on the screen can catch up.

[0] for a typing test, where I don't have to stop and think about what I'm typing.

> Of course, this effect is more noticeable the faster you type.

I type pretty fast and I've never noticed it, so this seems like a very subjective thing to me. I'm just trying to understand that point of view.

I would have to go back to the n900 and use it for a while to get a handle on why I really never missed its keyboard much at all. It has been a while. The only thing I remember missing is the ease of using modal keys versus the android (Samsung, I suppose) touch keyboard app, where you have to shift to a completely different keyboard to use symbols and then switch back when you're done. I find that distracting.

> Is using the keyboard with its tiny little buttons really that much better for you?

They're no less tiny than the keys on the screen, plus they're tactile.

In other words, yes, absolutely.

I've only owned one phone with a real keyboard, an n900. The keys are far smaller than the virtual keys on the screen of a newer, larger android phone like my s4.

That 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.

Btw, 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.

> So outdated it's still got a physical keyboard.

Yes please!

I 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.)

> so outdated it's still got a physical keyboard.

I'll take three, thanks.

I'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.

I'm still puzzled as to the manufacturing of these devices. Is the Neo900 just updated internals in a refurbished N900 case, or is it actually a fully manufactured phone based on the design of the N900?

It's a new mobo for an existing N900.

That's disappointing. I wish it had been an original venture, but with Nokia's, and really every other OEM's massive patent warhead I guess we can't expect these sorts of things anymore.

If you have the money I'm sure a desperate phone maker like ZTE, HTC, or LG would be willing to build any phone you want.

Life inside the Matrix is pleasant isn't it?

I love this comment because there are two opposite but legitimate interpretations: that N900 fanboys are living in the Matrix or that mainstream Android/iOS users are stuck in the Matrix and haven't "woken up" to the superiority of the N900.

I doubt it is fully open phone. At least soft, that works on baseband processor probably closed. More about this problem: https://laforge.gnumonks.org/papers/gsm_phone-anatomy-latest...

This is beautiful. I'm not a Linux fan, but if I can get BSD to run on this, it's instantly more powerful[1] than any "smartphone" I can buy.

1. My definition of "powerful" includes IP forwarding and packet filtering. iPhone could use one of these as a gateway.

For those who want a Nokia N900 and only want to pay $199, it's still on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-N900-Unlocked-Computer-Touchscre...

I just get a blank grey page.

"Smartphones only become obsolete because the manufacturers design them to."

…and hardware getting faster, new sensors, etc. This line is getting pretty tired.

I agree. In 2011 when I got my smartphone, I remember mobile websites being simpler than they are today. My phone isn't as zippy, not because of planned obsolescence, rather the internet has become more demanding in two years. It's like PCs in the 90s. People used to complain about their PCs being obsolete in six months. You don't hear that any more because PCs are fast enough.

> It's like PCs in the 90s. People used to complain about their PCs being obsolete in six months. You don't hear that any more because PCs are fast enough.

Instead, you get people pining for the days when PCs were obsolete in six months, "before consoles dumbed down PC development."

There's just no pleasing some folks.

While I don't understand people who scream for ever-fancier graphics year after year, the previous generation of consoles did badly cripple PC game development for one reason: their lack of memory.

As a quick illustration, look at the size of levels in Thief 1/2 vs Thief 3. Or the seamless outdoor world of Morrowind, compared to the loading screens of Oblivion and Skyrim. With just a little bit more RAM (say 1GB instead of 512MB), developers could've done so much more.

Instead, we've had a whole generation of 3D games in cramped and/or lifeless worlds with simplistic gameplay. But hey, they're pretty. It wasn't always thus.

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