questions regarding Neo900 Shop
 

I'm happy to say I received my voucher today (correct discount), as well as a link to the neo900 shop. :)
Since buying a Neo900 becomes more concrete, I've a few questions for Neo900UG team :

1) The shop's certificate is not verified ! If I buy anything, I'd rather do it on a secured plateform. Do you plan to fix this issue quickly ?

2) I'm evaluating buying the "NeoN kit" only. I have a spare n900 but some of its pieces are broken.

a) What pieces are necessary to build a neo900 (would really be nice if they are listed on the shop page) ?
b) Would the "DIY phase" recquire skills of some sort (for example, solder, file or drill things) ?
c) What tools the "DIY phase" would recquire (which screwdrivers, etc.) ?

3) Would it be possible to get a more accurate information about the "per country" shipping cost ? I'm pretty sure 90€ (excluding VAT) is a bit overpriced for shipping a phone to a neighboring country.

4) Because prices of component may change during the following weeks, but because deciding wether to buy or not can take some time :

a) Will you announce when you are about to source a batch of component (encouraging people to buy before) ?
b) If the price of some components increase when I have already paid but before neo900UG orders a batch of them, will I have to complete with extra € ? Or will this addionnal cost be covered by the whole buyers during the final payment ?

5) I don't want to seem pessimistic but would I be refunded :

a) If the project fails for any reason (huge unexpected costs, too few buyers, major hardware/software problem, legal reasons, etc.) ?
b) If the final cost of a device is greater than the current evaluation and I want to retract before the final payment ?
c) If I want to retract for any personnal reason (such as "cannot afford anymore", or simply "interest lost for this project") before the final payment ?

Thanks by advance ! ;)

Re: Neo900 Shop questions
 

SOLVED
Does anyone else have problems with certificates?

Anywhere I check - on my Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSuse systems, Maemo, even Android and iOS... no matter which browser - it's trusted. No idea how my boxes differ from yours in this regard.

If anyone else wants to help, you can try https://neo900.org/ as well - mixed-content warning is expected right now, but the cert itself should be trusted.

My Debian sid has both Certum_Root_CA.pem and Certum_Trusted_Network_CA.pem installed in /etc/ssl/certs

Diagnostic tool for debugging:
openssl s_client -showcerts -CApath /etc/ssl/certs -connect neo900.org:443

(on some systems you may have to fix or ommit -CApath option)

[EDIT]
Disregard this post. I'm stupid. All the time I checked neo900.org, assuming for some reason that it'll work the same cause it's the same cert, while shop subdomain was configured a bit differently. Fixed now, thanks for report! :D

Re: Neo900 Shop questions
 

Using Chrome on a windows 7 machine

http://i.imgur.com/mSABnhu.png


EDIT: nevermind

Re: Neo900 Shop questions
 

Dos1 just fixed it. Thanks dos1!
a) (which pieces) All but the mainboard. However we can provide some (not all) spare parts if needed.
b) (skills) No particular skills beyond those also needed to build a house of cards or swap battery of a delicate tiny gadget, turning a screwdriver gently.
c) (tools) we provide all tools you possibly need, though of course only low-cost version.
those are cost items not as simple as "fedex fee", they consist of labor packaging handling whatnot, possibly even margin for resellers, and yes they are all calculated high so we won't have to tell you about increased cost a second time.
a) we already completed first such batch sourcing, for the 1GB RAM PoP chips. That however doesn't mean that was the deadline, I'm planning to source some more as soon as enough funds arrived to do so. Same applies for all other risk part batch sourcing.
b) I don't expect that to happen, so I haven't thought about how to handle that case.

We promised to refund donations equally from remaining funds when project has to be discontinued for whatever reason (a massive price increase *after* you completed the pre-order for sure could create such a reason where we had to discontinue and refund).
When you want to bail out for whatever reasons, we want to handle this a way that's most convenient to you, but obviously we can't allow all customers would do that at will at any time, since this would instantly kill the project right away. If there's a personal problem, please contact me in email, I'm sure we can find a solution.

When you think anything could get handled in a better way by Neo900 UG, please don't be shy to bring it up and let's discuss it. Thanks for your questions which gave the opportunity to clarify a few things :)

cheers
jOERG

Re: Neo900 Shop questions
 

That may be interpreted in a number of ways and hence may need some clarification. I may interpret it to mean everything that sits on the mainboard, including for example the camera, whilst you may have meant just the bare mainboard, without the RAM, CPU or indeed any components soldered on at all.

Re: Neo900 Shop questions
 

Since, according to the same post, DIY doesn't need to solder anything, I assume the assembly doesn't need any component which is soldered to the main board, so for me it's pretty clear.

However, I wonder how every piece can be re-used while increasing the size of the device by 2.8mm. I thought at least some piece of the case were supposed to be replaced (and so, maybe some screws too).

Can anyone enlight us on this point ? :o

Re: Neo900 Shop questions
 

please see
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...me#post1420401
http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/spacerframe/sketch.pdf
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=94191
and related posts

@pichlo: We currently conider the complete mainboard incl all mounted components (excl plugged display / flex) a swappable item. Incl camera*) and all.

*)N97 camera plus "normal" connector is way cheaper and easier to source than a SMIA95 socket we'd need to re-use N900 cam module - the latter is basically hardened unobtainium for the "through hole" variant. And since the N97 (et al) camera is widely available spare part and not too expensive and same (or allegedly better quality) cam module anyway, just with a flex cable attached...

/j

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

@Joerg,

I post this here, as it may be of interest to others.

I received my voucher, and have already made my pre-order for a complete device. All went fine and smooth.

Now, my voucher was bigger than the pre-order amount, so I receive a new voucher automatically with the remaining amount. I then went put 120x "Down payment top up" and put my voucher code (which is for EUR 20). When I hit "OK" I get "There is 1 error. You have not reached the minimum amount required to use this voucher".

I don't know why there's a minimum, nor the value of it. I can just make top up ignoring my voucher, but it might be useful and informative if you (plural you) can explain how this should work?

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

[edit]FIXED[/edit]

Many Thanks for noting this. It seems I created the vouchers with a minimum total sales amount of 350.- since that's the minimum of the both base products. I somehow thought that I could enforce top-ups to get bought only by customers who also order the basic Down Payment of either Neo900 or NeoN.
Seems it works :o:p
I adjusted your (and another similar) voucher usage-limit for now, as a stop-gap. As a work around for other customers: please try to order top-ups from voucher only together with one of the two base products, so your pre-voucher-rebate invoice is >=350.
"Long term" I will see how to change/remove that voucher limit, I obviously failed to consider a few valid use cases :p
Sorry for the inconvenience!

Thanks again
jOERG

Re: Neo900 - finally a successor of N900
 

OK. It does make sense. I guess I wanted first to make sure the voucher-payment itself worked (which it did), but then I missed the expected use-case :)

I'll make my top-up now. Note that I haven't seen yet which payment options are offered. I hope either creditcard, bank transfer and/or "lastschrift" are available.

Will report back if I encounter any issues..

Cheers and thanks again.

Add.: Worked like a charm. I even increased the amount a bit. Bank transfer already done, should take a couple of working days.