RM690 as n950?
 

I recently bought a new n950 and noticed that it is marked as "RM690" on the bottom antenna. I did not find any significant differences with other models - it has 1 GB RAM and 16 GB NVRAM too. But there are little differences in hardware - check photos below.

"RM690" phone and cover
http://n950.ru/images/68x_1.jpg

"RM690" motherboard identifiers
http://n950.ru/images/68x_2.jpg

common RM680 phone and cover
http://n950.ru/images/179x_1.jpg

common RM680 motherboard identifiers
http://n950.ru/images/179x_2.jpg

"RM690" and common RM680 bottom antennas
http://n950.ru/images/68x_179x_1.jpg

"RM690" and common RM680 bottom antennas
http://n950.ru/images/68x_179x_2.jpg

-- no differences except "RM690" metal engraving and manufacturing dates.

"RM690" and common motherboards
http://n950.ru/images/68x_179x_mobo.jpg

-- note the yellow (thing) on "RM690" marked as "a157J 52284" (not sure) while common RM680 phones have black (thing) marked as "150 6V".

"RM690" and common RM680 phones have similar memory chips but with different markings. Software reports 1GB RAM / 16GB Flash for both phones.
http://n950.ru/images/68x_mobo_1.jpg
http://n950.ru/images/179x_mobo_1.jpg

There are no differences in /proc/cpuinfo and /proc/version. If you would tell me what else to check I will post results here.



A few pics of my other phones:
http://n950.ru/images/177x_1.jpg
http://n950.ru/images/177x_2.jpg
http://n950.ru/images/249x_1.jpg
http://n950.ru/images/249x_2.jpg


I suggest that the number on little "S4.0 HW1124 XXXX" sticker is the serial (production queue) number of the phone, as ID 68x is definitely older than 249x one.
If I'm right then "RM690" may be the possible model name which came after first silver n950 prototypes but before the common black n950s.

Text database of my devices' parts with manufacturing dates:

249x
back cover LC1A11132 10/03/11 | bottom ant. 2011 05? | upper ant. 2010 04? | mb "HD3 S 94V-0 07-03"

179x
back cover LC1A11132 11/03/11 | bottom ant. 2011 05? | upper ant. 2010 02? | mb "HD3 S 94V-0 03-01"

177x
back cover LC1A11113 23/02/11 | bottom ant. 2011 05? | upper ant. 2010 06? | mb "HD3 S 94V-0 09-03"

68x
back cover LC1A11111 28/02/11 | bottom ant. 2010 03? | upper ant. 2010 01? | mb "IEB,HR13 94V-0 7-3"


Post your IDs written on small "S4.0 HW1124 XXXX" sticker please. If my suggestion is right then we could determine the approximate number of n950s produced (now the number is "at least 2500").

Re: RM690 as n950?
 

Nice catch!

According to the Maemo Codenames wiki page, RM-690 has been known about, but only from MeeGo source code mentions and it seems that no one has reportedly seen it in the wild, so might have a pretty unique piece in your hands. You could add some info to the wiki article, as I don't think RM-690 was expected to be a N950 model (neighboring devices are RM-683, a N8 prototype, and RM-696, or the N9).

Maybe it was some small step towards Lauta (RM-742) after the N950 release? Or was it just supposed to fix some faults of the N950 in a second revision?

Re: RM690 as n950?
 

I think instead of an improved version, it's more likely a carrier variety when N950 was planned in the pipeline (as original N9?) Before eflop killed it.