I have couple of exciting news to report (the most awaiting ones further in the post) :

1. I've confirmed in practice, that of so-called "hard" anodizing is feasible. It means, that aluminum version of backcover and body will contain hardened coating as color layer - from my tests, it's more scratch resistant, than anything I've seen for "commercially" sold devices, orders of magnitude harder than plastic cases, and much harder than color coating we've seen in N950 or other metallic body devices.

I purposely put it into small box with keys (body, not screen module, of course), shaken the hell out of it, and it haven't a single scratch afterwards. Of course, it's not indestructible - if scratched purposely by knife or keys (like, you would try to cut it with key), you *will* pass through, to silver'ish alu beneath - but, for normal use, it's the most scratch-resistant case I've ever seen.

As a nice little "added value" - it *should* (still confirming feasibility, i.e. price) be possible to get it into nice variety of colors (apart from promised black), through green ( ) to red, and much more in-between.

2. Lately, I've had short, but sharp boots in financial from pre-release supporters - I think it may be related to awesome Neo900 project, which will be compatible with N900 case, thus, with our replacement body *and* backcover, too. Whatever the reason is, thanks again, guys, for your awesome support!

What's important result of it, is that I was able to book for two sessions of professional radio signal strength/directivity evaluations for body replacement. Those things are ridiculously expensive (it consumed last financial reserves I had for project + latest pre-orders, so it wasn't able to book it earlier just by my "internal" funding), but it should *greatly* help with evaluating and eliminating RX/TX problems due to shielding properties of alu body (i.e. help with correct placement of non-alu segments of body and their alignment with alu segments, to achieve no worse signals strength than in vanilla, possibly, even better one).

First sessions will evaluate current situation, and data from it will be used to make corrections, while 2nd sessions will confirm that everything is as it should be + eventually, suggest final, minor adjustments.

As you may remember, signal strength problems were mayor factor that delayed finalization of body replacement project, so I'm really looking forward to it with excitement.

3. Last but not least, backcover-only (which doesn't pose as much of radio strength challenges, compared to whole body) is entering stage of outer-side (aka, visuals) finish, which means all functional parts are ready Next week, I hope to post some pictures of it mounted on N900, with functional (new, better) kickstand and rotatory, shield-like camera cover (raw-from CNC, without manual polishing and anodizing yet, so rather as functionality presentation, than eye candy... Yet )

For now, here is a quick sneak-peak - a photo I day before yesterday with backcover on N900 body, when I finished internal parts adjusting:

(WARNING! - by any means it is *not* how it will look finished. It is took raw from CNC milling, without any visual-side polishing, with tracks from mill visible as horizontally lines. Holes to the left are mount-point for 3-position rotary camera-cover, which is *not* mounted on that photo, nor the kickstand is. Don't worry about increased thickness - it is room left for curved edges cutting, polishing, kickstand, and anodizing, final version will be thinner. It is presented here only as a in-work sneak-peak.

Sorry for long "warning" - I know, that for most of you, all of the above is natural - I'm just the type that is extremely nervous while posting in-work photos that doesn't correlate with how final result will look. Initially, I even thought about waiting till next week with photos of more finished version, but decided that stage from few days past, just before starting to work on visual side, may be interesting to look at, too )



Now, I have a question to all interested people, both per-supporters and folks waiting with order to release date:
Apart from thickness - that will be reduced at final - what type of visual-finish for edges would you prefer? Curved/cut at angle, like in this project:

(upper-left image, the one with lines in red)


...or flat one, like in photo (just thinner, polished, anodized, etc)?

/Estel