Guys. We understand that 512MB RAM might be a bit low for todays standards. I'd LOVE to see 1GB in Neo900, it just might be not possible.

Still, 512MB is two times amount of RAM in N900. It should provide major performance boosts itself.

See, when it comes to mobile, there's no easy distinction between CPU and RAM like you have with desktops or laptops. You can only buy complete packages with CPU, RAM and maybe some GPU included.

Finding and buying such package can be major obstacle due to our low quantities. You can't just go to shop and say "I'd like to have 200 SoCs". Distributors work with thousands, even millions. Setting everything up just for three-digit amount is unprofitable for them.

You might get lucky and hear "oh, Apple is using those in new run next month, there probably will be some leftovers". You might find some 3rd party stocks. But you cannot take it for granted.

We'll use the best we can find and what can be used without major board redesigning. Option with 512MB seems to be pretty safe, that's why we're mentioning it now, but it might change later.

Or not.

I still think it's better to say "hey guys, look, we were able to upgrade specs and it's now with 1GB RAM!" than "uhm, sorry, we weren't able to get 1GB, so it'll have only 512MB" :P

count me in, but I didn't answer poll because it depends on too many things:
-If it's possible to copy images btw n900 and neo900 via backupmenu (or something equivalently easy) then I'd pay significantly more. Because I want to always have a backup device, so if I can't use n900 as one then I'd need TWO devices. Realistically I'd pay up to 400€ for one or 600€ for two.
-I'd pay more for certain bonus features, if there are any. Top of my list, full size USB port on device would def be worth 100€ extra to me. External ant connectors for wifi/gsm would be worth something extra too, as would more onboard storage and/or a second micro sd slot. (or better yet full size SD slot)

Great idea and super thumbs up for this

I didn't know a default unmodified N900's case has a place for these This is a project for upgrading the hardware core, which accidentally needs also motherboard replacement. The things you said are rather peripherals. About storage flash - GTA04 has only 1GB of storage (afaik)... but again, N900 has only 256MB of rootfs, so this would be a stunning 4x upgrade! But the eMMC is included as a separate chip (meaning we have like... two memory cards inside allready, but one is unremovable). By the way, would GTA04 be capable of supporting that kind of config (eMMC + external memory card slot anyway)? Well, screw that anyway, I guess it's far to early to ask that kind of questions, just wanted to bring attention to this point

Should be. We would like to reach feature parity with N900, just a bit upgraded and maybe with some small extras added.

Maybe we won't be able to reach some specific features - we'll see, as you said, it's a bit too early to conclude that. But if something like that happens, then for sure it will be written here

As far as I can see, there is no internal 32GB EMMC available, so flashing a vanilla N900 image on Neo900 may not be possible.

And this is another question: did you have any plans on this topic? Maybe an internal microsd card, so it could even be changed in the future?

Sorry to be so skeptic, my intention is to be constructive. The impression I got as of now is "let's reshape the board and add what's missing", when IMO it should be the other way around, specially if you want to keep it 100% compatible: having the basic shape in mind, try to add the missing stuff (camera and internal storage, for example) to see, among other things, if it is even possible, and then reshape the schematics to fit on the N900 with all board "peripherals" in the right place.

Again, please take it as constructive criticism!

see Dos1's http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=115
We will not build a device that's for example missing the eMMC. It might become a second uSD slot, a 16GB eMMC or a 128GB eMMC, or some magic chip with 32GB flash and 16GB RAM, everything is on the table except one thing: leaving out key features of N900 on Neo900.
FYI: Nikolaus already came back from holiday and had a first analysis of features in N900 vs features in GTA04, we got a long list of items to work on (like eMMC) but we think it *might* be possible to actually create a N900-compatible new PCB.
[edit] insider info: one issue is that GTA04 has WLAN connected via a completely different interface than N900, and that has impact on other peripherals since on SoC each single pin has at least two, often 3 or 4, alternative functions.

stay tuned
/j

does the board allow the TV-out composite cable to work or is it possible to upgrade to miniHDMI cable like Estel mentioned? or is it too early to know right now?

standard AV-out works on GTA04 already afaik. We might not have the automatic detection and replace that by a requester in userland, to select what type of cable you attached resp which function you want to use (headset or AV-out) - after all that detection never was really great on N900 either. MiniHDMI is a completely different topic which starts with "where's the apperture for that in N900 case?"

I just love to read all this.
If I won't have the money for this device, heck, I'll sell my camera!

Thanks for your answer! This is actually quite reassuring, and what I needed to hear to wish I had the option to increase the amount I voted for