YES. YES. Exactly what the community, no, the WORLD needs. Hit me up for one if the price gets a bit fair also, it can be customized if it happens right? Much better than Moto X
Now in between Jolla and Neo900, but really leaning to Neo900

My carrier contract will expire in November, i cut my SIM-card to fit in an Android phone.
So the 'need' for the N900 right now is low here.

Are you helped with having that N900 for software/hardware experiments?
Feel free to contact me.

This sound amazing and great!

Count me in!

People should, however, start to get ready to pay far more than 200-400 €/£/$ for this and that is going to be problem. Hopefully we get enough people, but thats always the problem with "community openess", everyone wants it, but few are ready to make the initial sacrifice. Just think about This/Jolla/Ubuntu. Early adopters are always the most difficult to find, cos those are the ones paying most and usually here is where the whining starts.

But it is so GREAT to see people coming up with real plans for something like this, and this really seems like something that could go "alive" and reality.

I want to say THANK YOU for those planing this even this far. Count me in for something like 700-800€

Read through the whole topic, but just to make sure, all other HW possibilities/aspects of the N900 would stay the same, just motherboard/CPU/RAM getting an update?

This is very cool news, I had considered ordering a GTA04 for my old openmoko but the N900 form factor is so much better.
This effective phone community design has all of the features found in a N900 and adds the add-ons for the N9 including NFC, real working no-hack USB OTG, three axis magnetometer, air pressure altimeter, FM tx/rx, etc.
I suggest that a crypto signed ID be added to the board as the Chinese already make cheap N900 refurbs from repaired boards which sell as new but with no QC and a high failure rate. It would be nice to know that the QC is community/EU standard rather than roll the dice Chinese pirate(even if it is an open to copy design).
In this age of Snowden and Arab Spring we must consider what hardware including crypto coprocessors, mesh networking, and any other long range off network comm methods can be added at this critical stage in the project where the design can still be changed.
I think there is still time now to add a UHF/VHF transmitter preferably a software defined radio since there is more room on a N900 board. This feature is already implemented on the AndroidOS Earl backcountry tablet. http://www.meetearl.com/ This is key to communicating and networking in the absence of cellular telephone service or when used in a protest movement with a hostile telephony infrastructure. The UV-3R group is working on an open firmware so there are devs there who can help with the micro size SDR components and controls required. It would also bring in substantial interest and RF expertise from the amateur radio community as there is currently not yet a smart radio/phone (and only one junk VHF/UHF/GSM phone) even if they just want to flash it to Android. It would also enable receiving incoming pages from the existing pager network, an easy app could turn on the GSM chip and make a easy callback nearly as convenient as just taking a mobile call.
http://www.liorelazary.com/index.php...uv5r&Itemid=17
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UV-3R/message/8158
The SDR even if only tuned to FRS, PMR446, MURS is useful for walkie-talkie chat and sending environmental telemetry and GPS position between devices. If tuned to amateur radio bands the possibilities for packet radio become vast even including free access to the amateur radio satellite galaxy for those with a license.
Additionally if it can transmit on 122.5mhz AM(FM will work with mild distortion) it can communicate on the aircraft emergency band which is listened for even in the most remote areas by commercial aircraft with hundreds of km line-of-sight even if only as a beacon, when combined with a digital signal including GPS coordinates on 406mhz a global network of search and rescue satellites with parallel receivers and finely tuned DSPs are listening for distress signals and can have a rescue activated in around ten minutes, if properly formatted the SARSAT system will accept and activate rescue for unregistered EPIRB signals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPIRB
A software defined radio if given a properly formatted signal can also probably clone a SPOT communicator enabling satellite SMS type messaging with a cheap service plan http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...t+communicator

YES merging those communities , better late than never !

Actually i could only spend around 350 bucks, but with time and in some months i think there will be 600-650 realistic for me!
Especially if there will be a good fm-transmitter included.
Thanks for this wonderful project, i hope everything will go well.

I voted 400 eur for now.

The thing is, this should be a real improvement, and I don't mean just as a whole. I mean, I wouldn't settle for a worse camera, or worse sound, or whatever, just to have double the ram and a few more(although really nice) candies here and there on top of our old OMAP3, since I already HAVE an N900. This all depends on whether you can find all replacement components, AND you can fit them on the board!

If THOSE requirements are met, well then, count me in 100%! And more money (just give me a few months, I already have a big trip planned before christmas). I mean it. The N900 has been the single best device I ever had, and an updated version would just be the icing on the cake.

I would probably sell my Jolla phone to buy this instead if I could get it at EUR490.

surely this initative is worth the effort ! But will it have the extra functionablites like infrared etc testpads for anteenas maybe . Extra hardware features with real world usage are necessary furthermore it will generate a lot more intrest among many maybe it will add some extra bucks but i woudnt like a dumb phone with open whatsapp and bla bla it should be a bit diffrent from the crowd. hats off for the efforts

Wow!

Software changes must be considered. We should ensure Jolla compatibility (to be able to use Alien Dalvik) and Harmattan compatibility. MeeGo Touch has to work flawlessly (I have a semi-working build of 0.26). Maybe I'll be able to help a little in the future about the sw. Applauncherd can be modified to work with gtk+ and other types of sw too. I have a building, but not working 3.0.3 build. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=85716 I rebuilt it against latest meegotouch and will check it as soon as my n900 gets usable again.

You should talk with atilla77 and inean to bring qtm and qt components.

Qt5 should be introduced. Can it be built with qt4support as it was with qt3support?
Gtk+ can be updated at least to latest 2.x

Maybe we can take advantage of this: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=89416