On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 10:12:47AM +0100, Cass, John P wrote: > I have a question before I go ahead and order my Neo - there was an > earlier discussion about the possibility of getting a GTA02 board in > October so we can upgrade our Neos to 02 without having to buy a whole > new phone (call it the Philosopher's Neo).
The issue is a bit more difficult. As of now, the 'board kit' would have to be: 1) the mainboard, including the stacked wifi PCB and the bluetooth FPC 2) the translucent buttons (otherwise you won't see the new much- requested LED's) 3) adhesive rubber between LCM and PCB 4) new plastic inset (speaker assembly) 5) adhesive shielding tape for LCM-PCB cable Even then, the assembly steps are not exactly trivial, since you * need to remove the LCM from the PCB. This is glued, and it is quite hard to remove without damaging the LCM, especially the very fragile FPC cable between LCM and PCB * need to remove the current white plastic stereo speaker compartment and replace it with the new mono speaker compartment (we had to find space for the wifi somewhere...) Yes, you could keep the GPS antenna, the plastic case and the LCM. But seriously, if you consider the amount of effort that we have to spend on creating a detailed step-by-step guide with photographs on the assembly process, plus the inevitable amount of customer support with people who think they'd get it done but now can't manage (or actually broke one or both of the devices now), I'm not really sure if it makes all that much sense. In the end, all you keep is the LCM. Yes, it is an expensive LCM. But in the overall picture, that 'mainboard kit' would only be insignificantly cheaper than the full GTA02 device. Oh yes, the case. Which costs close to nothing, and your old case might already have some scratches at GTA02 release time ;) So you probably wouldn't save more than USD 50 (maximum) that way. And for that, you have all the risk of some assembly problem? Thus, my personal conclusion: Isn't it much better to keep the old GTA01 and sell it to somebody who can't afford a GTA02? So I don't think we'll have an official upgrade kit. We will start selling spare parts at some point, though. The schedule is still somewhat unclear. Maybe there is a chance you can combine your kit out of spare parts. But still, I don't think it makes much sense. Sorry, -- - Harald Welte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://openmoko.org/ ============================================================================ Software for the world's first truly open Free Software mobile phone _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
