I'm familiar with the echos, I commented on them many times during my reviews. For me, however, they were mostly corrected as of the 11 Feb 2008 official snapshot.
Talking in the wind is difficult with the Neo, but then I've never actually had a phone that did that well. I use my Neo as my primary phone and in MOST cases it works well. I am a bit nervous, however, because there are enough stability issues (dialer crashing while phone calls are in progress, gsm randomly dying, freezes, misrepresentation of level of charge, et cetera) that I'm afraid of what will happen in the event of an emergency. I am frequently told by my wife that she's called or sent SMS that I didn't get, all the while my Neo is still saying I'm connected to my carrier. If you want to develop on a device that can make phone calls, the Neo works. If you want a functional phone you can develop on, it would be best to wait for the Freerunner hardware (which, now that I think about, it's the only OpenMoko hardware you'll be able to get on the primary market - Neo1973 units have sold out!) On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 7:28 AM, Thomas Gstädtner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > After flashing the newest snapshot (and 2.6.24 kernel) yesterday, I decided > to give the Neo a try as everyday-phone again. > So I took it with me today, did some calls and so on. > It mostly worked fine, the battery lasts about a day (standby + doing some > calls and playing around), except one freeze after waking it up from > standby. > Unfortunately I can't use the Neo as phone. > As I work in field service for a big mobile carrier, I use my phones outdoor > and usually some hours a day. Especially the first point is not really > possible with the Neo. > The volume of the speaker is _much_ too low, it's hard to understand your > opponent if the wind is blowing and there's a street close. There also are > echoes on both sides, so it's really hard for the opponent to understand > you. There also is a hall effect that is very annoying. > At moment there's no chance for me to replace my Nokia with the Neo. Hope > it's getting better. > > Well, last but not least there are some positives to report: SMS and > Incoming/Outgoing calls work good now, the Neo wakes up from standby if a > call is comeing in, what is pretty good for the battery. Thanks to the > bright display it's also possible to dial and read SMS in the sun, although > the display is transmissive. >
