Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary

[Marcel de Jong]

One more thing.. let's get this perfectly clear.
I'm not against Wifi-support in the Neo, some time in the future.
I'd love to use it, to communicate with my pc, as a sort of fileserver
or something like that.
And it would make upgrading the phone a breeze.

But it is not a must-have for me. It's a nice-to-have.
If my wallet allows it, I will get a rev. 1 of the Neo1971. Because
the wifi is not a dealbreaker for me.

--
Marcel

On 1/19/07, Marcel de Jong <mdejong at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1/18/07, Renaissance Man <renaissanceman at macmail.com> wrote:
> > On 18 Jan 2007, at 10:23 pm, Marcel de Jong wrote:
> >
> > > I ask you, who will pay the bandwidth bills?
> >
> > The bandwidth bills are largely already paid (home and work are flat
> > rate), plus free hotspots, plus there's flat rate hotspot schemes
> > like The Cloud in Europe.
> >
>
> Only in limited spaces, hardly a blanket over a whole country. In NL
> it's only at certain hotspots, and even then it's very limited
> bandwidth. (and expensive)
>
> > > Yes, Wifi on the Neo is cool, though it would slurp battery life.
> > > Given the choice, I'd rather have a long battery life (at least 24
> > > hours) and no Wifi, then have Wifi and only be able to use my phone
> > > for 5 hours (the estimated battery life of the iphone).
> >
> > No, that's the estimated battery time for continuous talking, video
> > or web browsing. They say 16 hours for continuous music playback. But
> > no word on standby time. Presumably more than 16 hours.
> >
>
> I don't want to play music on my phone. I just want to make calls...
> so for me that's about 5 or 6 hours of calling time. (sidenote:
> standby time is also drastically cut when you have your wifi turned
> on, those things can be real power consumers, my Nintendo DS can
> normally play for about 16 hours non-stop, when I turn on the wifi,
> suddenly I can only play about 8 hours non-stop, not that I do that
> very much)
>
> > You might also be interested in reading the Truphone FAQ "How is the
> > battery life affected when using Truphone?" from this page (pasted
> > below):
> > http://www.truphone.com/scn/blog/faq.truHow is the battery life
> > affected when using Truphone?
> > > Truphone uses Wireless LAN (WiFi) radio as well as GSM radio in the
> > > handset, so usually you can expect that the battery life when using
> > > Truphone in 'Always on' mode is approximately half that of normal
> > > cellular (GSM and 3G) operation; for example about 2 days (rather
> > > than 4) on an E60. Talk time is usually a bit longer on WiFi than
> > > on GSM.
> > >
>
> Half of 5 hours is how much? (to go on with the iphone example)
> Right... 2.5 hours of talking time. And that's for the service of
> truphone alone... that's not including the draining that's done by the
> wifi-chip.
>
> BTW, do you own stock of Truphone? Or are you in any other way
> affiliated with that product? Just curious.
>
> > > Standby times are greatly affected by GSM / 2G and 3G signal strength:
> > >
> > > - Good signal 3G connections use slightly more battery than good 2G
> > > connections.
> > > - Poor signal 3G connections use much more battery than good 2G
> > > connections (when a handset is in poor coverage areas it increases
> > > its transmission power).
> > > - Very poor 3G connections that switch back and forth to 2G use
> > > more battery than a stable connection.
> > > and so on...
> > > Standby time using Truphone on Wireless LAN is not generally
> > > affected as strongly by the Wireless LAN signal strength.
> > >
> > > You can increase the battery life for Wireless LAN use by setting
> > > the phone to 'offline' - press the power button briefly and you
> > > will get a menu. Don't forget to set it back to 'General' or
> > > another active profile before you wish to make GSM calls!
> > >
>
> So they admit that there is a drop in battery life when using the
> product. Because, to preserve battery-life you have to turn WLAN off.
> Also it may be so that Truphone doesn't really affect standby time,
> but Truphone is only the product you use. It's not the Wifi chip
> that's in your phone.
> And it's that Wifi chip that's causing the drainage, it needs to sync
> regularly with your wireless router or whatever accesspoint you have.
>
> Besides it's a moot point, there is currently *no* open source
> low-power wifi-chip. And Sean and the rest of the OpenMoko team has
> indicated that they have no interest in adding a closed-source
> closed-spec'ed piece of hardware in there almost completely open
> phone. (What would then be the use of making the rest of it completely
> open, if they did?)
>
>
> >> I don't think anybody thinks you're "wrong" about it happening, and
> >> happening soon.
> >
> > I think if you read through you'll find quite a few comments along
> > that line Joe.
>
> No, we just think it's improper to demand that the OpenMoko team
> should go back to the drawing table to add a proprietary wifi chip on
> the board. Completely destroying months (or perhaps years) work, and
> demand that they do it in a few months!
> (you give me the impression that you think it's no big deal to just
> add a little chip in it, and that they absolutely right now have to do
> it.)
>
> ---
> Marcel de Jong
>