Size and weight considerations for future Openmoko devices
Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller
hns at computer.org
Thu May 3 13:53:50 CEST 2007
Am 03.05.2007 um 13:32 schrieb Ian Stirling:
> wim delvaux wrote:
>> FWIW,
>> most of these 'light' phones do seem so 'fragile'. It looks like
>> any drop from pocket or table might smash them to bits. Less
>> weight generally means more flimsy devices.
No. It is easy to make a fragile looking device that is robust and
vice versa.
It is more the mixture of materials that determines the robustness
and finishing which determines how robust it looks. And finally a
smaller device has less inertia so it is more robust. Look at an ant.
It can fall from 10m and survives...
>> I have had the NEO in my hands and although the numbers may make
>> if sound like it is chunky it is not AND when held gives you the
>> feeling that it is rather drop-safe.
>> Personally I prefer 'robustness' over 'light weight'. (Hell, I
>> still run around with my NOKIA 6130 which to any modern standard
>> looks like a brick, but I lost track of how many times it dropped
>> on the floor)
>
> This is why I want some tests.
> I want a few - say 3 or 4 - representative neo1973's, with the
> production case, though PCB style possibly isn't so important,
> dropped from progressively increasing heights (one test onto
> carpet, one onto concrete), on all six sides, all functionality
> verified until they break.
> (say 10cm, 14cm, 20cm, 28, 40, ...)
>
> Similar tests done with dropping a 10mm steel ball onto the display.
>
> No, of course I don't plan on dropping it.
> It would be rather nice to know 'it will probably die if I drop it
> 1m onto concrete'.
It is industry standard to do such drop tests for consumer devices. A
mobile phone manufacturer I know much better than FIC, has made drop
tests from 1.5m onto concrete and a device had to pass 10 such falls
without noticable severe damage (only the battery compartment was
allowed to open and the battery come out and of course some
scratches). So, I would assume that FIC's quality assurance
department already does such tests - and I hope they publish the
results.
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