When is the next and more powerful openmoko releasing

[arne anka]

> Assume, you could get a motherboard upgrade board that fits into the  
> Freerunner (or Neo1973) case. Based on the TI OMAP3 SoC (OMAP3530 or  
> DM3730) and UMTS.
>
> Let me ask two questions to everybody:
> * How long could you be willing to wait for it to really become  
> available?
> * How much would you think you could afford to pay for such a board?

- re waiting: since most people change their phones after a couple of  
years, waiting shouldn't be an issue -- per se. more important would be to  
see a definite progress and sufficient informatrion about the way  
development takes (including delays, glitches and so on). seeing how nokia  
neglects the maemo/n900 community, not only in terms of information about  
fixes, updates, and the migration to meego, i think that's definitely the  
wrong way.
so, having a working phone right now and for the foreseeable future, i  
would be able to wait 2, 3 years (and if another accaptable phone comes  
out in the meantime, maybe even longer)

- cost otoh is really difficult. what company ever will attempt to make a  
free phone, it will need lots of money for development (not to speak of  
the still valid issue of purchasing items in small numbers to high  
prices). seeing, that i spend 300 on the fr and 500 on the n900 (two years  
later), i guess, that's the range -- but then again, the fr's casing is  
not really up-to-date and most likely the retro-trend will not discover  
the 2000s in the near future ;-). what i like in the n900 is the big  
screen or rather the screen-to-surface-ratio and missing bezel, and the  
slide-out keyboard (not the keyboard layout, though), which would enable  
me to use the consoles w/o X, if maemo would allow that ...