GTA02 is now an expensive brick
Tom Yates
madhatter at teaparty.net
Thu Jan 8 13:33:04 CET 2009
On Wed, 7 Jan 2009, Craig Woodward wrote:
> And core functionality on ALL Neos, like making and receiving calls and
> SMS, is still unreliable.
i'm sorry, but i think that's unfair; my GTA02A6 has been my main phone
since i bought it at the end of august 2008. you may never have been able
to make things work for you, but it's wrong to say that core functionality
on all neos is unreliable; it's fine on mine.
2008.08 definitely had problems filling that role; i wrote about my early
configuration attempts at http://www.teaparty.net/technotes/openmoko.html
.
2008.09 had problems, but nothing insoluble after the bouncing calypso
problem was found and a workaround released. i decided my phone was ready
for full-time use on 14.10.2008; the extensive list of customisations i
had to make to it to render it suitable for full-time use is at
http://www.teaparty.net/technotes/openmoko-2.html .
2008.12 + a little work is about as usable as 2008.09 + lots of work, but
obviously a little work is easier than a lot of work. this writeup's at
http://www.teaparty.net/technotes/openmoko-3.html .
yes, the phone still has a couple of nasty kludges on it, and does go all
silent and dead every few days. but i'm not getting reports from others
that they can't reach me when they need to, and all my test calls and test
texts of recent days (since i stabilised 2008.12) have gone through. my
old nokia phone used to crash every few weeks anyway, so i don't regard
that as a fatal flaw.
> I'm just pissed off that I spent $400 on a device that was supposed to
> be my next phone, and 8 months later it's still sitting in a box because
> it's not usable as a normal daily phone.
opinions will definitely vary, here. my wife, who like me is a unix
sysadmin by profession, was very bullish on the OM at first - but two
weeks ago declared she'd never use it again. she was having real problems
with the message application under 2008.09, and it was the last straw for
her; she went back to her nokia 6230i. (in fairness, i should note that
she's back on again after i upgraded her to 2008.12 and is *cautiously*
cheerful about the phone. but if it starts messing her around again
she'll definitely put it back in the box.)
so i can't say that it's usable *for you*. only you can know how much
time is too much for you to invest in making a phone work. personally, i
have a bunch of free-software-based devices (OM phone, rockbox audio
player, linux laptop) and i expect to have to give them frequent
attention, and love them despite their occasional tantrums. but that
won't suit everyone.
so do by all means say that the OM isn't what you were led to expect, and
do by all means say that your OM requires more work than you are prepared
to put into a phone. those are your calls. but don't say that the OM
cannot be made suitable for use as a production phone, because some of us
are using it just fine.
--
Tom Yates - http://www.teaparty.net
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