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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