WiFi vs. speaker

Giles Jones giles.jones at zen.co.uk
Wed Aug 22 14:27:07 CEST 2007


Mark Haury <wolfmane at gmail.com> wrote :

> C'mon, guys, do you _really_ need that big hole right through the case? 
> Why don't you keep the stereo speakers and put the WiFi in that wasted 
> space instead???? 

The GSM antenna is next to the hole, not the best place for a wifi module.

I do agree with the comment about stereo, it is one feature a lot of phones lack and there's a few that have stereo which makes ringtone playback clearer. If you're clever you can make ringtones where the bass is in the left and the rest of the signal in the right. Should be clearer with some music.

You won't see any case changes as it has been stated previously that changing the tooling would be too expensive (this is a new project and it needs to grow gradually).

My comments on the Neo1973 hardware are below, I like this phone and want it to succeed, but at the same time being critical makes something better. If you aren't critical about a product before it gets to the press then you probably care more about money than success.

I don't really want to start off flamewars or have some of these design decisions explained to me as I don't think many of them can be explained (other than carelessness or for form factor reasons). Please just take the points on board when designing future hardware.

Likes:

It's light for its size.

I like the rubberised surface, hard wearing.

VGA screen is superb.

No creaks or rattles.

Open source :)

Generous accessories for the price.

Seemingly decent headphones.

Dislikes:

Back cover design is terrible and will easily break, especially given how tricky it is to remove.

Port layout seemingly done at random, poor layout. USB/power connector better at bottom of device.

Battery removal could be easier.

Memory card under the SIM card (why? there's seemingly loads of space).

2.5mm audio jack (use 3.5mm like Nokia N95 to get mp3 marketshare)

Power button location (location towards top is better, mine's also a bit sticky/spongey).

Aux button looks like IR port (does it have any use outside of the bootloader?)

GSM speed

Battery it at top of the phone unlike pretty much every other phone.

GSM antenna is at bottom of phone, should be at top of phone.

No dedicated volume up or down (important during a call when the screen backlight has switched off).

Fiddly SIM card holder.

Earpiece hole, the ear piece foam is visible? (looks like black fluff).


---
G O Jones








More information about the community mailing list