Size and weight considerations for future Openmoko devices

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

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.