"According to current calculations, the cost of the motherboard should be somewhere around 990 EUR. The cost should go down as more people place pre-orders. The complete device will cost about 150 EUR more, depending on prices and availability of N900 spare parts."

Holy cow, freedom (at least partial freedom) comes at a seriously hefty price. That's five times the cost of a half-decent Samsung Galaxy (S4 or S4 Mini, not network-locked), where I'm from.

That's what it costs when you are unable to mass produce. The cost estimate is based on the production of 500 devices only which in turn was based on the number of donations over 100 EUR. The Neo900 is as close to freedom and privacy as you're going to get at this moment in time. If you're comparing this to a Samsung Galaxy then it looks like you don't understand the reasons for why the Neo900 is being built.

And for 1GHz, 1Gb RAM, 0.5Gb storage. That's not even close to the spec of the above Samsung.

You are incorrect on the 0.5GB storage. The Neo900 will be at least as feature complete as the N900. This means that it will have at least 32GB eMMC storage plus mircoSD expansion. Otherwise it will have 64GB if they are able to source the part. The 512MB refers to the SoC's NAND (double that of the original N900).

Pay five times the cost, get less back, and the possibility of component shortage making repair/replacement impossible.

The cost estimation page (which you appear to have read) indicates that they have considered failure rate and will be sourcing additional components to account for repair/replacement. This contributes to the overall cost of the device.

How do this stack up against the $9 CHIP project, etc. with its processor? I can build a GSM "phone" with Wifi, SD, touchscreen etc. from Arduino shields for way, way, way less than this costs on top of that.

I'd love to see you do that. I'll be the first in line to purchase one.

I mean, for God's sake, they've bothered to put IrDA and FM radio on it!

These are available on the original N900 and I still find them incredibly useful. To remove these would be a regression.

Niche doesn't even begin to cover it. When you're more expensive than Apple, and can't do anywhere near as much, you know that you're onto a loser.

Can't do nearly as much? Are you serious? I'm still using my N900 from 2009 because they is no other mobile phone available that what the N900 can do. Basically it's a full Linux computer in your pocket with a hardware keyboard and stylus for precision. I even have it dual booting with Debian.

Go and buy an Apple if you feel it's appropriate to compare it to one but please stop spreading misinformation on stuff that you are not interested in.

It's no wonder I rarely visit Slashdot these days posts such as yours get modded +5 Insightful.

I'm not apologising for Nokia, in fact I have no interest in them, Blackberry nor any other corporation for that matter. What failure is there to excuse? The backers of this project want the device to be built for their own personal use. It's a niche product, there's no other agenda. Now that the 200 pre-orders milestone has been met, the devices will be built so this project is already a success.

The primary reason why it's resistive is that they are reusing the screen from the N900.

I wouldn't refer to the N9's screen as a rectification. A resistive screen is a good choice for an Internet Tablet and a capacitive screen is a good choice for a smart phone.

IMHO, a resistive screen plus stylus is the better choice to replace a desktop mouse in a mobile device that aims to be a fully functional computer.

It might be different from the typical Android vendor but the Neo900 is not aiming to be an Android replacement.

Have you ever tried running normal Linux tasks on Android such as compiling a C program, "ssh -X", running strace, etc.? Ever tried running X11 or Wayland instead of SurfaceFlinger? I think you'll find that Android's environment is not very well suited for these kind of tasks. Google's chose to use Bionic libc making Android makes it largely incompatible with the desktop and server Linux we know and love. Firefox OS is based on Android and also uses Bionic libc. Most regular Linux apps require extensive modification if you want to build them to run Android. These same apps can be recompiled for Debian ARM or Maemo 5 with little or no modification at all.

Of course if Android is your thing, the Neo900 is expected to run the Replicant variant which is already running on the GTA04 that it is based on.

The price of motherboard without the case expected to be in the 500-700 EUR range. Yes it's expensive compared to devices of similar specifications but that's due to the low production volumes. That's the price you must pay if you want a fully featured Linux computer in your pocket.

If you think you can compare the Fairphone to the Neo900 then you have failed to understand the concept behind the Neo900. The Fairphone is just another Android phone. The Neo900 is for people who are fed up with the closed, walled garden approaches of Android and iOS and want the power of a general purpose computer in their pocket. The device is expected to ship with Debian GNU/Linux with support for Maemo 5 coming later when it's ready. The hardware keyboard and stylus also help to give it that desktop feel.

Whoops. That should read "There aren't many of us so these numbers are to be expected."

That's "mass production" as in producing in bulk, i.e. not producing one-off prototypes which is very expensive. 200 devices is the minimum they need to produce the boards in bulk. This is a niche, community project aimed at FOSS and/or open hardware enthusiasts who want the flexibility of a general purpose PC on their mobile phones. There are many of us so these numbers are to be expected.

The keyboard has three rows because they are reusing the N900 case. It certainly beats any virtual keyboard for typing. Feel free to mod it if you want a four row keyboard - the motherboard design will be completely open.

Have you actually used the N900 touchscreen? There are many bad resistive touchscreens but the N900's is not one of them. The FAQ explains why the resistive touch screen is the superior choice for the target audience of this device. Remember that this device is not trying to compete with Android or iOS but it's aim is to provide functionality that you would find in a general purpose computer, hence multi-touch in not a priority.

You may be interested in it's successor the Neo900.

Here's a link to the Neo900 feasibility study: http://projects.goldelico.com/p/neo900/downloads/get/neo900-feasibility.pdf

Can this be included in the in the summary?

It seems that you haven't heard of the Neo900 project which aims to deliver just that.

I consider myself to be very fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience such a wonderful operating system. I'm probably very young compared to most VMS system managers, my first experience of VMS was about 7 years ago. My first impressions were that it seemed quite antiquated (mostly due to the lack of a modern shell) but as I began to learn more, it became a breath of fresh air compared to anything I had ever used. I began to discover features, flexibility and power that make other modern operating systems seem primitive. I can only hope that it will now be open sourced as it would a great shame to loose such a unique operating system that offers so much that others don't.