Seems like an awesome initiative but jeez... a thousand dollars. Don't get me wrong, I believe is a right price for a handmade piece of engineering like that. It's incredible what economies of scale can do in technology. Nowadays you yet decent android phones for $60-70... how it went down that much. grarpamp:
"Open"... being relative, yet interesting...
Are you tired of all those closed mobile platforms? Do you want to truly own a device that has the ability to do whatever you want, just like your PC?
The Neo900 project aims to provide a Fremantle (Maemo™ 5) compatible successor to the N900, with a faster CPU, more RAM and an LTE modem. This is all based on a free, mature and stable platform - the GTA04.
We'll provide complete, ready-to-use devices, as well as motherboard replacements for your current devices.
Most importantly, the Neo900 is an open platform, carrying on in the tradition of the Openmoko project. Neo900 will support all operating systems available for GTA04 (QtMoko, SHR, Debian, Replicant, ...) and should serve as a great platform for porting systems like Maemo, Ubuntu or Firefox OS - or even for writing your own one!
We bring the hardware, you choose the operating system.