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No hotswap of microsd, then
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 29, 2007 20:28 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753)Parent article: A first look at the OpenMoko Neo 1973
So the microSD is under the sim, and both under the battery? Makes hard to change the card, and you have to shut the phone totally. Sounds like a design flaw.
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No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 29, 2007 20:44 UTC (Wed) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]
Curious what use-case you have for swapping the SIM. Debugging, maybe.In the general user case, about the only times to swap the SIM are:
a) upgrading to new hardware
b) travelling to a the sort of place that you want to shed your Ferrari phone for something more pedestrian.
If you're the carrier, and people can hot-swap the SIM, that sounds like a recipe for unsavory activity.
So, no, I would actually call putting the battery in front of the SIM a clear design decision, not a flaw.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 29, 2007 20:48 UTC (Wed) by Robin.Hill (subscriber, #4385) [Link]
I assume he's wanting to change the microSD card - not exactly an unusual use case. And needing to power off to do so does seem rather awkward.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Sep 7, 2007 11:12 UTC (Fri) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
The other thing to consider is that SD and MicroSD cards in some phones can easily pop out and be lost (hello, Treo 600...) - so I really like a design where the SD card is behind the battery. This also means that applications can treat this as an "internal disk" for data, media and software storage.
It would be good to have a second MicroSD slot that is externally accessible, although with a cover to help avoid card loss.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Sep 7, 2007 15:16 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
My phone (T-Mobile Dash) puts the microsd under the battery cover but not under the battery. Best of both worlds: it's hard to lose the microsd card man these things are small -- and easy to hot-swap without turning off the phone.
Yeah, an external microsd slot with no cover just sounds like trouble.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 29, 2007 21:07 UTC (Wed) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]
If you're the carrier, and people can hot-swap the SIM, that sounds like a recipe for unsavory activity.
I'm unclear on what unsavory activity would be. Obviously the carriers will be miffed when folks can swap without permission, but the only unsavory activity I can bring to mind is when <gasp!> the terrorists get hold of it. John Ashcroft trembles in his boots.
Of course, the plastic-bubble pay-as-you-go phones are just as good, so long as you activate them from a location unconnected to you.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 30, 2007 1:35 UTC (Thu) by abartlet (subscriber, #3928) [Link]
Perhaps this might illustrate the point better:
Sitting in a computer lab back at Uni, one friend asks another: Can I borrow your phone?
But this doesn't mean 'can I charge my phone call to your account', but 'my battery has run out, can I put my SIM in your phone for a moment'. A very useful feature.
(But I think the comment was about hot swapping out the SD card)
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 30, 2007 1:45 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
My friend changes his SIM twice a day. Throw it in the gigantic Blackberry and leash yourself to the office all day, then chuck it into the slick slidey Samsung and head out at night. Obviously you need to power off to do this but batteries and battery covers are just so fiddly. I don't know where he finds the patience.
I would definitely expect to be able to hot-swap the MicroSD card without powering off the phone. This is very useful; I do it all the time on my Dash. Take out the MP3 card and insert the card with all the movies I've been meaning to watch, jam the MP3s back in when I leave the house, etc...
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 30, 2007 8:32 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]
Wouldn't it be more reasonable to get a clone of his sim and have one in each phone ?
My phone-provider will even give out clones, charging like $5 and stating explicitly that on some networks, only 1 phone with a given SIM will work at once (usually whichever phone you turn on *last*).
Even if they didn't, it's not as if sim-cloning is horribly hard to get done. To avoid problems I guess if you're using home-brew clones, you'd better make sure to never turn on more than one of the phones simultaneously.
No hotswap of microsd, then
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 29, 2007 22:03 UTC (Wed) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]
Frankly I won't want an exposed SD slot in my phone, so it has to be under the back cover at least. But the battery takes up almost all the usable space back there.
Nokia phones with SD slots have them under the battery too, so that's hardly a disadvantage in the marketplace.
Anyway, the phone has USB. So, instead of swapping the SD card to replace your music, just upload it.
Hotswap on Nokias
Posted Aug 30, 2007 5:10 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]
Nokia phones with SD slots have them under the battery too, so that's hardly a disadvantage in the marketplace.No, they don't, at least not all of them. I own a Nokia 6125 where the MicroSD slot is at the side of the phone, under its own tiny cover, and the card can be inserted or removed without shutting down the phone. This in my view is the only sensible way to handle MicroSD cards, which after all are just another type of removable media, just like floppies or USB sticks. As noted by others in this thread, there are plenty of reasons why one would want to swap the card often.
(Incidentally, my original comment was written with the above-mentioned Nokia, using Opera Mini as the browser instead of the built-in one.)
Hotswap on Nokias
Posted Aug 30, 2007 14:59 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]
Thanks, I didn't know that; I stand corrected.
Let's hope that the guys will be able to fit that kind of slot into the phone's next iteration, then. It does take up more room than the under-the-battery kind, and they already are committed to fit WLAN and/or accelerometers in the thing, along with all the other stuff in there.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Sep 1, 2007 20:08 UTC (Sat) by pdundas (subscriber, #15203) [Link]
My nokia has the slot in the side, under the battery cover, but quite accessible while the phone is operational.
It would have been nice if the neo did something like that as well - but at least this way they don't need to worry about users removing media that have not been correctly unmounted and flushed. Simpler software for the v1 phone.
No hotswap of microsd, then
Posted Aug 29, 2007 22:16 UTC (Wed) by mjr (subscriber, #6979) [Link]
First, yes, these are limitations, no doubt about it.
As to their seriousness, time has pretty much proven that this is not a killer misfeature, since most phones do it this way. By far the most common use case is to stick those two cards in there once and use away. It's not an unreasonable design compromise, suboptimal as it is.
Of course, this phone's initial target group probably wants to swap their cards around more than the usual people. One would hope that OpenMoko takes off and we'll have new hardware models offer more options as for features and case design.
Meanwhile, ah well. 4 GB µSDs are on the market, 8 announced to be coming up. I shan't be overly concerned about swapping them in my use. YMMV.
Waiting for 8GB MicroSD cards
Posted Aug 30, 2007 5:54 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
I'm eagerly waiting for the 8GB MicroSD cards to appear, since they'd fit my future Neo perfectly. That way I could take my CD collection (heavily recompressed for mobile usage) with me also in Neo, not just the Trekstor Vibez FLAC/Ogg player I currently have.
The first 4GB cards aren't terribly expensive, so it's not going to be too bad for the 8GB cards either, probably.
It's incredible that 8GB can be fitted in an area smaller than a fingertip.
Waiting for 8GB MicroSD cards
Posted Sep 1, 2007 20:19 UTC (Sat) by pdundas (subscriber, #15203) [Link]
I'm hoping the slot is SDHC and will therefore support >2G, rather than plain old SD. The wiki says "it should work", which is kind of encouraging...
Waiting for 8GB MicroSD cards
Posted Sep 7, 2007 11:15 UTC (Fri) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
See http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Talk:Neo1973_Hardware - seems like the built-in SD controller doesn't support SDHC / SD 2.0, but there is a software way around this, and some Linux kernel work on SDHC.