Buying an Openmoko Neo FreeRunner

Today Openmoko released the first consumer phone running the Openmoko platform, called Neo FreeRunner. According to a post on Slashdot it’s only sold to people in the United States, so I wanted to see what happened if I tried to buy one.

I started out on the openmoko.com frontpage. There is a big green box inviting me to click on it, so I do that.

Nice, a picture and specifications on one page. That’s really helpful because those are the things I look for on a product page. Now I want to buy it, so I click ‘BUY IT NOW’.

Apparently ‘now’ is a relative term. My guess is that ordering one through a distributor near me is going to take longer, so I click ‘BUY FROM THE OPENMOKO STORE’.

Ok, another product page. I notice that the top navigation changed to ‘STORE/DIRECT’, so at least I made it into the store. I notice another ‘BUY IT NOW’ link, so I click that.

Huh, what’s this, another product page? I check the top navigation to make sure I’m still in the store. I guess I need to scroll down now.

Ah, finally, an ‘ADD TO CART’ link. That usually means we’re almost there.

Unfortunately the store seems to be broken. The website informs us that someone apparently forgot to pass the variant ID, what a bummer. Maybe I should try the search next time.