Paul Gardner-Stephen, head developer of the MEGA65 also has a side project called the MEGAphone. This project, announced in Dec of 2018, has started to heat up and they’ve just reported that they have assembed their very first prototyop PCB.
What’s the MEGAphone you ask? It’s cellular phone based version of the MEGA65 which supports multiple cellular modem types. Here’s a quote from Paul.
The cellular modems for the MEGA65 phone are in the standard miniPCIe form-factor. Note that this does not mean that they use the miniPCIe signalling — but rather that they use the connector and physical dimensions of miniPCIe.
By using this standard format, the MEGA65 can use a wide variety of cellular modems — and can even be upgraded in the field if you want to go from 3G to 4G (or later, to 5G when it becomes available), or just switch cellular modems if you are in a country that uses a different frequency band or communications standard.
For more information on the MEGAphone and MEGA65 projects you’ll want to check out Pauls MEGA65 blog.
