What are those symmetric groups of components you can see four times on the bottom side and once left from the mPCIe slots? Looks like a crystal oscillator with some diodes and capacitors around, but it doesn't make sense to have this five times randomly spawned around the board.
If you're talking about what I think, then in the 3D view they surround a QFP/QFN IC with a large thermal pad - maybe ethernet transceivers or DC/DC converters? If ethernet, then they are weirdly positioned. I see 4 very similar on the bottom, and one that could be the same on the top?
Also, at first I suspected the footprints that look like SMD crystals at the edge of the board next to the outer mPCIe slot were for the quad antenna connections, but surely they would come directly off the mPCIe module via u.fl connectors.
Also, I don't see any connector for the LCD and the layout doesn't correspond to the layout of connectors in their previous 3D render (then why did they do it?).
Yeah, where is the LCD connector? I only see HDMI. Surely the final prototype has to verify the LCD, if not the other unproven features like the audio and backup battery power. They also seem to have misplaced some of the other wireless modules previously visible.
Yeah, and the component prices still don't add up to their retail price, that's right. Still won't believe until I see anything real that's really working.
They did say they were subsidising the cost of the KS devices - but why the hell would they do that??? Get a working unit on the market, and you can sell your first batch of super duper routers for a huge premium to all those people who must own the latest and greatest, who cares the cost! Most likely they'll run out of money getting a partially working prototype and never deliver anything.
And even worse they're now using a third party SOM, which can only be cost effective if they've realised they will only making a few hundred units.
AND YET THEY'RE SELLING THEM AT A LOSS!
They also say
The SMA connectors are not on the board. We are going to run antenna wire from the case to the WiFi chipset. THis doesn't change anything for you guys but allows our EMI to pass with flying colors
Wow! Pretty confident aren't they!
Most WiFi routers I've pulled apart do this anyway with short coax cables between the chassis mount RPSMA and PCB.
And this is a completely different connector layout to that of the earlier "production" housing renders, so any emmissions test results on this board aren't particularly relevant to a final production PCBA.
All that said, if they had shown this "prototype" early on in the KS timeline they might have got a few more belivers, rather than showing photos of Arduinos and silly low end ARM boards with faked SATA connections. I will be very surprised if the iMX6 and Android bloatware environment will ever meet their stated throughput goals, but had I backed this project for more than $1, I'd only be doing it for a nice HA controller.