I recently bought a new n950 and noticed that it is marked as "RM690" on the bottom antenna. I did not find any significant differences with other models - it has 1 GB RAM and 16 GB NVRAM too. But there are little differences in hardware - check photos below.

"RM690" phone and cover


"RM690" motherboard identifiers


common RM680 phone and cover


common RM680 motherboard identifiers


"RM690" and common RM680 bottom antennas


"RM690" and common RM680 bottom antennas


-- no differences except "RM690" metal engraving and manufacturing dates.

"RM690" and common motherboards


-- note the yellow (thing) on "RM690" marked as "a157J 52284" (not sure) while common RM680 phones have black (thing) marked as "150 6V".

"RM690" and common RM680 phones have similar memory chips but with different markings. Software reports 1GB RAM / 16GB Flash for both phones.



There are no differences in /proc/cpuinfo and /proc/version. If you would tell me what else to check I will post results here.



A few pics of my other phones:






I suggest that the number on little "S4.0 HW1124 XXXX" sticker is the serial (production queue) number of the phone, as ID 68x is definitely older than 249x one.
If I'm right then "RM690" may be the possible model name which came after first silver n950 prototypes but before the common black n950s.

Text database of my devices' parts with manufacturing dates:

249x
back cover LC1A11132 10/03/11 | bottom ant. 2011 05? | upper ant. 2010 04? | mb "HD3 S 94V-0 07-03"

179x
back cover LC1A11132 11/03/11 | bottom ant. 2011 05? | upper ant. 2010 02? | mb "HD3 S 94V-0 03-01"

177x
back cover LC1A11113 23/02/11 | bottom ant. 2011 05? | upper ant. 2010 06? | mb "HD3 S 94V-0 09-03"

68x
back cover LC1A11111 28/02/11 | bottom ant. 2010 03? | upper ant. 2010 01? | mb "IEB,HR13 94V-0 7-3"


Post your IDs written on small "S4.0 HW1124 XXXX" sticker please. If my suggestion is right then we could determine the approximate number of n950s produced (now the number is "at least 2500").