True, if its cheap enough, I may use it to do BT DUN from my pandora, provided it supports DUN, and I actually get a pandora?

Because you are negating the cost of carrier certification as the N97 is sold thru carriers worldwide. Its also the current flagship device, so for now its priced higher than Maemo devices usually are.

Umm, didn't know it was my turn to impress you.

I offered to this thread the relevant results of my search for other devices that use the technology that is spec'ed for the N900. I wanted to see the difference before hoping on any band wagon.

What impressed me was the fact that there were not many devices out there yet. I am also reminded of the huge threads that were generated on the phone forums when 176 x 220 displays went from 2.2 inches to 1.8 inches...
This was as all due to a change over to a more efficient semiconductor used to manufacture displays... Gallium Arsenide, if I recall correctly.
In any event now displays under 2" for 176 x 220 are the norm and no one notices the size anymore. What some do notice now is that because of the increased pixel density the smaller displays are less prone to produce different color saturations between the top and bottom when viewed at different angles. In other words the denser pack sharpened the image and it was more readable and had more "pop". The 2.2" displays now look ancient in comparison.

YMMV and I'm not defending a dang thing. I'm just saying that a lot of energy is being used by some to do a hate dance on something we haven't even seen yet.

No, I just thought that particular device is linked because of some, well, niftiness or something that can be compared to. Even the same resolution/size means little if the display tech is not identical.

This is not the same situation:
What you're describing is that resolution increases for a given display size in phones. I have a 2.2" phone, but of course it has 240x320, not 176x20. My next phone will must likely have a 2.6" display at the same resolution, so they go up again.

But then again, they didn't play a lot of videos on 2.2" 176x220-screens, did they? I do use my N8x0s as video players a lot, so size does matter (more than resolution actually).

It is exactly the same...

The physical dimension of some 176 x 220 resolution displays went from 2.2 to 2.0 then 1.8 inches... The same information was displayed just in and smaller and smaller area. (Back then some 240 x 320, QVGA displays were 4" or more IIRC)

The resolution or amount of information displayed on the N900 will be the same as an N800 but the display will be smaller.

BTW I am not comparing the screen size of the two devices Just trying to show the similarities in community reaction.

And Atilla, explain how the display tech is different please, I don't follow you.

There are several similarly sized same-res screens out there that can look quite differently. E.g. the N800 and N810 have different screen technologies. But even within the same 'group' the brightness/contrast/refresh can vary wildly. Are you saying this ASUS is using the same 3.5" transflective Sony display that has been hinted by some people to be in the next Maemo device ? 'Cause if not, the only thing we can relate to is the DPI, we'll have to wait and see the actual device to tell how it stacks up to other similarly sized displays.

Wait doesn't your second sentence negate your argument? If your using the same resolution but on a smaller screen your still using a smaller screen for say movies. Whether people will care in the long run is different. (Screen size was one of the reasons why I choose the n800 over the iPod Touch)

Ah, understood...

Comparable pixels per inch @ the same physical dimension is all I hoped to show.

And Laughing Man, my bad, Display resolution or the physical number of columns and rows of pixels creating the display...

Resolution is misleading, in the analog world it meant dots per inch. With digital displays I think it goes back to the original IBM VGA display technology which would always be 640 × 480 pixels per display regardless of physical size.

Hi.

I read through the first 31 pages of this thread, before I skipped to the end, because my opinion here was totally underrepresented on the 31 pages and I think it needs to be represented.

Most of you seems to think about the smaller screen as small and the N900 as a crippled N810. There is not a one person outside this forum that would call a LCD, any LCD, with a 800x480 resolution small. We all have been spoiled by the N810 [or older models] and, despite the failing sales, expect the N900 to be an improvement over that.

I own a N810 myself, and I can certainly see that a smaller screen will be worse in some cases, most specially for eBooks.

However.

Change focus for a minute. Put the beloved tablet aside and look at the market. Nokia still sell N810 and it is still pretty much a market leader in the underdeveloped market. But there's a big market out there where they suck. And that is on high resolution smart phones. It's a disaster that Nokia doesn't make anything that can compete with HTC in stats.

Edit: Paragraph removed (about N series) that distracted from the point. Also, it was wrong.

Nokia needs the N900 to be a phone. They are totally behind on touch smartphones. Someone mentioned the 5800. How can the screen on the 5800 or the N97 even compare to the screens of the HTC Touch HD, HTC Touch Pro2 or HTC Diamond2? It cannot! The top models from Nokia are just not good enough, screen wise.

Enter the N900 which more than anything is, as said here, the N97 killer. More open OS than N97 and HTC. Much, much better screen than the N97 and on par with HTC. And an already exisiting software base.

I personally have been sick at going through the internet connection sharing ritual between my N810 and my HP Ipaq 514. It takes me a couple of minutes to get online and I have to click around on two devices. So sick that I look at other options. I would love to have internal GSM/3G on the N810. I want an all-in-one device. I have been looking at the 5800. I have been looking at the N97. Both are just not up to HTC standards. I have been seriously considering the Diamond2. The Diamond2 is 800x480 pixels on a SMALLER SCREEN than the N900.

Guys, the N900 isn't an improved N810, we can all agree on that.

But it seems to me it is the VERY BEST HIGH RESOLUTION SMART PHONE on the market.

Nokia has done the right thing. I think they have a killer product here. The N810 isn't. The N810 is a very neat product for us few. But the N900 has potential to be the #1 smartphone on the market.

Still, I would really love to have Nokia compete with the Kindle. But, you know. Hardly anybody buys the Kindle either.