I am building almost that, based on the BeagleBoard:

• 7 inch multitouch capacitive screen
• 16.7 M colors
• 1 GHz processor
• 8 MP camera
• 512 MB RAM

...and a pluggable hardware keyboard, as the BeagleBoard has USB host ports.

the ONLY thing I would love that changes N900, is 1gb ram and dual core proc, everything else can remain the same and there is no device like this for me.

the only replacement for N900 can be a maemo compilation for x86 that is injected to a XpPhone-2









Os Windows-7 desktop(upgradable to win-8), 2Gb ram, full QWERTY.. & much more..



nothing else comes close..

Seems nothing is close on the horizon so we can wait and see in the next months to come how Samsung messes up their next trial at understanding a well implemented Linux phone.

Rumour says Tizen next month, not clear if dev device or anything else (out of release notes of Tizen alpha)



http://www.sammobile.com/2012/01/08/...ne-with-tizen/

The Map on N900 is a joke, though it got somewhat usesable after PR1.2.

But I kinda like the new Map and Drive on N9 (might be the Ovi Maps on Symbian is similar but better, i haven never tried), to me it's easier to use, get the job done in simpler interface than the Google Map on Android, and might be because the preloaded map on N9 makes it very fast and smooth.
The only thing I miss from Google Map is no Traffic on N9, I still have no idea why Nokia didn't add the Traffic to the map, which is vital information for the jammed freeways in Los Angeles.

We need more RAM than the N900 if we want Gnome 3 smooth though. We can probably fork it, remove crap we don't like, make it look nice on a 5" screen and fix clutter for gles2.

Gnome 3's touchscreen keyboard is pretty nice.

The only problem is, nobody likes booting GNU/Linux on Android devices. There's always a large amount of kernel drivers missing.

Basically, Galaxy Note is a bigger and slightly better version of the SGS2:

- It has the same but slightly better SoC. (smaller manufacturing process) So it runs at 1.4GHz instead of 1.2GHz by default while being just as efficient.

- It has a Wacom-based tablet digitizer and a stylus. Basically, it's a combination of passive and capacitive touch screen. Currently, it is the only phone which provides the best of both worlds. Stylus is extremely accurate and is pressure sensitive. (128 levels of pressure) So it is actually just as good or better than the N900 even with a stylus. It also has some system wide gestures with the stylus. (such as taking screenshots, back, menu etc) Did you watch the youtube video I linked on my first post on this thread? =)

- It has a much better screen for browsing web, reading emails, feeds, watching movies, reading comics, VNC/RDP etc. This is also a killer feature really. 1280x800 resolution screen definitely make a huge difference to the overall experience.

I still think SGS2 is still one of the best Android phone overall. (if you want a 4.3" screen sized phone that is) All it's lagging behind is screen resolution. BTW, I actually bought my parents yesterday the HTC Sensation (as I could get it super cheap) which has the same LCD as the HTC Amaze that you mention. (and practically the same SoC but just underclocked) It's good but I would still prefer the SAMOLED+ of the SGS2 over the SLCD of the HTC. Once you get used to the AMOLED's Pioneer Plasma-like blacks, you just can't go back to a standard LCD that easily. =P Also, not sure when HTC Amaze will get an official ICS upgrade. But SGS2 will get it very soon apparently. (well, Q1 for sure)

Yeah, I wish ALL phones come with a dedicated 2-stage camera button. WHY do makers get rid of it I have no idea. It's just dumb period. e.g. Lumia 800 has it, but N9 doesn't. Gawd. Microsoft did one thing smart by making all of their phones to have one at least.

Anyways, it's not about getting the best phone out. It's about getting "the" phone that will satisfy the most of your current daily and geeky needs. N900 and even the N9 couldn't do it for me anymore so I had no choice but to move on. It's all Nokia's fault.

Seriously, Symbian folks at Nokia and Maemo folks at Nokia should actually look at each others work more and think about what can be improved. Heck, they should also look at their competitors to see what they did right. I was shocked when Kontorri didn't even know what smart dial was when I mentioned it couple of months back. It's something even Symbian has and is extremely useful when dialling someone....

Mmmh... good find. Perhaps a little bit to big. But if we would be able to put maemo5 or MeeGo-Harmattan on it I would buy new pants with big bags.

One of my tests of a "phone" is of practicality. Can you fit a Galaxy Note into your pocket like a N900/Galaxy SII or do you lug it around? Ive always thought the N900 was a little bit a bulge in my pants, so I wonder about a 5" "phone".

Along that line.. when you take a photo, does it feel like you're holding up a dinner plate??

Of course multitasking is smooth as butter with the N900, especially if clocked and locked at 1.1 Ghz. ( refer to Jakiman tutorial!! ) Ive used an iphone 4 for a while and I found its multitasking to be as comfortable as walking on broken glass- how is it with the Note, is it the same as the Galaxy Sii ( same OS) and can you handle it?

Yeah. the note fits in my average Jeans pocket just fine. but it doors get a little uncomfortable (although bearable) when sitting down due to it's surface area. =p

regards to taking photos, it actually feels fairly normal. it's actually prey cool having such a large viewfinder. lol

multitasking with Android gingerbread isn't much better than iphone4. Really, nothing comes close to the experience which the N900 with camkeyd or N9 swipes provides. I hate it but what can I do. ICS update should make it a little better but still it's no Maemo. One thing however is that due to pc-like tabbed browsing using browser such as Maxthon, you get decent a pc like Web browsing experience. (desktop user agent also) It eliminates the need to multitask like when using MicroB with multiple browser windows at least.