Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

has there been any rumours of a 3G internettablet yet?

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

Dont count on one unless Nokia gets a sudden influx of Apple inspiration ;-)
The problem is the same as always - Nokia does not want to get into the telco negotiation business with the tablets. They have always argued that to implement any kind of cellular connectivity would raise the price of the tablets beyond acceptable levels because of licensing issues (or similar). I think they caught a break with the WiMAX because it is not governed by telecom but by government - at least in most of Europe as far as I know.

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

Kny, out of curiosity, where did you read those statements?

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

I simply don't believe that claim.

The absolutely cheapest mobile phones can be bought brand new and unlocked for about $30 or $40 without taxes or subsidies. That's the cellular radio, the keypad, the casing, the battery, the phone's processor, the speakers, the LCD screen etc plus profit for the phone maker.

All the tablet would need is the cellular radio, because it has all the rest. I can't believe it would add more than about $10 or $20 to the price of a tablet at the most. Even if it cost the same as an entire phone, that's still only an extra $30 or $40 on the price of a $400 tablet, hardly "beyond acceptable levels". 3G would cost more than 2G, but even then it's difficult to believe the cellular radio alone would go beyond $50 or so.

It would be an especially small percentage increase in Europe where the tablets cost closer to $600, and Europe is where the cellular function would be appreciated the most because European countries have particularly high fast mobile network coverage.

Also, by making the tablet a phone it would become available on phone contracts which would hide the price anyway. Look at Apple's supposed $199 iPhone, it actually costs several times that amount, but the contract hides the rest of the cost in monthly payments.

In fact I don't need to argue this at all, Nokia already released a cellular tablet way back in 2004, it was called the 7710 and it did pretty much the same things as the modern tablets, albeit much more slowly and using a different OS. It was pricey but not prohibitively expensive, as I recall it was about the same price as the tablets are now.

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/revie...Nokia_7710.php

They have already done this before, there's nothing to stop them doing it again.

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

I have a 770 and the only reason to upgrade would be 3G. As far as I know listening to local (Finnish) radio stations, mp3-stream, is not possible with IPhone. Otherwise I really would be tempted to switch to iPhone. I use 770 for listening Last.fm through Vagalume with a separate, cheapest available 3G phone and hate the fact I have to have a separate gadget for the 3G.

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

??? so, if the tablet had 3g, wouldnt you use a phone any more?

I would. the 770 doesnt fit into the pocket of my jeans.

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

On Nokia's side, Ari Jaaksi has stated several times (with good reasoning IMHO) that they have no intention of turning the tablets into cellular phone. For what it's worth, I believe that's a good decision. I wouldn't be prepared to sacrifice rtcomm, bluetooth OBEX etc just to keep the operators happy.

I wouldn't completely rule out a model with a built-in cellular modem for data only to complement the WiMAX version and/or for markets where WiMAX is not available, but that comes with a bunch of new problems:

• people are already confused enough by the Nokia logo on the ITs, imagine the marketing and support nightmares if the specs actually stated GSM/GPRS/UMTS!
  
• most tablet owners probably already have a phone or three that they can (if the operator hasn't crippled it) use as a cellular modem for the tablet.
  
• operator data plans still have not caught up to the 21st century. Here in the UK at least it seems impossible[1] to find a semi-reasonably priced contract that does not force one to pay for a lot of "minutes" they're never going to use and does not expressly forbid VoIP/IM. If I have to remember to switch all my accounts offline before each time I bring the tablet online via a cellular network to avoid breaching the contract it's just not worth the trouble.

[1] I'd be more than happy to be corrected on this if anyone knows otherwise

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

Is that really what Ari said?

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

Well, I can't claim to read anyone's mind but that's what it sounded like to me. A few quotes from the blog entries I linked to above:

And a much more recent one:

which (again, to me) sounds like they're not seriously thinking in that direction at the moment but acknowledge that a decent open-source "traditional phone" OS might be possible.

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

I have a company phone, with no 3G. I use my 3G phone solely for data, no phone calls. I would be satisfied with a tablet with 3G data only.

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

Understood. I was going to explain a little further but realized I had better not, sorry. Feel free to speculate either way. ;)

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

It sounds to me like they could make a maemo-based smartphone (BTW, proposal: call all open, UNIX-based smartphones geniusphones?); but those models would lose the "Internet Tablet" moniker, naturally enough. It doesn't seem to rule out cellular data-only connections on Internet Tablets, which I hope would still be produced. (Of course, it had better not rule that out, as the N810W has a cellular data-only connection, but I mean doesn't rule out any particular network types.)

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

I just wanted to to chime in here and say that I sampled the edge network via my samsung phone on the at&t network and it was abysmal! Waaaaay too slow. It has to be 3G!

Re: Any rumours on Nokias side?
 

Didn't I say that recently? Like an E66, E71, or E90 with Maemo? And people all over these boards were shooting it down.


What I'd like to see, again, is:

A) an E66, E71, and/or E90 with Maemo (with World-GSM and World-WCDMA (850, 900, 1700, 1900, and 2100 MHz WCDMA) would be nice too, so you can use it in Asia, Europe, or in North America with either AT&T or T-Mobile). Maybe not those exact phones, but phones with those form-factors (or maybe one with a slide out qwerty, like an N810 ... but not literally, as I think the N810 has some things in the wrong places for it to be directly used as a phone; I'd base it on the sidekick slide, with a tilt screen).

B) an N810-GSM/WCDMA Edition (with World-GSM* and World-WCDMA ... and you might be able to use it with Stelera Wireless if it did WCDMA 1700). (* for GPRS/EDGE, not voice ... and maybe SMS/MMS, but I could be convinced that IM is enough and SMS/MMS isn't necessary)

But, based on things being said by various people here, I think it wont happen. Which is rather sad and short-sighted. These wouldn't be the first Linux phones (Motorola did that a while ago). The phone compromises people go on about wouldn't have to compromise Maemo as a whole (different builds for different targets).

(someone questioned if we'd lose RTCOMM... I don't think we would, Nokia already makes phones that can act as SIP phones and UMA phones; I bet RTCOMM would be just fine; what they MIGHT have to lose is the Skype client)

If it would cost more, then let us know how much it would cost, and give us the choice. If it would lose certain features, then let us know and give us the choice. But don't keep saying "no, can't be done, or you wouldn't like the end result" -- you don't know that, and you wont know it until you give us the full information from which to make our own informed choices.