Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Well, windowed mode and 80% zoom, non?

EDIT - And on my N800, windowed mode means about 3.8" diagonal. Don't forget that also that the aspect ratio of windowed mode is also not the same as a 3.5" screen.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I don't need or want a $700 phone. I have the perfect phone and it was free. TI didn't make the OMAP3 so I can sound better to friends and family. And none of you originally came to this forum to talk about phones. If you did, go away.

I have my phone company right where I want them, in that sh*tty little free phone. I'm done writing about phones. It's really boring.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

You didn't see that coming? Maemo is not tied to Nokia but you're ofcourse free to make your own community and/or hardware product. Then you will have to make all those difficult design choices, and deal with a vocal community living in nostalgia. Maybe you will fail, maybe succeed, but it will be damn hard pleasing everyone because sacrifices are made and the product is commercial.

Too bad you put the tag of a corporation instead of a product by the corporation. You could have said GNOME :) or maybe the other sounds like KDE 1 or Windows 95. Or TWM...

But wait, we must give people the choice between ALSA and OSS, ESD, aRTs, Pulse, Jack. We must force them to chose for them, because then they are truelly free... and we must allow them their own libc, and their own compiler... we don't do that, right? We provide them the best libc and best compiler for the job because we make their life easier. In some cases we keep in mind the user wants choice, in other we don't keep this in mind or we make it impossible (MSIE, or DRM, ...)

(The quality is sometimes questionable, and some stuff like PIM is not available, but otherwise you're right and the wide adoption of libpurple is a great example of libraries being reused. Because that is what you can compare to really.)

The tablets were not aimed at specific use cases; or at least their original use cases were abandoned by its users. But now those same users think that will always remain possible with the next Nokia/Maemo product. Impossible. We have people who want to use a capacitive touchscreen with Maemo which requires different applications and UI design choices. We have people who want to use stylus. We have people who do not want 24/7 connectivity. We have people who want big screens for e-books. You simply cannot please everyone! So you vote Red, Blue, or Green.

Application managers are always a mess because there are so many overlappings, some are just better sorted than others, but its always hard to make this informative. Users want to be able to know the clear differences between the choices they're able to make. So that is why we have those community and review sites for products, and thats where word of mouth works well.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Smartphone. What you call phone I start more and more seeing as backwards compatibility (GSM standard). Because in a few years we don't use GSM anymore, it is all-IP, and we simply use SIP or VoIP. In that time Nokia does not manufacturer phones anymore, they make devices which are backwards compatible with GSM, or they make devices with which you can use audio to have contact with someone (besides text, video). This device is simply a Maemo/Linux version of a bridge between that, and instead of initially being said to be data-only it now also does voice. Which allows the backwards compatibility to be easier integrated in the whole Maemo stack (with a seperate device for phone/GSM that'd been harder) IOW oFone. But I believe Nokia will also dabble into different form factors so perhaps make a product which is like a big tablet (netbook-alike) running Maemo. Perhaps portable enough for former tablet users.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

We did not come here to talk about phones and that was true. But we still want to talk about phones and we are not going away!

It's not about phones, tvs, radios, gps, wifi,wimax, ... but we want everything on the ITs if possible; but we also know that it could not happen at this time. Did someone cry when the N810 did not come out with the FM? I still hate the N810 taking away the internal SD slot!

My 12 year old nice still would not trade my N810 for her IPod Touch after I showed her what my N810 could do! So you can see that maybe and maybe Nokia is trying to target a different segment of users and not for geeks any more.

If the N900 still support bluetooth I can survive smaller screen size with a bluetooth keyboard but I won't pay a premium for an unlocked phone. Even the N900 will support a better finger interface I still cry for my stylus!

But that was me.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Again, no one originally came here to talk about communication technology or how our bits were going to get to point b. WiFi was it. Would you buy this next device if it didn't have WiFi? Would you not buy this next device if it didn't have cell phone technology? If you answered yes to either question, please leave now. Goodbye and good luck.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Thanks for this clarification!

I notice that my screen has a small border in window'd mode, so the diagonal is roughly 3.5", though as you mention the aspect ratio is different. Even given all of this, it still should be adequate to get a feel of interfacing with a smaller screen.


YARR!
}:^)~
High-Corruptification

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

..but now WiFi is not 'it' anymore because the world has evolved. People own smartphones now, and have a 24/7 data subscription. 802.11 evolved too, you know. The world changes. BlueTooth 3 and 802.11n will arrive. LTE will arrive. New Nokia devices will support all that eventually. And people who want HSPA on their Maemo device are now actually more than welcome here because their needs will be filled by Nokia... they shouldn't leave, au contraire...

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I think my iPod touch is less voluminous than my phone. I dig that. Is there such a thing as a 3.5" 800X480 capacitive touch screen?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

what i came to these forums to talk about is maemo, and maemo based devices, and I'm not going anywhere. Maybe, instead, you should consider whether or not you belong here ... and whether or not it's time to leave your immature "only talk about what _I_ like" attitude at the door.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Hmm, I think I spot a trend here... has the old fad of peppering one's english/american text with a few French expressions suddenly become fashionable again ? Or should I say... "de rigueur" ? :-)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

You're living in the future. Come back to the present; It's more real and you can actually get things done.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Yeah, I buy that argument. I actually use most apps in windowed mode.

The only app I consistently use full screen is FBReader, but I've been using that app more and more. I imagine that with an always-on data connection, I'll use the device for more things (e.g. Maemo mapper), but for now, I mostly use it for reading books.

There's no question for me that FBReader in a 3.5" viewing area sucks quite a bit. You can't just increase the font size to compensate: to comfortably read a book, you really want a good overview of the current page.

For me, ebook reading is so far the only sacrifice in this beautiful (yet vapourous) convergence device. Linux: awesome. Phone: awesome. Unified addressbook for IM, email and phone: awesome. 48GB of memory: awesome. Camera: awesome.

For me, there are so many benefits to the convergence, I'll sacrifice the small screen.

I'll even sacrifice the DPad if I can have arrow keys.

If there are no arrows or DPad, I'll probably pass. A Linux device isn't all that useful to me without a functioning XTerm.


Michael

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Immature? Maybe. Serious? 49% I encourage you to stay as long as you like and talk about whatever you want, any way that you want to. Better?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Being able to surf anywhere is a transformative experience. It's one of the reasons people tether their existing tablets. The MAJOR benefit now, is that we have the option of doing this without requiring a second device! In fact many of us will do this for the first time.

Once people realize that they can look up recipes while in the grocery store, SSH into their server on the train, video chat on the beach, buy tickets in a cab, snap and send photos at concerts, run automation scripts at the movies, etc. I'm sure they will enjoy the inclusion of a cellular radio and accept the 'pesky' half-inch of screen lost.

I believe this device transcends both a smartphone and tablet designation. You see, it runs an OPEN variant of linux. This line of product from Nokia (IMO) represents the finest example of a convergence device. In fact, of all the MIDs and smartphones being released, there's arguably no equal.

YARR!
}:^)~
Wide Area Corrupt

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

If that was referring to my use of 'non' - French is our 2nd official language, and we throw some bits in here and there when we talk up here in the Great White North. (well, some of us do)

edit - au contraire - got it ;)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

What if you could use gestures to function as replacement for keys/dpad?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Tried that. FBReader just feels too small. MicroB/Tear usable but I am constantly tempted to switch to full screen. Maemo Mapper feels like I am looking at it through a keyhole.

So, what was the purpose of this experiment? Were you trying to prove that smaller screen is "still ok" or what? Because the miracle you expected has not happened: all the use cases described before in this thread felt constrained and less comfortable.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

No, you're living in the past. Come join us in the present, where even the NITs are communication devices (coming bundled with multiple flavors of VOIP), and where the trend in current pocketables is to at least offer a 3G connection.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Fms, Same feeling here ...

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

... and Google expects to have Android on 20 handsets by Q4 2009.

Talk about downward pressure on MSRP. :)

***

If Nokia is in fact watching this board and we can somehow influence design and marketing decisions with our posts then it seems that we are really just validating some of their recent moves.
Apparently they can just charge whatever they want for a device, no one cares. :)

Knowing the US cell phone market some I know that unless you are Steve Jobs, the carrier usually has the final word on a device's "as shipped" specifications.

Some of the service providers own people have plenty of colored charts with circles and arrows accompanied by pages of statistics that correlate to what a typical customer from the targeted market prefers. This is what they start the bidding with and 9 times out of 10 that is the final product they end up with.

Jobs changed that when he walked in and showed them something that their current products couldn't do and he had his own dang charts with statistics of actual user experience with this new device. The in house people were caught with their charts down because their typical customer had no clue that a cell phone could do the things an iPhone could.

This was a one time deal though because Jobs didn't show the Cell phone providers anything that they thought couldn't be done. He just showed them customers who were enthusiastic about doing it.

Now the in house chart wranglers have something for a typical customer to compare to and believe me they now have plenty of new statistics.

About the only value a community like ours has in these negotiations is in our overall numbers somehow coorelated to user enthusiasm. That is all, (IMHO)

***

BTW, this is not my attempt to hi-jack a thread or change the topic to Apple, Stevie Wonder, or the iPhone.

The above is just how I based my opinion that the most important spec at this point is price and the amount of new subscribers this phone generates for a service provider may be the biggest influence on Nokia decisions about future Maemo 5 devices.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Just to comment on experimenting the new smaller screen size on N8x0 using windowed mode... that is not exactly correct, since you do lose lots of pixels/resolution... What you should do is to use the N8x0 in full screen mode, just like before, but place the device 1.2x distance further from your eyes that you usually do. Then you'll still be looking same amount of pixels, but looking like you do have them on a 3.5" screen.

(In fact I was surprised that the difference is only 1.2x... Gotta try this when I get home...)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Got it. You hate it. Any others willing to try it for a day?


YARR!
}:^)~
C

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I keep seeing this reference, and scratching my head. I can't imagine a need for a dpad in an xterm... I think it's the one app that doesn't need the dpad at all. That's what hjkl are for :-)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Working my way thru this post after a break for the holiday and this I see... interesting. Thinking about it from a functional end, this would seem to be an answer to that question of "what kind of netbook would nokia make" that came up some time back.

Lots of puzzle pieces here, and dang near a complete picture if one looks.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Neither of these browsers easily allows one to zoom in or out to read text in optimal size. Nor does the hardware have an accelerometer to switch to landscape mode. N900 will do the latter, and if I were to bet I'd put my money on the former as well (as will Palm Pre and G2). Did you ever notice all those people who'd like to e-mail in landscape mode instead of portrait mode on a certain device from a Nokia competitor?

Making choices doesn't work like you put it except maybe for you (a special case if I may say so). You're a special case, an exception to the rule. The market does not and will probably not easily please you precisely because of that. So you must team up with those who feel alike (as I said earlier in a post make your own hardware).

The question is not if it is less comfortable for you. We know you value the screen size. The question is if it is acceptable for potential customers, for which percentage of potential customers it is not acceptable, and whether that percentage qualifies for an other product which fullfills their need (an add-on product or a stand-alone product). That is the question for Nokia or anyone else has to make. And they're commercial decisions in almost all cases. We're not all multi-million philantropists like Sean Moss-Pultz. So if we go back to reality 101 the screen size of devices didn't stop people from buying an iPhone or G1 whereas stability and lack of 3G were serious issues in OpenMoko. Stability of 3G in iPhone was also a concern for early adopters; at least here in my country, and TMO was partly to blame for that.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Hehe. In Bash there are shortcuts like ctrl+r (search through command history while you type) or ctrl+a (akin to home). You just need to learn them and then you won't miss the keypad.

Keep in mind no OS is mentioned. These products might as well include S60 platform. S60 also supports touchscreens nowadays.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I used to run everything full-screen. Then I realized how much time and CPU I was wasting making things redraw twice every time I wanted to get at something in the statusbar, and stopped. I go fullscreen if I'm going to be spending a while where the extra space is useful -- note-taking, PDF reading, and heavy browsing. For other things, or when I'm only spending a couple minutes in one of those, I don't bother.
I'm just a little baffled by the repeating assumptions that cursor keys are required for xterm. That's almost the last place they're needed, because a lot of terminals over the years haven't had them, so many apps work fine without them. It's true, I've only ever had one small-keyboarded terminal, and I didn't ever do much with it, but I've got a pretty good idea where to start.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The year was 1996. Maybe '97. I had to tell the roadrunner web master what a WML mime type was so I could talk to my WiFi connected internet laptap that was sitting on my kitchen table. I was doing dynamic DNS before it was invented. Through said laptop, I was proxying to the internet from my cell phone 12+ years ago. My unlimited Sprint data plan was $5/month. I get convergence, it's just far down on my list 'cause it still comes at a ridiculous premiuim of money, contracts and power consumption. In the meantime, I'll take an excellent WiFi client at a reasonable price.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Funny - that reminds me of the early Mac a friend of mine had in university. It didn't have arrow keys. Looking up "cursor" in the manual referred you to the fine mouse. Word processing was a huge pain on that machine.

I'm a big fan of gestures, but I don't think they work well to replace arrow keys.

First of all, you'd have to have gestures for all of the modified cursor keys. Shift+arrow to select. Ctrl+arrow for moving word by word. You could implement this by allowing (e.g.) shift+gesture, but this will probably be awkward on the bus. So you probably need more than just four directional gestures.

Secondly, the gestures would have to be able to handle key repeats. For instance: keep your finger on the screen after the "cursor left" gesture and the cursor keeps moving left until you remove your finger.

If you overshoot, or if your gesture is misinterpreted, you now have to correct for the effect of the wrong gesture in addition to re-doing the original gesture. It's like typing in ssh over a slow connection.

If your position is off by only three or four characters, you have the choice performing a single cursor movement gesture three or four times, or using a repeat gesture and risking overshooting your target (probably by three or four characters again).

That's a lot of physical hand movement as well. I imagine it won't be comfortable.

Plus you have to keep moving your hands to and from the keyboard.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I do not "hate" it. In fact, given that the upcoming model is supposed to be a phone (and I get to keep my N810 :)), I will still buy it, if the price is right. But the small screen is just less fit for several major use cases, that is all. No amount of explaining how all of us are "a niche" and "not the target consumer segment" is going to fix that.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=299

The top image shows the difference, and it's a pretty big difference. Photoshop an image onto both of those, or at least use your imagination -- any text or video would look much smaller on that smaller screen. You can't compare it with the unmaximized microb because the text size doesn't change unmaximized, and that's a key item. Could it be compared to viewing with the 80% option on the current N8x0, which I avoid except for (very few) particular websites (formatting is broken otherwise) and really don't want to be stuck to that size? Not accurately, but that might be probably closer to the experience than an unmaximized browser, though we can't accurately say because qgil mentioned that they were creative in this area. Moving the tablet away from your eyes is about the only accurate way, and even that's not equal to the experience. So it's really a guess, (like most of what we've been discussing in this thread).

Having said that, I agree with Capt'n Corrupt, that "Being able to surf anywhere is a transformative experience," and I'd like to be wired in wherever I am, but have been working around that until now, and I'm fine with it for the time being. (I have a saved text version of xbox/ xbox 360 backward compatibility list, for example, as a substitute for being connected 24/7). Would I sacrifice 12% of the screen for it? Very grudgingly, but I know and am reminded every day that the N800 screen spoils me.

Of course, I personally think most of this discussion is moot; I could be wrong but I think there will be a more tablet-like maemo device. "How soon?" is my only question, based on this post:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...986#post290986



Joe.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I get to use Nokia 5800 regularly and the accelerometer is rather a problem than a solution. It tends to go into landscape mode whenever it wants, not when you want it to. And yes, 5800 screen is too small for comfortable browsing, so I am not sure what your point was.

Labeling everyone you do not agree with "an exception to the rule" is not gonna work either. Kinda old trick, too.

Well, I guess we have figured it out by now that pretty much none of us here at t.m.e are these elusive "potential customers". Given how much the upcoming N900 looks like a phone, one would guess that its potential customers are the same guys who are buying S60e5 phones. But in this case, N900 will be in the direct competition with 5800, upcoming N97, spied 5900, and so forth. This makes one wonder why Nokia would compete with itself.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Hahaha.. Seriously!


YARR!
}:^)~
iCapt'n Corrupt<ESC>:wq

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Nice point and thanks for the comparative figure. In fact I use my N810 in windowed mode most of the time (except with Canola etc).

Also I do recall in threads that most of the people were against having any application open in full screen mode by default. Rather they wanted to use apps in windowed mode with a choice to go full screen if needed - hence that suggests that they also use apps in windowed mode most of the time. I am sure most people do that. So if the 3.5 " screen = windowed mode screen size (or thereabouts), then that seems just fine by me.

Of course I understand that the 3.5" screen will now have a windowed mode again thereby reducing app screen real-estate to less than 3.5". But then just go full-screen in that case. I always did like full screened apps like Canola, Flip clock etc ... again, this is entirely a matter of choice - but I guess many of us here who dislike the small screen factor might not be put off once we see the real thing in flesh and metal and LCD parts.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Maemo 5's UI doesn't have a side bar - only a top one, so the windowed mode is less wasteful of space.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Thanks!

I also use most apps in windowed mode exclusively with little trouble.

From what I understand, Maemo 5 will have an interface to compensate for window'd mode, and knowing that the focus has been largely on usability, it'll probably be comfortable to use.

I am very excited for the performance increases, the camera, and the anywhere internet, all on an optimized open linux OS! I just wish it were out already!


YARR!
}:^)~
cap7'n

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I was responding to the person who was telling me about all the great communication technologies that will be here. Well, there not here, so how about I just use what is here. Or is that too much in the past for you?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

(Totally different market segment and OS but OK...)

Really. So accelerometer means problem. The only time that happens on my iPod touch is when I'm lying on either side in my bed using the thing. But then someone made a small application which allows me to toggle off the accelerometer. What an invention! You can actually disable a piece of hardware. Accelerometer has been useful in many devices, yes, including auto rotation. Assuming there are no hardware bugs it is still not perfect because by default UI isn't optimized for it, so many applications won't be useful with it. But some are or will be, and it is then important (e-mail for example).

Well, its important to realize your position. If you're so dissatisfied with all this news development why not design your own hardware and enjoy all these nice people who make their demands and whine when you picked a path instead of simply looking at the good sides of the offer, or the other available offers?

Uh, that implies nobody at t.m.e. wants to buy this device. Don't give yourself too much credit, aye?

Or maybe we are at stage 4 of the 5 stages while touchscreen devices become more and more common, including touchscreen devices with Nokia brand. Because that is what 5800, N97, N900, and 5900 have in common. 5800 does not compete with N97 that much; they're aimed at different market segment. Kids can't pay for N97, but they can afford 5800.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

We're talking about a device we won't get our hands on for some months, which will have those "great communication technologies", namely cellular data and voip. And will have GSM, which may be used as backwards compatibility only even if not labeled as such. Yes, writing it off simply because current devices fall into a tablet/phone dichotomy is too much in the past for me.