Re: N900 specs revealed
 

True, but they have a big GUI. Most GPS units have everything big (maps, speed, compass, road names, roads, etc..).

Re: Emergency Calls?
 

Then don't show a basic lack of knowledge of the thread you're in. Howzat for basic participation in a discussion?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I was hunting around via Google to see if anyone else had noticed the Emergency Calls mention in the SDK. Not only did I find nothing, I also found confirmation that it is DEFINITELY not for VoIP. timeless was reciting the text on the N810 box on IRC and it clearly states, "Warning: Emergency calls are not supported."

Interesting.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Before this gets off into a side discusion about what one or two participants think we should be talking about in this thread, let me say this...

Yes qole, what you found was signifigant. :D

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Qole is the man. Or... thing. Something. Yes, I'm sure he's something.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Earthly Ambassador from Planet Qole, I think is the right title. Protocolar details still murky, pending HHGTG update.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

At some point, devices that were simply 'phones' stopped existing (outdoors at least).

Telephone: http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:.../telephone.jpg

Phone: http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:...one-rotary.jpg

What we are getting nowadays is something else entirely, even if it CAN make voice calls. The lines have been blurred my friends.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

No more stylus keyboard -> more space on screen -> smaller screen -> same space, less power consumption, more portable.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

At this rate, it's almost a safe bet that anything released will not be enough to satisfy anybody's wants/needs.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Thank you very much! Um... I think. Maybe. Yes, I'm sure you were being complimentary. ;)

Actually I am a prototype created by a mad scientist from an alternate reality. When she realised what she had created, she tried to destroy me, but she ended up destroying herself and her laboratory, while sending me through a dimensional rift to your planet.

Jay: I picked up some sweet telephony hardware in Berlin when I was there for the last Maemo Summit:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/...3d6011e1_m.jpg

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Fremantle has a big GUI. So in the end it's not about the "small" screen, if the Map application is made the correct way.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I don't know... the screen looks too small.... and I bet it doesn't even have a built in gps :(

(but at least it has external d-pad ;))

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

How true...
After over 2 years of tweaking, the N800 now satisfies my wants and needs. A faster processor and more robust OS on an N900 would be swell.

A faster wireless connection that doesn't require a contract with a service provider would also be dandy and although the screen is physically smaller, I consider it an upgrade in quality and it retains the WVGA format of my locally stored HTML. The loss of a d-pad means that I won't have access to 5 mappable software functions at the push of a button but perhaps the keys on a keyboard can provide for this.

For me, anything more or less than this in an N900 would involve trade offs and may not be worth the added expense. In that case, I'll keep the N800 and move on. :)

***

http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:.../telephone.jpg

http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:...one-rotary.jpg

Jay, I once saw a hybrid of ^these two still in use in a bar. It was mounted on a post and had all the features of the older one with the addition of a rotary dial mounted below the mic... I have been looking for one ever since.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I know we have been *****ing (complaining) about the lack of a D-Pad - traditionally a directional key functionality which looks like a DPad.

But what if it has one of those new fangled Optical mouse which looks like a D-Pad but is not (see this video for what I mean). And Nokia uses them in a few models already I believe.

I don't knoe if this has been already considered as a method of input and hardware scrolling function ?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The E72 has one of those optical mice instead of a dpad.

It's a neat idea, but the one and only optical mouse I've used was more jumpy than a mini trackball ... and I've grown to loathe having a mini trackball on my G1 (I otherwise love the phone, but I hate the trackball).

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

no need for it to be used as mouse (as default) - doesn't really make sense if the UI is finger based. What it would be good for is scrolling in webpages, etc.

And - it could probably be set (or modified) to mouse mode for games and other OS.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I'd still MUCH rather have a dpad. Though, I'd settle for having both :-)

(center is an optical mouse that senses relative movement of the thumb; border is a raised edge dpad, like the N810 or E71; each could be turned off globally and/or per-app)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The E72 has that

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

does anyone here hold out much hope that the n900 internet-phone will just be a sister product to the n910 internet-tablet that most of us want?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

"Dude, your sister is hot!

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I had heard the E72 has the optical mouse, but I didn't know if it ALSO had the dpad around it. It looks like it, but I didn't know if that was cosmetic.

So, you're saying it definitely has both a dpad and optical mouse in that one physical spot (like I was attempting to describe in my last post)?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

No one wants an Internet tablet except a few freaks. It's a niche product, but Nokia might make another just beyond the horizon.

Which reminds me of a Stephen Crane poem, which I quote, inaccurately no doubt, from memory:

I saw a man
Pursuing the horizon
Round and round they sped.

"It is futile," I said.
"You can never..."

"You lie!" he cried,
And ran on.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I'll go out on a limb and say the Internet Tablet was only ever a playground for Nokia's mobile phone business. Microsoft, as the biggest player in the software space, has been pushing tablets for over 5 years with no rewards. Nokia has used the tablet to research, develop, and hone a 'Linux based smart platform' for their future phones (and we got a cool tablet or two out of it).

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Shown here in this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ1wsvuhRWY

Personally think this is a great navigation key for a mobile device.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Just because both used the name "tablet" doesn't put them in the same category.
AFAIK the MS vision of a tablet was something far bigger.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

... plus a few Archos customers.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

wow, there's a collective change of heart from the meamo community if your view is representative of the majority in this forum.........

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Their statement can be true even if the maemo community are all still die hard "you can have my NIT when you pry it from my cold dead fingers" types.

Even at it's peak, this community is a niche market, not the mainstream.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

my apologies, i just find it odd that the maemo community has resigned itself to quickly to the idea that the future is smart-phones, when until recently everyone was clamouring for an N810 mk2.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

QUICKLY ? Like, got numbed after only a couple thousand messages ? :D

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

It's still alive and kicking... just waiting for the other shoe to drop :-)

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

"realizing that the end game is some form of convergence device" and "wishing for a new NIT" are not mutually exclusive. Nor is the former anything that happened quickly. THAT should have been understood the first time the 5 step plan was mentioned.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

It's a big "if". Don't make the mistake you commonly see on Slashdot: just because different people make different points at different times doesn't indicate a shift in the community.

johnkzin's polls showed that there was little consensus to begin with.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Not me. I'm not going quietly into the dang night. :)

I don't understand how a market that wasn't even identified 2 or 3 years ago and has yet to be defined can be called a niche. Some of the uses of a NIT could be called niche but the concept not so much.

One use (or niche) of the the NIT's in the North American cell phone markets is as a supplemental internet client that tethers via Bluetooth to a cell phones connection.

Most people don't need to carry an iT or heavy/large/all-in-one cell phone everywhere they go. Having a NIT close by is relatively easy and being able to quickly connect to the net when you retrieve it from your bag, glove box, or brief case is a definite plus.
Most people still need to be connected via a plain ol' cell phone though and a small pocketable one with BT suites that and the tablets connection needs. Requiring both to be under contract with perhaps different providers is pretty foolish if ya ask me. :eek:

Just as foolish as requiring a customer to choose the device, technology, and predict the amount of use and storage capacity they will need for the next two years is. But that is what North American providers have conditioned their customers to do... .

Providing another means of connection for a new device formerly known as an NIT, particularly one that can be pre-paid and could change providers month to month would make a lot of sense though. :)

I am hoping Nokia understands that getting into North American pockets pre-convergence in large numbers would be a way to break into the N/A market and change purchasing/marketing habits.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

n900 has we know it now from what is being reveal, IMO=fail. When nokia could have improve on the n810, bump up specs, tweak the design a little and make sleeker, continued support, etc, instead they chickened out and give up. There are already a lot of smartphones out there, many nokia already make. So I wanted a smartphone, I would have gotten one already.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

You don't know that they've given up on the Tablet concept/platform. Even if we assume that this N900 leak is true, there are two devices coming out -- we don't know what the OTHER device will be. It could very well be the continuation of the N810 platform (we just know that it wont be called an "Internet Tablet" -- it could, instead, be called a MID, for example).

I couldn't disagree more. Nokia doesn't make a phone (smart or otherwise) that I'd want, right now ... because they all run Symbian, and I have no interest in Symbian. A maemo phone would definitely interest me.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I will finish with an ulcer force wait the N900

Thanks Nokia :D

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Intel and Nokia announce strategic relationship to shape next era of Mobile Computing innovation
June 23, 2009
http://www.nokia.com/press/press-rel...newsid=1324456

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

But no new info for the N900 :(

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I don't especially want a smartphone -- I want a modern UNIX-like system in my pocket. The best machines I've been able to find so far aren't phones, but if at some point the best one happens to be a phone, that doesn't bother me. While I'm not entirely pleased with the compromises made in the name of micropocketability (having full-sized pockets and no aversion to various holsters, pouches, etc.), it still sounds like it would adequately serve the function I'm looking at; even if I don't fall in love with the UI, the bundled apps, etc., it's standard under the hood, and I can ignore or even rip out as much as I like, and replace it with stuff I like better. None of the smartphones I could have gotten already can do that; there's really only two options that come even close.

The closest hardware would be a massively hacked iPhone or iPod Touch. However, while iPhone OS X has UNIX code, the system as-shipped is the antithesis of UNIX-like, and while it's hacked enough to be a possibility, I've seen practically no effort in the jailbreak community to build a UNIX platform on it. I don't have the time to waste doing that solo, and besides, as soon as you start trying to port standard desktop apps to it, you see WVGA >> HVGA. I've used X11 with normal apps and window managers (GNOME 1.2, fvwm1, et al.) on a full VGA screen (with a mouse, so no fat-finger woes!), and it works, barely. Thanks to a lot of work from Nokia, standard apps can be very usable on a WVGA touchscreen, even if it is a little cramped at times. But even reusing Hildon, 30% of the screen space isn't much to work with -- and the iPhone fanboys brag about that resolution next to all the QVGA phones; one more reason almost all of them couldn't work, even if their OSes weren't in the way. Oh, and performance? about the same as an N8x0; the only reason to switch would be the integrated connection.

A close second on hardware is the Neo FreeRunner, with a rather nice screen (2.8" VGA, about the same dot-pitch as the N900, although only 80% the space), and way ahead in software -- I've heard reports that slackware (armedSlack) runs on it, and Debian, Mer and a host of others are known, but while it's got that near-useless (to me) voice call capability, it doesn't even have EDGE for data, let alone HSPA ala N900. I'd end up using it like a smaller, awkwarder N800, tethered to my phone for decent data access. Performance is poor again; last year's phones use last year's processors, and while I could have gone for them last year, there's really no way I can see it as better than the N800 I did get.

The N900 should fit nicely in the role my N800s and N810 have filled: same lovely pixel-count, with improved dot-pitch, fits in the same pocket (even if it rattles a bit), runs similar software. I gain: ditching my current mobile (I can use the same data plan direct on the device), less battery waste (no bluetooth radios used), more performance (you always need that, right?), FM transceiver, and even a (probably decent, for what it is) p&s camera. Even if I don't like all the changes, it's clearly another option that is in many ways unmatched by any smartphone out there; for my use, the N810 is its only real competition, and I can't see the smaller screen being annoying enough (to me) to override all the ways it's a step up from the N810.


I think this is where a substantial minority of the complacency comes from -- people whose need is better approximated as "pocket Linux box" than "internet tablet", even though many of us would agree that the smartphone design involves bad usability compromises, it's still a world apart from any of those other smartphones, which simply can't do it. That and people who are waiting and seeing about the second (and further) device(s) -- I predict a massive resurgence of vitriol if the second device turns out to be a slick feature-phone! :D