Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Due to his enthusiasm for robotics, the irony will be great when the Nokia killbots arrive for Matthew Stephenson.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I, for one, look forward to serving our shiny, metallic overlords.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I reply to Juan, the Email Specialist @ Nokia:

Hi Juan,

Thank you for your quick reply. I'm confused on a couple of points.

My understanding, from press releases detailed by engadget, mobile crunch, boygeniusreport (I linked to the relevant posts) and others, is that the N900 is something more than a concept device, and is indeed planned for production. Information has even been released (albeit, unofficially) that it will be attached to T-Mobile for phone service with release dates beginning last month.

The wording of your email is a little concerning, not only because you use the term 'concept' in relation to the N900, but also because you say "when and if" it will be released. This makes it sound as if the N900 is not on your production list, and if it is, it won't be available for at least the next year or more.

Can you please clarify these statements? Is the N900 going to happen at all?

Thanks,

green46.

Another Email Specialist replies:

At least she confirms it's only at the concept stage. I think that indicates it's considerably more than a few months away - maybe a year or more?. Can't quite understand it though, since they're all but fire-saling the 810. Either they're unconcerned about having a viable tablet on the market, or they're uninterested about investing in tablets at all.

My question now is - did the media reports get it wrong? Or did Nokia start something they're not preprared to finish? All the rumored specs and release dates... who made those up? And why say anything if it's all total bullcrap?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I think that's actually an advantage in this case :)

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Well, considering that's coming from an actual Nokia company representative, that about makes it a solid fact that I'm not even going to consider the N900. I'm certainly not going to tell my friends and customers to wait, if they were already using their old tablets and ask my opinion. Bah. So disappointing.

If Nokia keeps disappointing, that's probably more right than you intended it to be. :)

Meanwhile,the money I HAD intended to spend on a new tablet went to a very suped up Dell Mini9 and it's been an incredibly good investment so far. I wish I could have said the same for something new and pocket sized by now (N900, Pandora, anybody?) :P

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Agreed. I have been impatiently waiting for the N900, but now I have to look elsewhere. The obvious choice is the iphone, but I canNOT deal with that onscreen keyboard.

Can anyone suggest a N900 equivalent phone that has 3G connectivity and a qwerty keyboard? One that's available now, or very soon?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Anybody living in Atlanta with a good telephoto lens, a paparazzi attitude, and some spare time for stalking the guy?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The problem with that email correspondence could be the fact that the next device isn't going to be called N900. The N900, could be a concept for the next tablet device or it might not be. Perhaps you should have referred to the next Maemo device instead, though there is no telling if this would have been any more useful.

Promising looking alternatives for the N900 with phone capabilities could be the Toshiba TG01 if you don't mind Windows Mobile, or the (hopefully) soon to be released Sony Xperia with Android OS if you prefer open source http://www.brighthand.com/default.as...gle+Android+OS

They both seem to have top of the line processing speed (1Ghz snapdragon) and screens that are as large or larger than what we've seen in the leaked info on the n900 with similar features including decent cameras, GPS, etc.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

:D C'mon guys. You are asking about rovers release date by email from Nokia. Those posts don't tell anything about announcment dates, like they shouldn't. Lets all spam Apple and ask when will iphone 4S be announced.

EDIT. Yeah toshiba looks interesting thought it haven't had that positive reviews for now. Still got huge potential. Same goes for Rachel from SE.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I'm still looking for a non-phone (or something that can have a radio ADDED to it.. not tied to it) Linux tablet (as close to debian distro as possible) that I can fit in my pocket. My N800 is absolutely PERFECT in all regards. I just want something newer with more memory and speed. Most of the people I've worked with LOVE it for its ease of coding useful applications for whatever they want to do with it. So, for us, an iPhone isn't cutting it--Android might not either. It needs to be as close to being like a desktop as possible, the way the N800/N810's were.

Aw well.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Saturday:
Wednesday:
... and of course this means he's testing two devices, only one of which is a phone...

:D

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

He's still alive because the Nokia killbots and their black-uniformed handlers are all on vacation this month...

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

... in Atlanta.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Like tissot said, you really shouldn't put too much weight on what Jessica and Juan, the allmighty e-mail specialists say. You do understand that not all Nokia employees(~130 000 people in 120 countries) know exactly what's going on at all times in the company. And even if Jessica or Juan here knew that there might be something coming, which they probably don't, they still couldn't say anything. A product "doesn't exist" if it isn't announced and all these people could possibly say is something vague like "concept", "when and if" etc.

And come on, leaked stuff and rumours on techblogs aren't really much to build on even if they sometimes prove to be true.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

One word: oops.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Given that beta 2 of the sdk was released, I would say it's a fairly safe bet that there will be a new maemo device out for all before the end of the year at worst.

I think we are all itching for a new toy to play with, and if there was a viable alternative that would keep me happy I'd buy it now (probably two) and forget the Nokia one.

But for me there just isn't anything out there that I would even consider given my requirements are a "proper" linux/unix platform, not a sand-boxed or restricted one.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Hi All,

Been many months since I trolled ITT (Ok, ok, Maemo.org. I'm a dinosaur :p).

Have not needed to come here; my N810 has been more-or-less Ok, continues to help me be productive in my job. I'm reasonably happy with it, other than the same old complaints:

* It is not a CDMA phone
* Still no decent PIM (Garnet is not)
* MicroB is still slow
* The keyboard is way too stiff

Kinda sad to hear Nokia still has not announced something to address those shortcomings without taking away any of the great Linuxy features of the N810, or the nice, big, sharp screen.

I confess, if the iPhone was available in CDMA, I would probably grit my teeth and get one. I will NEVER use the horrible, crappy, ATT GSM network. So, for now, I still wear two gadgets on my belt: the N810 and my trusty 5-days-on-a charge Samsung R500 "Alltel Hue".

Before Verison absorbed Alltel, I would routinely use the R500 as a modem via bluetooth for the NIT when not near wireless (which is most of the time). But now, it never works unless I call tech support and complain and wait while they do something mysterious that temporarily fixes the problem. So I have given up, and the NIT is more and more of a belt-brick. But I continue to wear it.

Oh well, I'll look around here and see what's new.

BTW the new look and feel of the forum is nice.

bye 4 now,

steve

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The problem is what they're saying, compounded with employees in the stores not even recognizing the product line, compounded with absolutely NOTHING of substance in any press releases. The fact remains that when all is said and done--Nokia hasn't delivered anything new in a very long time (you can't honestly claim the N810 and the N810WE to be truly new products after the N800). In technology, you sit on your arse for a couple of years, you could very well become irrelevant.

Meanwhile, Pandora's at LEAST being a lot more transparent about what they're doing. They haven't put anything out yet either--but at least it's a LOT more like the kind of thing I'd WANT.. and, more importantly, COMMUNICATING. We'll see what they're like if and when they ever get this thing out the door as well.

First you want it with a cellphone radio.. then you complain about the PARTICULAR radio they chose to put into it. You sound conflicted and confused about the nature of tying a cell phone into a device. :)

Here.. let me suggest a device WITHOUT a cell phone radio, instead with an internal USB port (or SOME kind of standardized port) where you can SEPARATELY buy the radio for the carrier of your own choice. :) Ahhh... refreshing!

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

stevecrye: I have to agree with danramos here. You, of all people, can't complain that it's not a phone since Nokia doesn't make CDMA phones, since, let's face it, CDMA is a dying North-America-only standard. Tethering your N810 to your long-lasting CDMA phone is probably the best-case scenario for you!

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

But why, Nokia, they do not tell us or they are in the development of the N900 so official?

At what stage of development?

What time of year is the expected output?

And what year?

It will not kill them, right?

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

The only Nokia store I've ever seen was in Heathrow, so I can only speak in regards to my one visit to that one shop. That said, the one employee there demonstrated an impressive wealth of knowledge in regards to the the N810, one that encompassed nearly everything printed on the little info card attached to N810's display stand.

They're retail employees. Their training is far more focused on running the register than it is on the features and top secret release details of not yet announced devices.

The low paid, hourly wage employees answering email messages aren't going to do much better. They're likely doing their best to quickly match incoming email messages with the ready-made replies they've been given. They're not privy to inside information about unannounced products.

Also remember, this is Nokia, whose customer service agents refuse to acknowledge that any Nokia device, tablet or phone, has ever been discontinued. Even if the front line folks have been given training on a new, soon to be released Maemo device, the first, middle, and last part of that training likely stressed that the new device doesn't exist until the day it suddenly does.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Last September, Ari Jaaksi told OSiMWorld - and the message was continued into the first Maemo Summit - that Maemo 5 would be released next (i.e. this) year. It would contain HSPA data, high-resolution camera and OMAP3 support.

Now, bear in mind that Nokia aren't in the software business, and it was also stressed that - at that time - they had no interest in licencing Maemo to other parties.

So, Maemo 5 is being released this year (with a clear roadmap including beta releases which has now run out). Nokia don't release OSes, they release devices running OSes. The roadmap for SDK releases has run out and the next item (IIRC) is "Maemo 5 released".

There's also been a wealth of additional information revealed about the device in commit comments, posts from Nokians such as qgil, SDK setup and the leaks.

Nokia haven't announced a device, but we should all have a damned good idea about what it's going to look like, what it's going to run and what features it's going to have. We don't know how it's going to be marketed, and when it's going to be released.

They think it will, and anyway - Maemo Devices is one Nokia department, even if they wanted to announce their device roadmap; Nokia policy says "no". Devices aren't "pre-announced" before the full public launch/announcement.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Just be patient guys. See it from the positive side: the longer we have to wait, the more time you have to save the money to buy it :-)

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Pretty much yes.

Come on guys, you're only confusing yourselves. :) Substitute Nokia with some other company and try emailing them for when new devices will be published. "Launch by responding to an email from a consumer" isn't a well known business strategy. If you ask of something that we cannot talk about, and therefore we don't say too much about, don't make too many conclusions from the replies you will get.

There is Fremantle, with certain known new features. You can probably assume that there is some reason why we're doing certain new features into the Fremantle SW.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Naw.. I disagree with that assertion. Email agents in most companies generally look up their answers in a "knowledgebase" which SHOULD contain the company line on information they give to customers with questions. Information that can't be answered usually gets escalated to a help desk or management where a more appropriately knoweldgeable person adds the answer to their "knowledgebase" or provides it to the email rep to answer.

To dismiss their answers as a lack of knowledge isn't addressing that most companies have such knowledgebases or escalations answering with what the company wants to communicate--especially if you got two different people to look at the question in the same organization. The alternative is a company without a knowledgebase with current and correct answers and off-the-cuff shrugs and unknowing reps, which conveys a sloppy organization which I might prefer not to do business with anyway, although I doubt a company like Nokia is one such organization at its size and age.

And the better chance you have to see someone else do one better, and maybe SUPPORT it better too. Such platitudes are often easily translated into fickle arguments. The tangeable evidence from Nokia and then from its competitors is not providing much to be positive about in the Nokia realm and leaves me wondering whether Nokia has a PR department. That's okay--there's an economic downturn happening now, maybe Nokia can just blame that while people snap up other devices. :p heh Seriously, for their own good--they need to start DOING things to attract customers and developers with interest in their products. I'm disappointed they went from the hype of the newly released N800's so shortly after the 770 to.. this. :rolleyes:

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

But the company line is "don't give out secret information." The yummy details on the Maemo 5 lead device and its release won't be available in that customer service knowledge base until the official announcement goes out.

If Nokia corporate policy was, "don't release secret information...unless someone asks nicely," we wouldn't be holding this exchange now. Peter, qgil, ragnar, and others would have answered every question a few hundred posts back.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

So your argument backs up the notion that the rep is correctly communicating the company line. The argument falls back to PR and executive management, who decided to keep such things as "secret." Some would argue that they've not been very successful in communicating to customers or maintaining interest in the new device in the face of increasing competition, in addition to previous terrible hardware support experiences with the other Nokia products so far. (Go ahead.. see if you can get a replacement kickstand.) :P

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

This is true -- and it happens everyday within big corporations.

I was doing the multimedia for internal training material pertaining to new products and services for the company I used to work at. Sometimes new P&S were coming down the line and even we -- who should have been educating our sales associates about such new things -- were not given access to information that would have been very useful in stores. Sometimes the first time we'd get to see a new product in order to shoot photos or video of it for the training material would be when we went into a store when the product launched and shot it in the store. No kidding.

Needless to say, the salespeople knew less than we did at this point.

On a related note, what do you think Apple sales reps told people about the iPhone if they got calls about it pre-launch. Probably that they didn't even know what it was. As a matter of fact, many of my friends who work at Apple stores denied the iPhone even days before it was announced. ;)

Tim

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

We have to understand that as part of the community very close to Maemo and also as part of being testers of Maemo and Fremantle SDK's perhaps we are the closest to the news of "N900" and Fremantle than any other group outside of Nokia itself.
In fact we may know more about it than even other division in Nokia - and of course the sales reps sitting in some outlet.

So with that in mind, lets be aware that we are ahead in release cycle of a new product and we know about the N900 even before Nokia is gearing up to let the market know about it.

So just because we know and the market doesn't know does not mean that Nokia's PR is far behind and is ineffective. Its just that we are far ahead of the PR cycle and know in some details more than what Nokia is ready to let out to the market AT THIS STAGE.

Probably by official release time Nokia PR will do what needs to be done. So blaming Nokia for not getting the news out thru Sales Rep et all is hardly justified.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

This couldn't be more true.

Tim

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I am excited about the possibility that the N900 may end with up to "5 radios": gsm/phone, wi-fi, bluetooth, fm transmitter and fm receiver ;) :D

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Fine by me. Three kids is enough.

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Probably more. It has already been announced that the phone part is going to be HSPA, but it's most likely also going to support GSM and if it does that counts as two radios. Plus the GPS receiver.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Meanwhile, we'll look elsewhere. Part of the problem with that argument is that they're supposedly courting an open-source, open development platform customer base with the NIT's. This isn't Apple iPhone, this isn't Windows Mobile and it's very much Linux. The folks who're looking for a good portable device to do development will quite happily hop onboard the most open and friendly platform. Nokia started up strong back in the 770 and N800 era but it has felt as if it's been downhill ever since. That explanation also didn't address the apparently numerous post-purchase negative experiences with hardware support that can hurt loyalty to the brand. I'm not sure that I would like to continue to experience lack of replacement parts and support with my NEXT big purchase from Nokia, for instance. This still seems like a big executive/PR blunder.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Developers will select target devices based upon a range of reasons, "open" and "friendly" competing with many others.

You're looking forward to an official press photo of the Maemo 5 lead device, as are we all. However, the lack of one doesn't mean development for the device is closed.

Nokia released the Maemo 5 pre-alpha SDK back in early December of 2008, and they provided an overview of many of the included technologies three months earlier. That's a long period of time for developers to explore the platform, experiment, and provide feedback. Compare it with three months for iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 1 to release and the Palm webOS SDK that trailed the Pre's release by a month.

Sure it's frustrating waiting for that official device announcement, but early announcements and paper launches bring their own pains.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Turns out that our brains are hardwired this way. We can't help it.

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

I knew it! I knew my unusual water thirst was related to my gadget thirst!!!! :D

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And somehow I knew that there wasn't much difference between monkey brains and most of ours. :p

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

So does this suggest it'll have a waterproof keyboard? Sonar??

Re: N900 specs revealed
 

Torpedoes!