Digicube XP phone
 

Yet another XP based phone (also via Pocketables)

5" screen, so even bigger than the XPPhone ... it's a tilt screen

5 row keyboard

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

and from jkkmobile:

http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2009/0...dphone-50.html

with video: http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2009/0...dphone-50.html

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

Gotta say, hard for me to think of this as a "phone" when it's 15 ounces, 7 inches long and an inch thick. If you have cellular built into your car, is your car a phone, too?

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/...0Eric%20GI.jpg

Yes, for a phone you wouldn't want to have this. Even though it might make a good ebook reader.

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

I don't think there's any question about whether or not it's a phone. Those big wooden and metal boxes on the walls in 1920's and 1930's movies were phones ... and they were much bigger than these devices. Even the wired home phones of the 1980's and 1990's were bigger than this.

You can shift the question to whether or not it's a mobile phone ... and again there have been bigger mobile phones in the last few decades (especially in the late 1980's and early 1990's). The question is whether or not it's a pocketable phone, and whether or not it's too big for the modern mobile market.

I'd certainly give you that it's at the upper end of those ranges. I doubt you'd see many/any people holding this thing up to their face ... but, then, who really does that anymore anyway? And with all of the people running skype on their PC's, making their PC into a phone, the idea that a phone has to be palm sized is kind of ... questionable/quaint/archaic. We can all have handsets/headsets that are whatever convenient size we want, whether it's the phone transceiver unit itself, or an attachment (wired or wireless) to that phone transceiver (which might be a handheld, a MID, a netbook, a tablet, a laptop, or a PC).

I think the name of the device spells it out quite clearly. It's a MID that has phone functionality ... not necessarily a device that you'd hold up to your head, but a device that can act as your phone transceiver ... and which you'd be best using as a speaker phone, or as an attachment point for a wired or bluetooth headset.

That's still a phone ... it's just not a handset phone.

It's definitely pushing the envelope on pocketable though... cargo-pants pocketable. Trenchcoat pocketable. Not jeans pocketable.

My point, though, was that phones don't have to be smaller than a NIT. A Maemo phone could be the same size as a NIT ... perhaps even still a _little_ bit bigger* ... and still be marketable as a phone.

(* where "little bit bigger" is still smaller than the device in this article ;-) )

There was also a lesser point that phones are starting to get desktop OSes ... so Nokia is about to start losing ground not only on the fact the NIT is no longer the only MID on the market with a desktop OS ... other MIDs, with desktop OSes, are starting to fully integrate phone functionality. Nokia needs to be moving more quickly if they don't want to give up their edge/lead in this arena.

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

Even at that size, I bet you'd still get complaints. :-)

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

Data-only MID's are one thing, but phones are of course problematic because almost everyone has only one account / SIM card for their phone. I wouldn't assume anyone with a 7" mid to use it as their primary phone because you want to carry your phone around you at all times, and that's simply too large to be pocketable.

So a 7" MID phone needs to have a separate SIM/account. And people are not happy with having to pay for two contracts, nor to have two separate phone numbers. A part of phone-ness is the fact that people call you, i.e. know your number and use that to call you. :)

Then again, some cellular service providers are starting to provide dual SIM solutions: two SIM's with the same phone number and the same account. I have a dual SIM for testing iPhones and competitor devices with my own phone number. But it's quite funny: my E71 and the iPhone rings at the same time. So that's also not a perfect solution; it also costs a fair amount, at least here in Finland.

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

I don't agree that 7" long definitely too large (nor would I call that a '7 inch MID', as most scalar measures of these devices are based on the screen diagonal, not the device length; this is a 5" MID). It's pushing the limit, and length isn't the most important factor there ... width and thickness are. It's only 1cm wider and 1cm thicker than the N810. I could easily put this in my jacket breast pocket, for example. And as long as its the ONLY thing in my pants front pocket, it would pretty much fit (depending on which pants I'm wearing, it might make sitting down quire a little more care, though - that would be the only effect of the length of the device on its pocketability). It only really eliminates my pants back pockets ... which I don't use for carrying gadgets (nor anything else, really).

That conclusion depends upon the "pocketable" question, so no, it doesn't "need to have a separate" account, as a blanket statement.

Personally, I doubt I'd want to carry a this exact device. Scale it down to a 4" screen, though, thin it out because the OMAP platform is better suited to it than the Atom platform, and then put Maemo on it. Yes, that phone I'd want to carry. And so would more of your Maemo customers, who want a 4" device over a smaller one.

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

For what customers want in regards to size, it's a question that can be actually answered. It's not so much a matter of opinion, but a series of opinions. :)

Nokia of course has vast legacy knowledge of what size of pocketable and hold-on-your-one-hand-while-talking phone device consumers want, because of all the S30/S40/Symbian devices. It can be empirically studied, with prototypes of various sizes (weight, width, height, thickness, screen size etc.), and it has been, almost to death. And Nokia isn't alone there, I guess virtually any manufacturer have done those studies.

In the same norm it is equally possible to study preferred sizes of devices where talking to it while holding with one hand isn't a critical element but "maximum-pocketability" still is, and then to study mobile devices that are "easy to carry", i.e. not in your pockets anymore but in backpacks and purses and places like that.

I.e. this tries to be a friendly way of saying that we do know what size devices consumers want. :) Naturally the numbers are more like Bell curves than absolute ridges. Most people can't tell the difference within a certain size variation.

In general, the meaningful size for most consumers is the size of the device, not of the display. Then the display tries to be as large as possible, given the constraints of a particular device.

I'm personally somewhat amused by all the speculation here about 4.1" and 3.5" screens. It's all very doom and gloom whereas imho it doesn't make much difference one way or the other. I use N810:s and iPhones interchangeably, and I don't really care. Because I know, I do observe the N810 screen to be slightly larger, but the knowledge of this doesn't really comfort me one way or the other.

I hope that the next Nokia Maemo device comes out with a 3.8" screen: that way on paper nobody will be happy. ;)

Re: Digicube XP phone
 

This one may be a bit big, but it is definitely "pursable" for the women in the audience.

In regards to size though, all the studies aside, I remember not too many years ago, when manufacturers were racing to get the smallest phone possible. Now, that phones are more capable, the size is going the other direction. Just because one or several models sell well doesn't mean we have a consensus on size. People are willing to accept larger phones now because they do more. In the future, as phones tend more towards mini-computers, the acceptable size will increase as capability increases. I bet that in a couple of years we'll look at a 3.5" screen as minimal, just as now a 2.5" screen is small, when a couple of years ago it was huge.