Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

For $250 less, you can get a 15" Dell laptop with Ubuntu.
For $400-450 less, you can get a 10" Dell netbook with Ubuntu.

In both cases, it costs slightly more than that to have Windows, if that's your fetish.

While they'll have less battery life, the operative consideration with a netbook is _price_. (and, for that price difference, I can get an external battery charger that will charge both my netbook and my phone, and possibly power a cradlepoint)


At $800, this thing costs twice as much as it should. The person who compared this to "pulling a Sony" hit the nail on the head.


I'm very sure that, in netbook land, I'll be sticking with my existing Dell mini. Their price points and OS choices are exceedingly better that what we know about the Nokia offering so far. Unless the official announcement says something amazingly revealing (like there's a tablet version or a convertible tablet version, AND it comes with Ubuntu or a modified version of Maemo), I think the only mid-range device I'm still waiting to evaluate is the Apple 10" tablet.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

at $800... this won't sell. but initial price != street price. so, i dunno.
didn't i see a far more sensible price somewhere, eldarish?

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

@johnkzin:

I'm guessing you're at least a part time Mac guy. If so, Snow Leopard is out this Friday. It would be interesting if it installs well on a Dell mini. If so, with SL's Exchange support, Windows on an $800 netbook becomes more irrelevant. And if Apple actually releases a ≥ 10" tablet, it would certainly have Mac OS and not iPhone OS. But that would mean Intel and not ARM, and the rumor is that battery life has killed the project twice already. September could be a really fun month.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

While I agree with the price (if it is true) being too high for a netbook, I cant understand people who say Windows 7 on this is a EPIC fail and all such.

Quite frankly has lInux (any variant) on a netbook or notebook being an EPIC success anywhere ?

For Asus who popularised the netbook form factor with its EEEPC, they also had to fall back to Windows (after starting with Linux loaded on EEE) to gain mainstream and general user acceptance.

Lets face it Windows is the popular choice of OS. So any company that needs to do viable business has to support Windows. Its plain economics, not religion.

As for Windows 7 ...

I have always used Linux since a long time (staring with Caldera maybe) on my desktops and Laptops. But a recently bought media computer with Vista gave me a whole lot of pain and so I switched to Windows 7 (beta and then RC1). It was a refreshing change to see windows that I liked.

I have since switched out the Ubuntu install from my notebook also to Windows 7 and frankly it runs faster and cleaner. Even Ubuntu of late has collected a lot of flab and has slowed down some.

I have realised its an effective machine that I need, not a statement of freedom that I have to put on my shirt sleeves for all to see.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Nokia has the beginning advantage right now but as the iPhone has shown, a new competitor can easily catch up if the person on top stagnates (e.g. Windows Mobile).

Android I think is more crippled by carriers, since Google seems to give them more control over the ecosystem..

And true, Maemo has Debian repos. But programs have to be "Maemonized".

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

I'm sort of toying with leaving Mac OS X for Ubuntu, but I still have some Macs.
An Apple Tablet would probably make me reconsider that, or decide to retain some level of hybrid approach.

I wouldn't, though, install OS X on my dell mini, for the same reason I wouldn't install Ubuntu on a random netbook (like the Nokia). It becomes harder to support, and I don't feel like fighting those battles, these days.

Yeah, the rumor is: 6" with iPhone OS X, and 10" with Mac OS X. I definitely AM interested in the 10" with Mac OS X on it, if that becomes a reality. ESPECIALLY if it has Apple's Display port and USB port(s).

But, if the Nokia netbook is getting 12 hours battery life out of a 10" netbook ... why can't a 10" Apple Tablet do the same? One of the thoughts is that Nokia is able to do this by using the next generation of Atom ... certainly Intel is just as willing (if not more) to sell that same next generation Atom to Apple.

And, while I wouldn't install Ubuntu on the metal, I might be more than willing to buy VMWare Fusion and/or Parallels, and install Ubuntu on that. Ubuntu & Mac OS X on a 10" tablet. Great for use during my commute. With a kickstand or dock-like holder, and with my folding USB keyboard (and maybe a mouse), great for use at a meeting. Add Apple's display port, with a VGA adapter, and I can hook it up to my existing KVM switches (at work and home).

What's not to like? Sure, the virtual Ubuntu install would be slow, but I don't do a lot of intensive stuff on my dell mini, either.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Because I already own a N810 and have owned a N800 since day 1, I find them perfectly adequate for what I intended them for. At $799 I believe I would pick up one of these instead of spending approximately the same amount (who knows?) on the N900.

If this thing is built like the NIT's it will be like a brick out house. Depending an its moister resistance or ability to withstand liquid spills, its durability will get the attention of service companies who are looking for a low cost alternative to what their field technicians are using now.

Many are paying 3 times as much for antiquated WinMo devices simply because they will run their management software...

This thing just might take off. :)

And for the Linux purists, there are other ways to skin a cat btw...

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Common knowledge, yet you can't tell it from the (over)reactions. :rolleyes:

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

That might be true right now but won't be soon.

All Ovi services are being rolled into one application called Ovi Suite, which will eventually replace all of Nokia's other PC applications:

http://betalabs.nokia.com/ovisuite

Because it's written with multiplatform tools it's going to be released on both Windows and Macintosh, with a possibility of a desktop Linux version (presumably based on demand?):

6. Are you also going to release a Nokia Ovi Suite for Mac?
Yes, a version of Nokia Ovi Suite for Mac will be released at some time in the future.

7. How about Linux?
Nokia Ovi Suite has the tech enablers, but building an linux support for Ovi Suite is not in the scope currently. Naturally we are constantly following how the desktop operating system markets evolves.


The Windows-on-mini-laptops thing is depressing, but Nokia isn't alone in this. This time last year our local electronics shops all sold Linux-based laptops alongside Windows models with relatively similar prices. Now there aren't ANY Linux-based laptops in any shop near me, and most mail-order shops have stopped stocking them too. The few that do stock them charge more than the same model with Windows (how the heck is THAT possible!?).

I smell a rat over why Windows has taken over mini-laptops completely (especially the more-expensive Linux models), but whatever the reason it seems likely that it's the main thing driving Nokia to use Windows on their own mini-laptop.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

If I had to take a stab at it, based on what I've seen in corporate IT memoranda, I'd say a premium on Linux devices is due to support costs. Yes, I realize it sounds superficially stupid, but organizations run on Windows by default and adding Linux staff is seen as another expense.

Many IT departments are run as profit (not cost) centers these days. That makes a difference.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

MSRP does not equate street price; however when was the last time you saw the MSRP cut in half on day one?

Never. $799 is too much, $599 is too much.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

I'm due for a hardware refresh, and I'm trying to impose the requirement that the end result would be a hardware consolidation. Sorta like you, I'm either keeping two desktops or I'm going OS X with a GNU/Linux VM. I have a good KVM, but I wouldn't mind having a solid reason to stop using it.

Yes, I choose not to trail blaze much any more, but I have good luck if I use Nvidia and Atheros.

Maybe these new Atoms are the missing piece.

There's no doubt that a 10" tablet with a full OS has my attention, but after that I'm most interested in weight. I would be disappointed if it was more than 1.5 pounds.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Well, it apparently has a (not exactly new) Silverthorne Atom Z530. It does have a somewhat better battery life than the N2xx Atoms usually seen in the cheapo netbooks, but the 12 hours still sounds way too much unless they presume some very artificial use-case (or are for double batteries or somesuch).

As for weight, it's 2.75 pounds (1.25kg).

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Sorry, we got off-topic in this off-topic thread. I was talking about the weight of a non-existent netbook sized tablet. If it didn't have a hardware keyboard I would hope it'd be lighter than the lightest netbooks, which are about 2 lbs.

If the Z series can double battery life for similar clock speeds that would be great. Before I saw your post I was reading this:

Why-Is-Linux-Notebook-Battery-Life-Still-Poor

A tanget of the off-topic in this off-topic thread.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

I really have to agree. I have toying with the idea of getting a netbook but $799 is a little rich for my blood. That's as much as I paid for the monster of a laptop I have right now.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

When Dell came out with the Minis the Ubuntu-preloaded versions were list priced comfortably cheaper than the XP-on-extended-life-support ones, with software tech support outsourced to Canonical IIRC. Unfortunately outside their direct sales, the channel invariably only discounts the XP preloads (which could be telling in a way...).

There's much more to it than support costs though when manufacturers (or actually more like relabellers of Taiwanese ODM produce) even try and refuse to sell "their hardware" without an OS, althought that would naturally mean they wouldn't need to carry any cost for software support either.

Also based on my own admittedly limited experience as tech support, modern Linux installs tend to be "fire and forget" while the average non-pro Windows user is plagued by OS and driver reinstalls, virii and malware plus the occasional catastrophic data loss.

But back to the "Booklet 3G".

With this clean aluminum design and by jumping straight on the Microsoft Windows Seven gravy-train (although who gets the gravy is another issue) Nokia might attempt to take some thunder out of Apple's likely future inetbookish offering.

Even the battery might be Apple-style non-user-replacable one, because there's no way the thumb-thick hinge version in the PR photos will power even the lowest-power Intel CPU for 12 hours using any current mainstream battery tech, let alone standard power cells.

Apple's styling department wouldn't find that massive bezel acceptable though, for a premium-priced product.

Maybe it's a Nooklet for the crannies (as in niches) rather than one for the centre stage (aka mainstream).

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Yeah, that price point is insane. More than anything else, it intrigues me.. I wonder how Nokia plans to justify the price point. I'm very curious of how they'll be marketing this device or if there's any significantly valuable part of it that is still unannounced.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

If I can afford to license it, it can be made.

The netbook market started with cheap Celerons and Chompers. The market completely died after all the Pentiums and Turions started running around. A few thousand hardware failures later, we're back to Celerons but they're now competing with weird achitectures like ARM that will eventually give x86 the foot.
You're doing something wrong. Absolute minimal XP in MiniNT mode is 30MB with as much scrapping as possible. Inherently useless, but you get the idea. Most of my MiniNT builds run the gambit of 220MB with full application support. Mind you, this has nothing to do with the XPE system and was made entirely on my own time. Either way, I cannot continue work on an OS that I can no longer use. If you still doubt the possibilities, you should look into the linux source rebuild of Windows.

No that's not a joke. :\

Microsoft Office 07 can be trimmed to halfway between a pocket CD and a full CD capacity(~500MB). Network support, Skype, WinImage, IzArc and ArtRage would put the system drive just under 1GB usage. Not only does this make an Internet tablet a very feasible and productive school/business device with heavy uptime, it also slams EVERYTHING ever discussed at the PDC for the past 10 years or so continuing down a path that no one wants. This is where the design becomes fun:
Since the main disk should not be journaled, something like FAT can be used. Make the main disk a non-moving 2GB flash device. Then make the additional disk another flash disk or a moving 4/8/12GB disk. Anyone that accesses and transfers large documents frequently understands the reasoning behind this.

It's so incredibly easy to manufacture and use. It's easier yet to qualify the productive design and yet no one has looked into this strategy. The idea is that you want people to buy a product that users like, understand and can rely upon. When you use a bad hardware list and overprice it, you have a difficult design that does not sell. Is this hard to understand?
...Which is exactly why I have no choice but to agree with this.
80% of my returns are hardware related.
The other 20% is bad proprietary software completely demeaning to the product.
That 20% should not exist. Ever.

I can live with maemo despite all the weak hardware. It's not THAT bad. I kind of need the rediculous battery life anyhow. But here's the thing: When you reduce the energy footprint, you begin to see a tradeoff between capability and your actual productivity. If you're always waiting on weak hardware, you need to stop because it's killing you. Move on.
Look at the energy footprint on the Apple modbook and then compare it to any generation Apple notebook.

See the difference? Me neither. A good battery we have not. o_O

NOW compare it to an eee PC. Take note in device temperatures, I/O loads and other fine details. It's all the little things that matter.

I say just take the Nokia N8xx series hardware list as a base blueprint, raise the screen size(and framebuffer), and raise the CPU/GPU consumption footprint to about 1.6x that of the N810(requires new hardware). Sure I'll only see 5 hours of battery life with this new prototype but I won't be waiting the other 3 hours I would otherwise due to CPU/GPU lockups. I'm not saying put my 3.2GHz PII in it but make it feasible to use without the lockup frustration. THEN start playing with battery design. ;)

For CPUs the x86 Chomper is probably the oldest start. Win95-Longhorn4074 is good for it though. I guess this says a lot about power/design. A Pentium M is newer and eats far more energy(never thought I would say that) but I could definitely survive on it. Celerons and Turions have the speed/wattage issue that kills the purpose of the device. Sticking with ARM is definitely a step in the right direction. So keep doing this. <3

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Really I can see why many people here would complain about the Booklet. This is a place where linux heavy first adopters and tinkerers frequent. The Booklet is not really for us here, it is mainstream fare.

I had a 770, I still use my N810 almost daily, but I am not a linux guy by any means. I am just a power user who tinkers a little. (I was the guy who first made the ATHF startup screens) I would never look at this Booklet to replace my N810.

However I have been in the market for a netbook or laptop as a secondary more portable PC for home...specifically for the wife and kid to use so I can actually get on my home PC. The Booklet fits the bill perfectly, a netbook with extras and Windows 7...with Nokia E series design and build quality. I have been waiting for a compelling netbook to come out and am pleasently surprised it came from Nokia.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Does this mean we will be seeing hot-swapable SIM cards in our phones soon too? I am walking along with my N900 in my pocket ready to receive calls, get where I am going and swap the SIM card to the Booklet to logon to email and then move it back again?

Could the 12 hour battery life mean Intel's Pine View Atom chips?

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Just to return to this for a moment. I knew I wasn't hallucinating, ran across this when searching for some specs:


I understand 'new class' might mean something different, but that's the price of vague statements - people can and will misinterpret them.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

I really don't see the point of putting a 3G chip in a netbook; isn't tethering a reasonable way to get mobile data to the netbook? And it isn't like people are going to use the netbooks like phones; if they did, we'd see everyone using VoIP apps from their laptops in the cafe. But they don't, they use their phone to talk.

I'm dreaming into the distant future, of course, but it seems to me the best solution for form factor issues is to have a "netbook" that is just a docking station for your handheld device. It has a big screen, a big keyboard, some extra expansion ports and a big battery, but that's about it. You have to snap in your handheld to actually use it. Your handheld is the "brains" of the netbook.

You would need a headset for this, because if you get a call while your handheld is docked, it will be awkward to yank it out and hold it to your ear.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

@qole: Around here in the emerging markets, rarely you get a phone with an unlimited data plan. You have to add the unlimited at a hefty cost. However, you can buy a separate SIM with unlimited data, which comes in a generic 3G module which is connected to the PC through USB and used as a modem.

So this way you could skip the USB module and just insert the SIM in the netbook.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Preach it brother! ;)

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

So it is cheaper to have two SIMs than to have one?! :confused:

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Pretty much. Just so you see how effed up carriers can be in the good ol' developing world.

Edit: When I got my E71 (more than 6 months ago) I researched the prices, they may have changed by now, but then they were:

$30 for a paid voice plan, which includes 50 SMS, 100 minutes of free calls. Above that, you get charged. (this is my current plan).
$45 to add unlimited data to my plan (unlimited, of course, is actually limited to 1Gb).
$29 for the USB 3G module with SIM with the unlimited data plan (1Gb applies too). Voice calls can't be made through the SIM (I tried!)

3G speeds are around 100-200 Kb/s, sometimes and very rarely, 400 Kb/s, with constant and full coverage in the main cities and outskirts. If there is something people don't complain about here, is the quality and extension of the cell network coverage.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

If there's a 'thanks' button, i'd be worshipping you :D

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

mrojas: That's totally crazy. I can't see that pricing structure remaining that way for much longer, as new and powerful devices with voice and data capabilities come out.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

The 5800 Xpress Music (that arrived here last month) came with a $60 voice and unlimited data plan. I think the unlimited came thanks to some influence from Nokia: we got bombarded with ads (similar to what happened with the N95) showing the good graces of the 5800, 3G and "Internet everywhere". Regular TV, radio, and billboard Nokia ads are not rare at all, with Nokia even organizing concerts, parties, etc Nokia is seen here as the herald of progress and new technologies: the iPhone arrived very late, after lots of power users had the N95 already, and got nicknamed as the "phone for fags", "real men use Nokia", etc

I didn't grab the 5800 because the carrier wouldn't allow me to transfer my number to the new chip (...), but a friend did. It came with the first firmware, and carrier locked on top of that. Obviously, I hacked it and upgraded it.

Before the 5800, unlimited data plans were available only to Blackberries, and only if you were buying them throuch a corporate contract (a regular guy couldn't buy them).

The competing carrier also announced last month the iPhone and E71, to go alongside the Blackberrries in the corporate portfolio, and available too to regular users. My corporation let people chose between those, and most guys in Engineering went with the E71 and most sales guys with the iPhone (the iPhone being twice the price of the E71). Off course, eventually I had to hack/unlock the E71's and jailbreak the iPhones...

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Well I'd still rather have a standalone lightweight netbook, with nice sized screen and keyboard, but with ARM-like power-sipping brains and just enough SSD for storage.

However it'd be nice if I could "tether" my handheld (phone or other devices) easily and automagically to share its cycles (and storage of course) with the active device. And vice versa. Obviously smaller devices would gain bigger benefits from such instant Beowulf clustering!

Who's gonna patent that? Here would be something for the OSS gurus to figure out, using e.g. UWB and some D-BUS, Avahi etc. smarts. :cool:

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Maybe install Beowulf clustering software on both devices?

...Could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of those?

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

No, I cannot. Rather have something with some power in a cluster.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

... :-|

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

My new favorite word.

Awesome.

:)

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Like all tools one should know how to use them.:D

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

And the first rule of tool use is: always pick the right tool for the task.

I'll let you know if I ever find a task for which the right tool was Windows.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

Rather than clustering, I'd rather see something more like VMWare ESX's migration of guest host/OS images among devices (v-motion). Run my common tasks in a guest host VM that is light weight, but does the general user stuff (web, email, IM, notes, etc.).

When I'm at my desktop at home, and I need to hit the road, I v-motion that guest over to my phone. If I need to check something while mobile, can do the basics on my phone. If I get to a coffee shop (or a meeting, or a library, etc.), I take out my netbook, and v-motion the guest over to the netbook. When I'm ready to get on the road again, v-motion it back to my phone. When I get to the office, I v-motion it from my phone over to my workstation.

And if the "VMware Player" type infrastructure that makes this possible decouples the display from the compute engine, then maybe you could also (while sitting at your workstation) fire up a heavier weight task, and it would immediately v-motion the CPU/RAM/etc. over to a big compute farm, transparently hiding that from you (ie. you keep using your workstation's display/keyboard/mouse without any changes, except maybe a slight flicker when the v-motion happens).

Of course, that requires a UI that will scale from the phone up to the workstation. Or a UI infrastructure that can instantly morph from a phone sized UI to a workstation sized UI (imagine for a second, ignoring the CPU architecture, the same application -- not two separate copies, but the _same_ application, running on both an iPhone and a Mac, but having an iPhone UI on the iPhone, and a Mac UI on the Mac -- you can actually almost do that with Cocoa, but I don't know that anyone has really pushed that possibility very far), so that your applications don't miss a beat when you v-motion from desktop to phone, but they do instantly take on the UI of the new environment.

But, without that, you'd either have to get used to a tiny desktop on your phone, or a giant palmtop on your desk. Or something in between (that wont be very good in either environment). Though, the new Sharp device being talked about over in the Competitors forum has what looks like a mostly typical Ubuntu environment (with one of the NBR launchers) running on a 5" screen. If they fix the bug about easily moving back and forth from conventional Ubuntu to NBR ... then maybe that would be the type of glue it would take.

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

At a guess : you don't make a living in the anti-malware software industry, do you ? :-)

Re: Nokia Booklet 3G
 

No problem.

Want some suggestions? :D