Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

Holy pooh!

This changes everything - you can run an established Linux distro on android device and enjoy using linux software.

This is great news - why wait for Meego (yet another linux distibution)?

Andoid devices have gained the ability to run something like ubuntu and have "proper" linux in your pocket - very cool!

Big question is "How well do bluetooth keyboards/mice work in android?".

Thanks danramos - you've convinced me that my next device is proably android-based (unless Nokia+MeeGo is really special)!

I feel like this guy (spy Mark stone switched sides defend eco warriors court)
or
this guy (Jake Sculley - Avatar)

I'm going to stare vacantly at my computer screen and question my belief system.

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

You guys totally got me there, you're right that was very poor argumentation. I don't think it was very clear even to me what my point was, and so my delivery was really off.

What just gets to me is how the Atrix seems to do a lot of things that can already be done with earlier devices (such as N8, N900, tonnes of other Android devices), but the Atrix adds a dock into the equation. It tries to tie you down to accessories and all the while reversing the point of having a "all-in-one" device, to a device that needs additional parts to make it work fully. (Still waiting for comments on my take on this kind of IMO backwards philosophy, guys!)

To me this doesn't really sound like its worth the investment of money from me, nor does it qualify in my book as radically new and exciting technology, which doesn't seem to be the case for many.

You guys also had me there when comparing composite to HDMI; of course HDMI is more enjoyable and it wasn't my intention to dispute that. What I tried to point out is how viewing your mobile's apps on a computer screen can already be done with devices that came before the Atrix, and although Atrix does it a little better (and I feel we're talking cosmetics here), if my current device can already do it, I won't consider this a new innovation that could be useful to me. I'll rather wait for the next device to come along that does this without the extra accessories.

So then, with the risk of being accused of changing my argument again to better match my point, I will press the "submit reply" button! ;) I guess I just say whatever I want, and mean whatever I want by it, huh?

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

For that they would need to become as large as laptops to carry around these huge laptop batteries.

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

I don't think any modern CPU has operated at a strict one instruction per clock since the turn of the century :-)

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

With the N900 you can VNC both out and in, you can use X forwarding, and even remote desktop to Windows machines; how do the contenders compare?

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

The primary hole here is that your 3D still doesn't work because the IP core vendor (and handset vendor) aren't playing along. So while it runs, and that's cool, it does everything in software instead of using the 3D hardware.

Nothing special here, in that respect.

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

Everyone has VNC. EVERYONE. Even Symbian.

You can use the iPhone to VNC to N900 which can VNC to your desktop that VNCs itself. It's Caligula all over again.

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

Motorolas (normally) make solid phones, their build quality is very good. I wasn't saying their build quality is bad.

I'm just waiting for the Nokia N9, it will bring what it brings, its the s/w thats more important than the H/W in some cases.

Only a few more weeks to go till MWC, and we will probably find out then the specs of the N9.

I've got an android phone and a Nokia N900, I really do like the android OS, it's very nice and slick, but it's not really a power users OS, it just does not have the same apps that the N900 does, like openoffice 3, winzip, winrar, canola, debian, usb host mode, nmap, backtrack, wireshark, rdp, vnc, ssh, bittorrent and smb.

Android DOES have SOME of these but not all (before you go screaming!).

Its not ONE feature of the N900 thats makes it better - its the WHOLE package! The GPS is decent (as is Sygic), its has TV-Out, build quality is decent, its a resistive screeen, has IR, has a good quality camera, memory card slot, decent speakers, good quality screen.

Its all these things together that means anything else is just NOT up to scratch, it just doesn't provide me with the same experience.

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

Sure, it's got a good CPU, but.. much less storage space than N900 and lacks a full keyboard :/ I wouldn't get my panties wet over that.

Re: n900 looks like a toy compared to this
 

In fact, no CPU has ever done that. Only a small handful of instructions can be done in 1 clock cycle, most of them require 3 cycles, and some can require even up to 16 cycles. It really depends on the instruction in question. And this is all assuming the instruction and all the data it uses are already in L1 cache. EDIT: Thought that I should mention that RISC comes closer to executing instructions at 1 instruction per cycle than x86, but even there some exceptions do apply.

Not to mention that performance doesn't scale linearly with cores: most applications are still single-threaded and thus only run on a single core. A theoretical example would be compressing a large file with a really expensive compression method and the app doing the compressing was single-threaded: one of the cores would be at 100% workload, while the other one was simply waiting idly all the time. Thus it's simply wrong to say "it's got 2 1Ghz cores thus it's really 2Ghz!"

Even if the application was multi-threaded it still might not be able to use all the available cores to their full extent as it requires quite some expertise and knowledge from the programmer's part to know how to code everything in a way that causes no lock issues: if one thread on core #1 is waiting for some data the other thread on core #2 is still working on the #1 is still waiting idly by.