Touch screen is OK as long as you're not moving, but hardware buttons really help when walking or using the device on a bumpy vehicle etc. It would be great if programs could use them for the most common tasks - switching tracks & volume in media player, switching views in calendar, panning the page in browser etc. It would make the walkaround web a lot easier to use. They're also faster to use because you get direct physical feedback in situations like clicking 7 days ahead in calendar. Hardware buttons sure have their place if the software takes advantage of them.

I would dig a folding touchscreen design similar to this.

Beside the advantage of having a device that can stay pocketable like the current device; there is that ability to pull a DS-like two screen effort.

Given the announcement of the Hapitkos technology from Nokia and the placement of the tablets as N-series devices, I would see something like this added to that two screen concept in order to really push that idea of interacting (over simply inputting).

Addition: I would have only a few main buttons: power, and zoom +/-. These buttons would be universal in function and that's it. There would be two additional buttons, but aided by the tech, they would shift their mode according to context (similar to Moto ROKR E8).

I would also hope for the E-series engineers to get in there and fine tune the mess out of that hardware (man that E71 is a heck of a kit).

Finally, OLED for both screens to increase the ability for the device to chew less power and give a better screen.

Come to think of it, this can be done now...

No Physical Qwerty Keyboard == No buy-in from me.

I like the dual-touch-screen idea, as an idea. But I have yet to use a virtual keyboard that I really liked. Some are better than others (the N800's is better than the iPhone's, IMO), but they're still dramatically inferior to having physical keys.

Now, if the second screen did something really innovative, like a way to use keys with little oled displays on them (like that one desktop keyboard whose name escapes me), but in a way where the displays went all the way to the edges of the keys, so that you could visually make the keys blend together when you want them to act like a display ... then have them look like a keyboard when you need a keyboard ... that might have potential.

Or, those designs that allow a display to slightly morph in physical shape so that keys sort of "rise up" out of the display surface (so you have physical sensation of the key pressing, and a sense of the key centers and/or edges), then that'd be good too.

But without one of those two things, no f'n way.


Though, one way to have that twin display idea, with a physical keyboard, is to mate the E90 with a twist/convertable idea. Only instead of the display rotating to face in/out, have the keyboard half rotate.

• if the device is open, and the keyboard is facing "out", then disable the keyboard and enable both touch screens (full/double/large tablet mode).
• if the device is open, and the keyboard is facing "in", then disable that half's touch screen and enable the keyboard (micro-laptop mode).
• if the device is closed, and in that configuration, enable that half's touch screen, and disable the keyboard and the other touch screen (half/large tablet mode).

There are also gesture-sensors coming that allow ways to interact with a device by gesturing, so without touching the device. In think I have read about patents by Nokia for this.

Cool (not that there's anything wrong with them mind you). Are you allowed to comment on whether there is a final design and/or we can still expect a d-pad and QWERTY?

Well, I would argue that the d-pad is useful for a lot more than just scrolling and selecting items. I spend a lot of time in osso-xterm for example, and find it much more convenient for browsing images, PDF pages etc than touching the screen (hey, I can do it with one hand!) so I'd be somewhat disappointed if it went away. I think some of the more game-oriented users wouldn't be too happy either.

I'm personally not a big fan of finger oriented UIs in general (whether on maemo, openmoko, iphone, whatever), preferring to use the stylus and keep the screen clean. However the addition of the physical keyboard sort of forces you to touch the screen occasionally anyway so I can live with it. There are very real limitations though - for example selecting text with your index finger is pretty much a lost cause, you have to use the stylus and/or shift + d-pad.

No physical keyboard would be very sad indeed. If anything, I'd like to see an improvement on the current one, along the lines of the E90 keyboard (separate numeric row, TAB key, bumps on the "home" keys, much better tactile feedback) and fixes for the software-side issues (<cough>3407</cough>). But who am I kidding, I'll probably order it the day it goes on sale (same as the other three) anyway ;-)

"what would the iPhone do with a d-pad? "

I hope that's not an indicator of Nokia's thinking on this. The NIT isn't an iphone, surely that's the point?

the idea of a desktop-model should surely be based on the idea that a pc is uniquely configurable by its owner - or else everyone would have macs

if the d-pad were moved back to the front face, the keyboard could be slightly bigger keys, and I do think that a "double d pad" would open the device to a whole market of potential gamers, as well as having so many other potential apps. I agree that it makes single-handed usage eaier in some circumstances.

the improved touchscreen/finger friendly way is of course the way forward and will be welcomed greatly but me, but it would be sad to be at the expense of another aspect of the device that I find useful.

Agreed. It's way too limiting to think of just simple scrolling, as in moving the page around with a finger. The D-pad can do much more than that.

Take just a simple thing as paging down page-by-page with a D-pad: say you want to go _exactly_ two pages back: Press 'up' on the pad twice, and you're there. You don't even have to watch the display. Can't do that with finger scrolling.

You can do the same thing with on-screen buttons, even more so with haptic feedback, so that you feel the keypresses. Maybe make them semi-transparent so they can overlap with a document and don't waste screen estate. The only use of physically feeling the edges of buttons is when you're using the device in such a way that you can't or dont want to look at it, like play/forward/stop buttons on an mp3 player.

You can, but to me that's a poor substitute for a real button, and it needs software support. Besides, that was just one example. What I'm trying to say is that it's not a good idea by the designers to think that they know the use cases.

So it would be a better idea for the designers to think that they do _not_ know the use cases?

Attempting to create a device that tries to please every use case known now and later will really please nobody. "Oh put a d-pad there... No, put two d-pads there! Put 5 keys on the top! Just in case... Somebody might come up with some use for them."

I'd also say that real buttons are a poor substitute for the future technologies (not yet available) with proper haptics and visuals.