Hey, you guys? I was thinking. Do we really want the next flagship Maemo device to have a capacitive touchscreen? After playing with the N900 for a few days now, I'm thinking not - this screen is super-responsive, so precise (once I found the calibration utility) and now it's possible to implement multi-touch on a resistive screen, I'm hard-pressed to think of an advantage to a capacitive screen I actually care about.

Of course, capacitive touchscreens are generally harder-wearing and responsive to a much lighter touch - but those advantages surely suit a different market sector? (I think the X6 is a perfect example)

I've just been thinking, and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that a capacitive screen would be a downgrade on this phone. Thoughts?

only if it's going to be Keyboardless i guess? no?

Wouldn't that be a downgrade too?

capacitive>resistive

why can't you have both? lol resistive isn't as responsive as capacitive

Dunno about want, but I think it will be capacitive.

Meamo 6 (the step 5 of 5, first consumer smartphone with Maemo) was announced to have capacitive screens - whether this covers all potential models who knows, but expect capacitive majority anyway.

I think that will be a sort of downgrade, the stylus is great for browsing, just wonderful.

Capacitive + Keyboard = Sex

all I can say is this resistive screen is highly responsive. My only comparisons for this is the G1, perhaps the Iphone(blah) but I've had and own a G1. Typing with the on screen keyboard on the N900 is just natural and I rarely make any mistakes. Granted the first thing I did was calibrate the touch screen with two hands and I feel this has helped with typing. Anyway, it(n900) just responds to all my touches with no problem. One of my biggest gripes with a capacitive screen (again basing this off the G1) was that I had to hold it a certain way or rather touch it a certain way to have touches register. And if i used anything other than my bare skin then that was a chore. This resistive screen and whatever tweaking they did is excellent in my opinion and i dont feel they should change it.
throughout reading these debates about capacitive vs. resistive, the most beneficial points of resistive is the ability to use any object to register a touch not just a finger tip. (Women with long nails are thankful for that , people who have to use there phone in colder weather can where gloves, people who do not want to dirty up the screen 'cause their fingers are dirty can use another object). The other is that, resistive is more precise for things like handwriting recognition(still waiting for an app that will take handwritten text/cursive and reformat it to the typed font that is selected, I'm looking at you Xournal - anidel).

Again, this is just my opinion why they should just stay with resistive.

With a resistive screen, you can't use hi-contrast OLED displays for the sake of daytime readability but you can use any object. With a capacitive screen, power saving OLED display would be matched with power hungry and very finger sensitive screen.

No exact winners here, so need to feel the device first.

unless i can find an ionising nail polish, capacitive is a no-go - and the fact i beleive capacitive is less accurate (whats bigger, your fingertip or the tip of your nail) - and that i think capacitive is more clumsey and 'round-about'.

resistive for me plz!