I was thinking last night that screen rotation is used on Maemo because of limitations of the Hildon Desktop; not a problem if running Einstein.

So rotating the screen 90 degrees and running Einstein at full kilter on an N800 might be interesting.

It's the "full speed" part we're all waiting for.

I meant the full speed of the N800, but I never saw how slow Einstein was on the 770.

How, it's on the wrong side and it's way too small, you always end up clicking a link by mistake. I hold the tablet in my left hand and the scroll wheel should be there. Get rid of all the buttons on the left side and maybe make that whole side a touch pad with scroll and virtual buttons.

Neither did I (the 2006 World Newton Convention was too far away for me), and after some thought I'd like to backpedal on that statement: According to Paul Guyot, the biggest hurdle is not speed (which he says is merely a matter of code optimisation -- Yeah, merely!), but rather Relativity, which would allow Einstein to use the native APIs of the Linux underbelly -- read: filesystems, I/O ports, card slots, power management and whatnot. That's the really tricky bit.

In my opinion, when it's finished, Einstein should be looked upon as a Linux distribution taylored for portable tablets. The only big hurdle I can see sofar is that every Einstein user needs to have her/his own Newton ROM, from their own Newton Messagepad 2X00 (and it can apparently only be extracted from an Apple computer -- the tools for Windows don't exist). You can bet that Apple will come down on warezed ROMS like a huge weight of very hard and heavy things.

Regarding keyboards and the N800.

The "simple" thing would be to remove the stand, and develop a thumbboard, or something slightly larger, that attaches to the rightside of the N800 and plugs into the usb port. (with suitable bracing of course)

The software would need to be modified to allow portrait usage, but that is a given.

The attachment would have ports for power and headphones to one side (or both).

Conversely, consider the T-Mobile Ameo/HTC Athena, and emulate its "detachable keyboard".

Okay, I said I'd do this and I am.

But first: a disclaimer *ahem*--

The following images and remarks do not represent any product known to be designed or conceived by Nokia Inc or any affiliates. Although I have some responsibility toward the 770 and N800, I am not a Nokia designer and have not in any way been involved in original product development for either tablet, nor have I been exposed to any official images or dialogs regarding future directions of the platform.

With that out of the way, here's a very rough concept of how I think the product should look:



Front




Top




Side


Now, this was just a conceptual design and doesn't fully represent where I'm going-- yet. I wanted to get some ideas into a model that I could then contemplate. I want to apply solid ergonomics and usability concepts to this starting point... maybe even get further away from the current designs.

Note that I retreated back to the 770 a bit. I actually intend to create a hybrid of the two looks; just gotta figure out how to pull it off.

This model represents the input of many people here. Some wanted to be able to dock the tablet; I've designed it with this in mind. Look at the top view. It actually holds 2 (!!!) batteries and 2 memory cards there. The usb port is also there, intended to connect with a dock of some sort. The webcam is where it should be, and don't take this rendering as gospel-- I would intend it to rotate 180 degrees. The top looks unfinished because a cover is intended to slide over it and the LCD (but leave the webcam exposed for sentry use). The cover would also be hinged to function as a stand; I haven't designed it and may not.

Below the d-pad you see a lone round button. This is the Undo. I want it well away from other controls and on my more polished iteration may move it further still.

On each side at the bottom are the speakers, angled out for better separation and covered with a hard foam "grill".

Note the page slider on the right (with a divot for the stylus).

I have omitted power and zoom buttons.

This is a work in progress but I will probably abandon this model and start from scratch on what I do next. The design need not be conventional, symmetrical, etc. The form could better follow function; I'll let the usability dictate where I go with the next design.

Feedback welcome!

EDIT: and, yeah, I'm aware it looks too much like a toy.

Nice work Texrat. I still have my ideas out there for anyone interested in expanding the concepts base. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Ah! I must have overlooked those before-- interesting ideas!

I see I screwed up on my d-pad: it needs to be an 8-way rocker as it currently is, although shape can certainly change.

However, it occurred to me last night as I brainstormed further that I can't show any of my really novel ideas here. However, I can (and should) pass them along the proper channel...

I like the idea of having video out. Ideally, it'd be nice to have both VGA and RCA (or something that would work on TVs).

R.
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