In what way is N900 a mobile computer compared to rival touch screen smartphones ?

http://tinyurl.com/y9snbmv

http://wiki.maemo.org/Easy_Debian

I suggest true rivals, like the iPhone and android phones are also mobile computers.

However compared to an n95 or E71 then you see the difference between 'smartphones' and a mobile computer.

I think apple with the iPhone launched the first mobile computer. Not the greatest phone as simply a phone but in many ways a new experience for which there was clearly a market.

Nokia's own documentation describes phones (series 40) and smart-phones (series 60) and then the n900 as a mobile computer.

So compare to series 60 offerings to see the step from smart-phone to mobile computer.

However i agree they are not really alone and in fact this segment of 'mobile computers' is the hot segment right now despite nokia not being very well represented.

I suggest true rivals, like the iPhone and android phones are also mobile computers.

However compared to an n95 or E71 then you see the difference between 'smartphones' and a mobile computer.

I think apple with the iPhone launched the first mobile computer. Not the greatest phone as simply a phone but in many ways a new experience for which there was clearly a market.

Nokia's own documentation describes phones (series 40) and smart-phones (series 60) and then the n900 as a mobile computer.

So compare to series 60 offerings to see the step from smart-phone to mobile computer.

However i agree they are not really alone and in fact this segment of 'mobile computers' is the hot segment right now despite nokia not being very well represented.

My N900 is very close to being a true mobile computer, because I can take applications written to run on a general purpose PC, and rebuild them for the N900. I've never been able to do that on a phone.

For me though, the key feature is self-hosted development. I can write apps on the N900, if I choose the right language. I would like to be able to have full support for building debian packages, autotools support, etc, on the device, out of the box. OK, it might be slow, but I've built stuff on an NSLU2 before, and if I can live with that, I could live with doing it on the N900.

Oh, and functioning USB host is a must I think, for a computer.

As far as it being a phone, i just had an interesting experience while writing this.

I needed to pay a visit to the bog, and thought i'd watch a Rocketboom podcast, so I put on my bluetooth headset so i could dump in style and initiated video playback. Things were badly stuttery and glitchy - I thought "this sucks", its not normally like this. I snapped the keyboard out and switched back to the desktop, to see a missed call notification. At no time, did the 'phone' ring, or show the phone app. I opened up the phone app, and saw my mum had called me the moment I launched the video. I started to ring her back, and then got a voicemail notification while i was calling her.

This is interesting, as it shows clearly that the device isn't designed from the ground up to be a phone. Coupling this with my frequent inability to successfully accept an incoming call, when the device is in my pocket, without rejecting it, means that even someone like me, who doesn't care about MMS, voice dialling, portrait mode, assignable ring tones, Outlook sync, finds something to moan about.

That said, whilst I missed the incoming call completely, the desktop notifications were presented showing what had happened, and the situation was handled gracefully, just not in the way you would expect a phone to handle it.

I wonder whether or not the transition to Meego, and possibly the use of ofono, will provide a more phone focussed platform that can provide better behaviour under high load, specifically in terms of audio stability and prioritisation of cellphone functions.

The iphone is a phone that wants to be smart. To be a smartphone, it has to be one right out of the box, without any hacking.

The n900 is a mobile computer that has phone capabilities, and it sits between a netbook (capabilities) and a phone (format). And that is why after a week of use, I can't even think of working without it anymore.

I think you'll find that the N95's original marketing described it as a multimedia computer. Given Symbian's heritage, having descended from one of the most iconic palmtop computer's OS, it has always been a handheld computer OS. In fact, given that it's always allowed multitasking out of the box there's a very real case to be made that Symbian's the handheld computer OS an iPhone the smatphone OS. I know of absolutely no innovation in the iPhone that makes it more computery than anything Symbian based (save, perhaps, the Ericsson R380, the very first Symbian touchscreen phone). Hell, I had eBook readers and finance applications installed on the 7650, all that and IRC on my 6600 and ran some pretty meaty spreadsheets on a my 9500. I think many people see things like the n900 as more of a computer than S60 because the form factor and interface remind them of "dumb" phones; having come from a Psion 5 background I always treated my Symbian phones as
computers; admittedly this was easier on the more Psion-esque Series 80 interface than on S60, as the move from 9500 to E90 proved, but that's another can of worms..

I also think that Symbian S60 devices are computers. In 2003 i hat my 1st s60 Phone (nokia 3650 ) and it could do multitasking, web browsing, Instant messaging, email, run emulators, Office Documents,mp3 and video...3d Games and run music composing apps like syntrax.

Only the handling was a little complicated.