johnkzin | # 731 | 2008-06-30, 13:41 | Report

(assuming you were replying to me)

Those are important thoughts, but if you look at the E90, you'll see that it has both an internal and an external screen. So, you could use it without opening it. You only need to open it if you want to use the larger screen OR the qwerty keyboard. If it had T9, you could even enter text on the external keypad.

So, for quick and dirty work, you could use the external screen, dpad, and phone keypad ... and only need to use the bigger screen and qwerty keyboard for more extensive work.

Capt'n Corrupt | # 732 | 2008-06-30, 14:53 | Report

I appreciate your vision!

I'm pretty open minded and willing to try anything once. Sadly, I own neither a N8x0, and N900 :P, or an E90, so I'm trying to visualize using all of these units without the benefit of even having touched one! Thankfully, a heartless internet full of pictures and a lovable community full of verve make it a far easier endeavour.

Your description of the outer screen *does* make me consider my original position from an alternate perspective. Certainly, for many things (including widgets) this would be tremendously useful. Check the time, read an IM, etc, all from the smaller front window, without worrying about opening the device.

But besides protecting the larger inner screen, what do you think the major benefits to this design are?


}:^)~
YARR!

Capt'n

Capt'n Corrupt | # 733 | 2008-06-30, 15:20 | Report

Another wish: A reasonable quality camera sensor on the BACK of the device.

It's not that I want the IT to replace a high quality camera. I don't. However having a wirelessly connected (wimax, wifi) device that can take pictures is a more useful feature than initially meets the eye. Also, camera sensors are CHEAP.

1) You can shoot quick pictures to share with people during an IM session.
2) You can shoot quick pictures to share with people in an email. Because you don't have to be 'online' to do this, this could be anywhere, right before you skydive, at the edge of a great waterfall, or on a beautiful beach.
3) You can switch between the front and rear cameras, to share your *perspective* with someone during video chat. The N800 was capable of this with a simple rotation, though I think personally I prefer something more built in (it's also seems more intuitive for the casual user).
4) You can use it in conjunction with GPS with services like Google Panoramio, or other.
5) You can quickly capture video of an event using this, without much trouble.
6) You can quickly capture a photo of an event, without much trouble.
7) Using the processing power of the N900, the soft-cam could be surprisingly full featured, with a simple to user interface, that could easily rival the features of far more expensive cameras. Hell it could even offer direct touch-ups, using the stylus, or a simple interface after the picture was taken.
8) etc

}:^)~
YARR!

Corrupt

Bundyo | # 734 | 2008-06-30, 17:08 | Report

You can also shoot barcodes with better quality...

Capt'n Corrupt | # 735 | 2008-06-30, 17:45 | Report

@Bundyo

That is such a FABULOUS idea! I was thinking of the new wave of algorithms that can recognize faces and even geographical locations, but didn't mention it because I didn't see a useful purpose on the tablet (limited CPU and mem). Recognizing barcodes *is* tremendously useful, though. In fact recognition in general opens some pretty cool doors, a lot of it the N900 should be well capable of.

For one, warehouse workers would probably get a kick out of a bar-code reading system, but it would also be INCREDIBLY useful for the casual user. Imagine pointing it the barcode of an item in a shop and getting all sorts of info on that item?

Take it a step further, install an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the tablet, and point the device at a storefront, a label, a menu, or a passage in a book, and have the tablet do an internet search on that very topic!

Not only is the device now 'location aware' but it is visually so as well.

I'm all for a camera on the back. With phones, it's a novelty, with the open general-purpose capabilities of the tablet, it's a revolution.


}:^)~
YARR!

Cappy C

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Last edited by Capt'n Corrupt; 2008-06-30 at 17:49.

lardman | # 736 | 2008-06-30, 18:47 | Report

The problem at the moment is that I don't tend to see any magazines, etc., which have these 2D barcodes on them. It would be cool, but only once the barcodes are being used.

Not so sure about the 1D barcodes on items in shops, is there a large database in the sky listing what is what?

For books it would work well as it encodes the ISBN (I wrote some MATLAB code to scan in 1D barcodes and was going to port it to Python so I could take my Nxxx out with me and know whether I already had a given book, but the N810 only has the one camera, facing the wrong way, so I've lost interest for the time being).

Benson | # 737 | 2008-06-30, 19:20 | Report

Indeed; I have those MATLAB codes about somewhere, and meant to work at them. Thanks all, for reminding me of that little project. And yes, it (along with everything else) makes the fixed N810 cam look like a really bad idea; I'm more a rotate fan than two-camera, but either one is way better.

Capt'n Corrupt | # 738 | 2008-06-30, 19:33 | Report

@Benson
I'd just like to thank you for that little intro you gave me to electrical engineering back in the 'sound fidelity' thread. I got an intro to electronics book a few days ago. I just learned about p-type semiconductors and they blew my mind.

@Lardman
I'm guessing that 1D codes are the kind you find on beans (a bunch of vertical stripes read with a thin line) and a 2D code is some sort of monochrome pattern spread over a quad. Is this correct?

If it is, I've seen some 2D codes on various blogs of late, but never on packaging. Perhaps I don't shop enough.


}:^)~
YARR!

Sappy Cappy

Bundyo | # 739 | 2008-06-30, 20:29 | Report

I've seen them on packaging, mainly on technology stuff, also on PCBs.

johnkzin | # 740 | 2008-06-30, 20:56 | Report

Off the top of my head:

1. The E90 has a 6 row keyboard, so the key layout is almost identical to a real keyboard (almost no need for a symbol/function key). The 6th row, at the top, is a row of application specific keys (ie. the "email" key, the "calendar" key), instead of F1-F13 that you get on real keyboards, but otherwise, it's pretty much the same. So, you don't have to deal with the compromises and annoyances that go into a compressed key arrangement, like on the N810. ((Edit: see below))
2. The hinges on the E90 look like they can bend all the way around, so it should also be able to function as a tablet, and not just as a micro-laptop. So, with the right button layout on each side of the screen, you kind of have an opportunity to get the best of both the N800 and N810 experiences.
3. the outer screen is useful for quick and convenient access (like you said), but it is ALSO useful as a real phone keypad, in that you don't have to dial with a virtual keypad (like with skype on the N800), nor dial using a linear number pad (like on the N810). You can hold it to your face for regular phone talking without your cheek pushing on a touch screen (without the need for special sensors, like the iPhone uses), etc. That's useful whether you're talking about a GSM phone, or just a skype and SIP phone.

EDIT: Here's the E90, so you can see how the hinges look/work, and see the keypad layout. You'll notice that there's only a few function buttons, MOSTLY related to the phone functions themselves (it looks like brightness, volume, etc. ... and then the currency symbols and curly braces). Going with what I said about the control keys in my first post about this, if you were to change the "Chr" buttons to "Ctrl" and visa versa, then that'd be the only keyboard change I think I'd need.

E90 pictures

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Last edited by johnkzin; 2008-06-30 at 21:07.