Some hands on time with Nokia's Maemo 5 Development Device

[Johnx]

I'm here in Copenhagen, DK at the the Maemo/Mozilla Danish weekend ( http://wiki.maemo.org/Mozilla_Maemo_Danish_Weekend ). It's been great to get together with some of the other Maemo/Mer people and talk face to face, but that's a story for another post.

Yesterday, Nokia actually brought out ten of the devices that the Nokia developers are using to test Maemo 5 on. They were in big black plastic cases and obviously weren't production hardware, so don't get all excited about what this means in terms of the RX-51 or even the RX-71. What I was told is that the machine was designed to have all of the features that might possibly be on any future Maemo device. It was a rather hectic weekend and I only got to play with the device briefly, so, keep that in mind as I'm describing this thing.

The basic form factor is a touchscreen device with a sliding keyboard. The main features worth talking about:

-a very accurate touchscreen. It seems to be much more sensitive than the N800/N810 and it is resistive. There was a stylus/stylus slot in the side of the device. I got to see someone demo a drawing app, and the line tracking the cursor was totally smooth and instantaneous.

-The keys on the keyboard were a little smaller than the N810 but were easier to type on. Somehow they seemed a little bit easier to push, but at the same time more "clicky."

-The LCD was very bright and clear, and I had no problem reading on it. I was later told that the screen is 3.5" but I wouldn't have guessed without someone telling me.

-I believe it had a 500MHz ARMv7 CPU and 256MB of RAM

-In terms of software they were running the code from the Beta SDK. The new X terminal can switch modes between hilighting text and kinetic scrolling. It was very nice to use.

-I got a chance to play with fennec on the device a little bit: Even when loading heavy sites it was responsive and fast. It loads engadget.com many times faster than fennec on the N810 I had sitting next to it on the same WiFi network.

They wouldn't let anyone take a photo of it (ha! imagine that) so you'll just have to trust me. Also, keep in mind, this is a device used for testing development builds of Maemo 5. It is not now or ever will be a shipping device, however the features of this device do obviously represent technologies that Nokia is interested in.

I am willing to answer a couple more questions as long as people keep their heads about them and don't overreact. If this thread gets out of hand with flames or usless comments I don't think there will be any more info forthcoming about the device.

-John

Updates: I thought I would repost my answers from later in the thread in this first post to make it easy for people finding this later.

(People were asking about whether there were any new features that I saw on the development device.)

"The software running on it was basically a slightly newer version of the beta SDK. So there's nothing new compared to what you can already play with."

[jeremiah]

Thanks for this post John. This is pretty much what I would have written. :-)

[mullf]

Originally Posted by Johnx

I was later told that the screen is 3.5" but I wouldn't have guessed without someone telling me.

So if someone would have asked you about the screen size before you were told it was 3.5", what would you have said? That it was the same as the previous tablets? That you noticed it wasn't quite the same but didn't realize it was that small? That you were so enthralled with playing with the device that you weren't really paying attention to screen size?

[Johnx]

Originally Posted by mullf

So if someone would have asked you about the screen size before you were told it was 3.5", what would you have said? That it was the same as the previous tablets? That you noticed it wasn't quite the same but didn't realize it was that small? That you were so enthralled with playing with the device that you weren't really paying attention to screen size?

If I'd had to guess before someone told me I probably would have said it felt like 4" or so. If someone told me that it was actually the same size I probably would have believed them.

[qole]

Heh. 654 posts about how a 3.5" screen would be "too small" and a "dealbreaker", and in use, you didn't notice it was smaller.

Thanks for the wonderful report, Johnx.

(Is nobody going to ask about the d-pad? )

[Justjoe]

Thanks, Johnx.

Do you know if the leaked device that we saw and discussed in the "N900 specs revealed" thread is, in fact, called the N900 or is there another device slated for that name/ product line, (meaning tablet form)? I realize you may have no way of knowing since you were handling an experimental (or at least non-production) model, but we don't know a thing about that leaked device vis. the tablet line.

And, since qole mentioned the d-pad, and given that,

What I was told is that the machine was designed to have all of the features that might possibly be on any future Maemo device.

how was the d-pad (or lack thereof) handled?

Thanks,

Joe.

[Lord Raiden]

JustJoe: So far, the device that was revealed is going to be the n900, but it's a phone, not a tablet.

To the OP: Thanks for the link, but I want to see the actual development device! :P

[EIPI]

John, thanks for the report! Also, many thanks for the posting guidelines, hopefully they are effective! Did you see anything related to the phone/dialing features, for instance a soft-dialpad? Anything related to the innovative task switcher supposedly on Maemo 5?

[fpp]

Originally Posted by Johnx

-The keys on the keyboard were a little smaller than the N810 but were easier to type on. Somehow they seemed a little bit easier to push, but at the same time more "clicky."

Sort like on the E71 ? How many rows of keys ? Was there a TAB key ?...:-)

[Un27Pee]

quote JOHNX -I believe it had a 500MHz ARMv7 CPU and 256MB of RAM

what processor is this compared to the N810? and the ram size is it the same size with the current?
is there a time frame for the release of the first devices?