Now on to the Nokia event:
I am still watching the live webcast of the Nokia event. They've announced the N97 mobile computer (which is also a phone.) The feature set is far and away beyond anything on any current phones:
- Large 16:9 tactile response touchscreen
- QWERTY keyboard
- 32GB on board plus up to 16GB microSDHC
- 5 megapixel high def camera
- Widget home screen
- GPS, GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth, HSPA
- Symbian OS
With this out - the Internet Tablet line will need to come in at a very low price point to give users a reason to buy them instead of buying a maemo tablet. If Symbian was still closed-source, the maemo architecture would make the tablet line a stand-out product. When produced next to this monster of a phone, what is the future of the N8xx line?
I am sure of something: They just recently hired more maemo staff. SOMETHING is up their sleeve.
After saying all of that - I totally want one. If I had $700 for a device right now, I'd plunk it down on an N97 before any netbook, MID, UMPC, or computer upgrade. I don't have it, though. Not many will in the very near future. It's a tragic case of timing too: If the software is properly implemented - this does for the Internet what the 770, N800, and N810 tablets set out to do back in 2005.
10 comments:
Really, it's nice as a mobile computer. Given the history of S60, though (I own an S60 3rd Ed. device), I bet it's unusable as anything else than a phone. Compared to the recent S60-releases, Maemo is the most stable platform on the planet. ;)
As a phone, I wouldn't like it either: I cannot live without physical keys to dial phone numbers. A tiny QWERTZ-keyboard (that will probably have numbers) is not a replacement, nor is a touchscreen.
So my future setup will most likely be a real phone with real keys (small enough to be with me always, cheap enough so I don't mind when I break or lose it) plus a tablet for all the other functionality. Not much different than today, the N97 doesn't change a thing here. ;)
The N97 looks a lot like I would imagine the next internet tablet to be. And the specs are, as you said, also very much the same as the Fremantle SDK's target. I wonder if this gives us any clue how the next internet tablet would look like.
Can we take it for granted that the N97 will have Symbian as its OS? If not, might is be Maemo coming to phones? To rival the iPhone? Does Nokia care about the iPhone? Or is it just going to stay the way it was (high-end phones N9x and tablets N8xx).
@thp Yes, we can. Official announcement says its S60 5th edition.
Which makes it uninteresting for me, since I have no plans to program in C++ or Java.
What's the screen size and resolution?
According to Gizmodo, the screen is only 640x360, and there's no WiFi. Definitely not even close for a tablet replacement for me.
No wifi!?
BAH!
Let me know when the N97i with Maemo is out, with a port of Dalvik on it :-}
There IS WiFi.
I hate to burst people's bubbles by pointing out obvious facts (who am I kidding? Of course I do!), but Symbian is NOT open source yet. Nokia just completed the Symbian acquisition, the Foundation hasn't been fully set up, and not even the first line of Symbian code has been seen by anyone in public. It's going to be that way for a while, and it's not clear what pieces of it will be missing due to 3rd party ownership, etc. when it is finally opened. Symbian will not be asignificant asset to the free or open source communities for some time yet.
It doesn't live up to the hype (unfortunately).
Lots of on-board storage and high-rez camera (but let's see some pictures from it first) will only put it ahead of the iPhone until the next release of that product.
The price tag and availability (or lack of) simply make the existing iPhones more compelling.
I'm not sure what Nokia needs to do to counter Apple (short of just giving phones away for a while) but this isn't it.
The one obvious suggestion: "make the phone more open" is already being covered by Android. There simply isn't a lot I can think of that at this point won't look like "me too" in the marketplace.
In a 10K race there is pacing, drafting, knowing when to make a break for the lead. But in the real world, the race doesn't end after 10K it goes on forever and the best advice is never to give up the lead in the first place as the work you have to do to regain it is much more than what you would have had to do to keep it.
Um, I guess the execs at Nokia know all this right?
I'm just so happy its finally official. Since we all have to wait for its release, Im just gonna wait for the unlocked verison that is going to be released http://www.puremobile.com/Nokia/Nokia-N97-White-GSM-Phone/ . My dream came true, a nokie with qwerty and touch.....don;t worry N97, we'll be together very soon.
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