Nokia's always had big plans for the open-source
Maemo internet tablet OS that powers devices like the N810, and it just spilled some more details about the upcoming release of Maemo 5 -- and provided some hints on what's in store for the Internet Tablet line in the process. The biggest ticket item seems to be 3G connectivity over HSPA, but new support for the TI OMAP3 processor should mean faster devices with better graphics, and Nokia's also promising "high-def" cameras with photo-sharing features. All this work on the Linux-based OS means that Nokia is now a Gold Sponsor of the Linux Foundation, and it's already contributed the HSPA OMAP3 code back to the project -- hooray for sharing. Of course, what we really want to know is when to expect the actual release of an updated Internet Tablet, but Nokia just says it'll be out "when it's ready."
[Thanks, Ryan]
Read - Nokia Maemo announcement
Read - Maemo 5 liveblog
posted Sep 17th 2008 at 2:16PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Soll @ Sep 17th 2008 2:26PM
Great to hear that it will have TI OMAP3!! Camera sounds like a 3.2 or 5mpx Carl Zeiss camera.
Well now i just need a release date(fingers crossed for before Christmas).
Evan @ Sep 17th 2008 2:42PM
Christmas?
Don't count on it..
loosely_coupled @ Sep 18th 2008 1:57AM
ARM Cortex-A8 !!!
Ryan @ Sep 18th 2008 5:20PM
Evan's right on this one. It'll probably be Q1 2009. The new OMAP3 silicon isn't due out 'til November, and they've still got to get it into the product.
Scythe @ Sep 17th 2008 2:35PM
Excellent, glad to hear about the new processor. I hope they improve upon the n810 by having an improved keypad with better tactile feedback.
All welcomed improvements though :)
MattyG @ Sep 17th 2008 2:36PM
just for feck sake make it cheaper!
Steve Paine @ Sep 17th 2008 3:06PM
With 3G, expect a price hike! $499-$599 range is my estimate.
TareX @ Sep 17th 2008 2:37PM
Tablets?
Between big screened smartphones, umpcs, netbooks, and the arrival of NVidia's Tegra, I doubt there will be any more room for Tablets.... and certainly not for one with an OS with virtually no 3rd party apps.
Skope.s @ Sep 17th 2008 2:51PM
Actually MAEMO has been evolving rapidly with it's Linux based open source code and there's tons of new stuff coming all the time and as MAEMO is Linux based you can port some already existing linux programs straight to it.
Thought Nokia did say couple of months ago that Tablets works more like a testing ground for them in future products, but if "N900" improves alot(at least the TI OMAP3 and camera sounds good) it should be no problems of coming nice seller in Nokia markets as N810 already did so good with it's not so big changes from the N800.
axnjaxn @ Sep 17th 2008 2:52PM
This is essentially a big-screened smartphone, and Maemo is a Linux distribution. Every app is a third party app.
TareX @ Sep 17th 2008 3:05PM
Alright so it's Linux and has plenty of apps (both assumptions only partially true), but how about replying to the idea of having a tablet + phone, when you can easily these days have both in one? Doesn't that oppose the idea behind converging technology?
It's ironic because tablets were first designed with convergence in mind.
Billy Fiul @ Sep 17th 2008 3:10PM
Congratulations, TareX, you win the Retard of the Day Award.
Clearly you haven't used one of these tablets or its Linux-based Maemo OS. The world is full of people who like to comment on things they know nothing about. You are one of them.
TareX @ Sep 17th 2008 3:18PM
N-no I'm a full time Linux programmer, my Grandfather built Nokia and my and my great grandfather founded Linux. Do I qualify to give my opinion?
A doctor I interned at daily for 2 months has an N810. The OS was ugly, wasn't fast, and couldn't do anything my E65 couldn't.... It could do most things BETTER, but capability-wise, it was lacking and not worth the extra pocket space.
Oh and 3rd party apps were relatively non-existent. By "relatively", I mean in comparison to s60v3.
mkay, Billy boy?
L @ Sep 17th 2008 3:24PM
@Billy Fiul: thanks for typing what I wanted to add :D
@TareX: go and bore the world a little more with your decision finding process on whether you like the HTC Dream's design or not. I'm sure everybody here is just thrilled to read yet another post on "I like it, kinda, but not really. Looks oh so OK in black". At least you're not distracting anybody with your astonishing lack of knowledge and comprehension then...
TareX @ Sep 17th 2008 3:28PM
Wow L you've really been paying attention.... :)
Alright... but yeah the phone looks a lot better in Black. I'm sorry if you have a problem with someone stating the G1 looks better in black. Maybe you should stick to "FIRST" and "WANT" posts.
smash579 @ Sep 17th 2008 5:00PM
@tarex; people dont enjoy holding a TABLET to their face to talk on the phone. even a bt headset does not replace having something to dial with or browse basic menus.
for people who need that much screen space on the go a phone linked to a table is the ideal solution.
if the tablet has its own internet source thats even better.
tablet purpose != phone purpose
even though though both get cross used
Jamus @ Sep 17th 2008 2:41PM
I wonder how this will play out for us existing N800 owners? I really like the tablet and it was a worthwhile purchase, however more and more developers seem to be dropping out. I took the Diablo upgrade for the tablet. Now many apps are no longer compatible and the devs seem to be passing it up to work on iPhone/Touch development rather than Nokia tablet development.
Kovalainen @ Sep 17th 2008 2:58PM
Considering that the userbase isn't that big it's no suprise, but it of course depends on how good and popular will this product be and if it will, develobers will jump in.
Ian @ Sep 17th 2008 3:12PM
N800/810 are about the same except for the sliding keyboard.
I agree the last o/s upgrade was very nasty as it wiped every external app out and reimplementation had to wait until those individual apps rewrote their software and this has taken a lot of time. Good news is that it was said that future o/s updates will be more friendly disposed to existing apps.
Nokia need to be more mindful of their exisiting customer base IMHO.
barry99705 @ Sep 17th 2008 2:53PM
Great, another handheld for nokia to ignore after about six months. They really just need to throw android on them and be done with it. Maemo sucks ass as a gui.
Elbo2 @ Sep 17th 2008 3:03PM
And why is that? Plus i highly doubt that Nokia would have any use of Android in a tablet.
At least i'm loving my N810 and cant wait for this to be released.
Billy Fiul @ Sep 17th 2008 3:14PM
You know what, barry? You suck ass.
rcorrino @ Sep 17th 2008 4:23PM
Yup! I'm sure this is of no use to us N770 users..... move along obsolete early adopters.......
Sam Lowry @ Sep 17th 2008 3:14PM
I have to agree with Jamus. I've been very happy with my N800, but after using my brother's iPhone (not even making calls), I now feel like the N800 was a distant predecessor of current technology. Nokia better come up with something pretty dramatically better than the N810 for me to want to buy another Nokia product.
Billy Fiul @ Sep 17th 2008 3:19PM
Distant predecessor of current technology? And why do you say that?
Some people just don't understand the importance of an open system. That's why the iPhone/iPod Touch will always be a piece of shit (just like your face).
Eddie W @ Sep 17th 2008 11:33PM
@ Billy - I love open source and haven't purchased an iphone/ipod touch because it's closed, but really the n810 doesn't stack up as well as it could. I have a 770 and have been frustrated that support for it dropped entirely after the n800 hit. I probably would have purchased an n810 were this not the case. This next release is going to have to be spectacular for me to consider buying it.
eggothewaffle @ Sep 17th 2008 3:40PM
Tegra support anyone? :3
Ryan @ Sep 18th 2008 5:21PM
Tegra doesn't support Linux, and is significantly slower than the OMAP3.
rento @ Sep 17th 2008 4:31PM
Expect this to be out in years time.. Fed up of waiting Nokia! I am going Archos 5g.Life is beautiful.
Borje @ Sep 17th 2008 4:47PM
There were some rumours about 3G Nokia Tablet in finnish news media four months ago. I also send the arcticle to Engadget but they never released it. Your loss suckers.
Charbax @ Sep 17th 2008 4:47PM
Nokia needs to use Google Android as the OS instead. They need full DivX support, all codecs support at DVD and HD resolution. Nokia needs to use hard drives in their devices cause flash memory is useless especially for storing videos and even worse if the device is a HD camcorder. If they can make it work as a VOIP phone with standby incoming VOIP, SIP, Skype, IM call, then they have a good product. But I don't think Nokia is going to do it.
Tester @ Sep 17th 2008 7:09PM
@charbax: VOIP, SIP, Skype, IM, etc all of these things already work on the N810.
LTM @ Sep 17th 2008 9:01PM
Why would they want to use heavy and future dying harddrives?
Why is flashdrive useless when videos run fine on it. I've got 50 movies with me on the N810 (3 8gb mini cards), so what's the problem with flash when it's only getting larger and faster.
As what was just said, skype is voip; the n810 has it. Im, the Nokia has it.
They've already got a good product. All they need is a faster chip and then it'll be a great product
Charbax @ Sep 18th 2008 4:17AM
Nah, you want the device to wake up on incomming VOIP and IM calls.
And N810 does not run the kind of DivX movies that you find 99% of the time on BitTorrent sites and that are the Internet standard. N810 doesn't play Youtube smoothly in full screen either.
Also hard drives provide 10x the capacity of flash memory. So if you care about storing videos and large music collections, add to that the device being a HD camcorder, flash solution is not suitable for you.
Jacobta @ Sep 19th 2008 11:51AM
Actually Charbax - you've just dreamt up a device that would be perfect for you, not what consumers are looking for.
Wake up on VoIP call? mmmmmm k
As for hard drives, they are slow, would increase the size of the device and are on the way out. How many people want to use an N*00 as a camcorder or storage for HD footage? Not many I'd say - its in no way the purpose of it.
To moan about a product that can't do what its designed for, just because you want it to do so is such n00bish thing to post
Benson @ Sep 21st 2008 8:53PM
What they need to do for storage is not jump to hard drives, but back to what the N800 has -- two SD slots. 32GB SD cards are available right now, and getting cheaper -- 64 GB will come soon. I've got a 16 GB in each slot, and am looking for the next good sale on Class 6 32GBs..There are no 320GB drives in SD form-factor, so you'd have to enlarge it substantially before you can make your assertion that hard-drives have 10x the capacity. Larger is not really better, as we're already cramming more hardware in. Battery life won't be sufficient to play back 100s of GB of video, much less music, so having them spread across multiple SDs is not a big problem.
As for waking up on calls, it already does. It doesn't turn on from completely powered-off, of course, but there are no intermediate states because they're not needed. It down-clocks, shuts off peripherals, and even goes to clock-stop whenever there's nothing to do, without a discrete state change of awake vs. asleep. The system gets about one month of battery life idling without any special powersaving measures, and if you leave a VoIP client running, it will start ringing as soon as a call is received.
Charbax @ Sep 21st 2008 8:59PM
Hard drives do not draw more power (not much), do not take up much space (1.8" hard drives are tiny. 2.5" hard drives are perfectly pocketable). Just look at the Archos 5 for example of a good Internet Media Tablet, with up to 250GB of storage, and is very pocketable and cheaper then Nokia tablets.
I don't believe that the Nokia tablets can idle for a month with VOIP feature turned on. But if they can have Skype and SIP turned on and wake up and ring on incoming calls, and have about a days worth idle battery time at least, constantly sniffing the ping signal on HSDPA, also for incoming IM and Emails, then great. But I'll believe it when I see proof of it.
smash579 @ Sep 17th 2008 5:00PM
@billy
there is a difference between good in theory and good in practice.
linux and opennes is great hypothetically because 'any one can build anything' they want for it.
trouble is, they don't always do that until a closed source rival beats them to it.
as far as comfort of usability concerned linux sadly has been for the most part reverse engineering what closed source counter parts have done first. as much as i dislike the iphone, its gui intuitiveness leaves the rest in the dust.
silpol @ Sep 18th 2008 8:17AM
it's intuitiveness may be intuitive for you but not necessarily to others :) and granted, don't tell about apple crowd in those insane queues to apple stores - they are estimated at 2% of world sales, and hence just unable to resist the hype and mass hysteria :)
Michael Robinson @ Sep 18th 2008 4:07AM
I have an N800 and find it great for accessing the Internet but the internal camera can't be used on Skype etc so it means I never use it. Having a high-def camera with no video calling just seems like a wasted opportunity to me. Will the new one have Skype video?
Nicholas @ Sep 17th 2008 11:09PM
Yo Nokia, remember the Psion NetBook. Wasn't it a lovely profile? How about it? For the kids!
Thesandlord @ Sep 18th 2008 7:06PM
Ok guys, who think this tablet is going to be just as power ful as a n810. Think Again.
The n810 had a MUCH worse processor, so things like nice video, speed, and graphics were out of the question.
The OMAP3 is one of the best mobile processors, it can decode full HD without breaking a sweat.
The 3G internet, depending on the plan, can make the n900 into a phone of sorts, I guess
And just because Nokia does not do something, the beauty of Open Source is a 3rd party can.
Look at the n810, hackers added screen rotation, bluetooth stereo, OGG support, etc...
Question is, will the iPhone 2 (not 3G bullshit) kick Nokia's N900
Charbax @ Sep 21st 2008 9:05PM
Actually, the Nokia would only be abkle to playback HD resolution if they use the DSP co-processor option to the OMAP3 processor series. So far, Nokia has never used a DSP to speed up video playback in their products. So I think most likely that the N900 will at max playback DVD resolution video using only the ARM part of the OMAP3 processor series.
bocardo @ Sep 21st 2008 10:36PM
I thought most new nokia phones had DSPs for media decoding. I remember reading about the original ngage havind a DSP for audio decoding (only accesible for first party software, which is why it was mentioned).
Yep, quick google search saw a couple mentions of them, even in some e series devices.