We're not sure how we missed this, but it seems the Nokia N900 (aka "Rover") was not only mentioned, but visually detailed in some candor during an Nseries presentation way back in October of last year. If you fast forward to about the three-minute mark in this video, Nokia's next-gen,
Maemo 5-powered internet tablet is seen doing its thing, and it differs in a few key details from the last leak -- most noticeably, it's got a big d-pad on the left just like its predecessor and there's no sign of an earpiece for making calls over the rumored 3G radio. In fact, it really just looks like a whited-out
N810, which makes us wonder whether this isn't purely conceptual, especially considering the age of the video. Either way, the N810's aging rapidly and the territory's rapidly being encroached on by MIDs of all shapes and sizes, so we imagine we'll see this get launched soon enough -- maybe on T-Mobile USA of all carriers, if the rumors pan out. Follow the break for the full video.
[Thanks, CanisMinor]
Update: We're being told that this was little more than a student-led art project -- and it's one hell of an art project, considering that it looks every bit as slick as Nokia's official marketing. Thanks,
Ryan A.!
posted Jun 7th 2009 1:42PM
Why would I want this when I already have my Palm-Pre?
Larger screen, more powerful device, linux for tinkerability, Flash, firefox web browser. I know it isn't perfect either... a pretty weird device, but it does have its pluses too.
because the n900 will kick its ass? It runs a proper linux OS called Maemo.
3.5? 800×480 (WVGA) touchscreen
OMAP3430 600 Mhz processor
5.0 MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual-LED flash, autofocus, and sliding cover
256MB Ram
Wi-Fi, HSPA, GPS, accelerometer, bluetooth
32GB, and miniSD slot
Other than a few of the specs it doesn't look to impressive hopefully they are better than what Seightan listed. That or it's being built to have a long battery life.
looks impressive to me.
Palm pre?
hahaha.
Stop joking.
Nokia is like the microsoft of phones, no taste.
the N800 could have been the iPhone before the iPhone, but Nokia was never smart enough to put phone capabilities on the darn thing and never mind the fact that no major carrier in the US subsidizes anything from the N series
These specs are cool and all, but it's nothing to write home about... just rehash of the same crap they keep putting out. Yes, you can say the same about RIM or Apple, but here in America they are what sells, not Nokia. Their glory days in the U.S. were back when the coolest thing on a cell phone was "snake."
Look, the Maemo devices are not competing with RIM/Apple mobiles, they are not competing with Nokia mobile phones either (It looks like you are thinking about Nokia mobile phones S60/S40 series).
It said making calls over a 3G radio in the article... so that implies a phone of some sort in addition to being offered on T-Mobile USA... did you read the whole article?
You're right. Nokia just content themselves with the 95% of the world that isn't the US instead.
Actually, nevermind, it says no earpiece.. i read that wrong.
@mark
Stop trolling.
You know that 90% of their phones outside the U.S. are given away free on contract to places like india.
Have you seen their quarterly numbers? Nah your too busy trolling..
@Shirk
Irony.
Well, first of all, Maemo devices are not mobile phones per se. You should of think them as handheld linux computers, at least N800/N810 are closer to netbooks than mobile phones.
See Maemo.org website for more info
http://maemo.org/
For the coming device (N900) see preview runnning on a development hardware (Beagle board):
http://www.newlc.com/en/n900-upcoming-nokia-tablet-runs-maemo5-omap3-watch
A Stylus!!! for christ sake, Nokia just does not get it. I have suffered through many iterations of Maemo pain on my N800 and it still appears that Nokia is subject to there own hubris.
stylus is awesome. how else are you supposed to play warcraft 2?
people hate using a stylus because steve jobs tells them to. get his balls out of your mouth please.
Fuck trying to hit links on a wvga screen with the tip of your finger! :)
To each his own, but I agree that they are annoying. Plus there's the whole "middle aged guy with belt clip" image that comes to mind and won't leave.
3.5? 800×480 (WVGA) touchscreen - 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
OMAP3430 600 Mhz processor - Samsung S3C6400 @ 667 Mhz
5.0 MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual-LED flash, autofocus, and sliding cover - 2.0 megapixels, and lots of people don't care about that..
256MB Ram - 128MB of RAM of which 11MB is for integrated graphics, and it work really, really fine
Wi-Fi, HSPA, GPS, accelerometer, bluetooth - "Wi-Fi, GPS, accelerometer" Hmm, where i've heard about this? :)
32GB, and miniSD slot - Ooh, sure. People on average use 7,6 GB of space in the iPhone.
And there's what this "kickass" (-> by Seightan ) Nokia haven't got :
- iTunes Store
- App Store, with 35,000 apps (and counting)
So many phones like that. So many fails. So many lagg.
iPhone owns everything, and there's no doubt about that.
The iPhone is easily years ahead of anything else,
and monday will jump it further once again.
lol @ itunes store
linux has so many apps available and for FREE.
iphone is utter shit. they still use ARM 11, have crappy resolution screens 480x320 or some garbage, and they dont' even have Flash in their browsers. With the nokia tablets you get the internet just like you see it on your home computer.
Look, you are thinking about Nokia phones (comparing them with Iphone). Maemo devices are different species, more like handheld netbooks.
Here's what Nokia's got:
ANY media player, including iTunes (I can sync my Nokia device via iTunes Sync and it works perfectly, but I just use Winamp cause I like it more).
And as for apps, Linux has tons of apps/programs.
When considering Nokia's other phones, there's the Ovi Store which has just been launched, and so far, the apps keep on coming.
What Apple did with the App Store and the iPhone is great, but the iPhone is by far owning every other phone. Only an Apple fanboy that knows nothing about technology can say that.
"32GB, and miniSD slot - Ooh, sure. People on average use 7,6 GB of space in the iPhone."
So, basically you're saying that average iPhone people won't be interested in this device?
Gee, thanks for the awesome insight.
N900's "app store" is right here: http://debian.org/
25113 useful packages and counting.
(And yes, it counts because I often run Debian on my device).
bukko
ShitPower
You don't like it when people are critical or troll iPhone posts.
SO WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE DOING THE SAME THING?
"more space is worse"
and LOL, WVGA is over twice the iPhone's resolution. Wow.
@bukko
Nokia has Nokia Music Store and Ovi app store.
Planet fail wants you back.
this guy is obviously trolling, he somehow criticized the device for having more memory.
ShitPower: yeah right, by adding copy&paste? LOL.
Seightan: you seriously like fumbling with a device that requires you to use while walking down the street / looking up info in a hurry / drunk ?
That's why Maemo (some day) aims at both finger and stylus friendliness. Currently fails at that, granted, but the holy grail is to auto-detect whether the user is using his thumb or the stylus and adjust the interface accordingly. Should be more easily obtainable once GTK+ 3 comes out with its new widget sizing stuff, and in the mean time I for one can happily say that the system does both stylus and finger stuff happily as long as you have small fingers.
umm yes, I would rather have the ability to use a stylus over "multitouch capacitive" gimmicky crap anyday. stylus = precision and lets you use apps that don't look like fisher price designed them.
even if a phone came with a stylus you are not required to use it. i'm using the htc touch hd and never used the stylus.
Looking at the size of it compared to the person's hand, it looks like it's a phone.
There is a reason nokia doesnt sell in the U.S.
The rest of the world will come to their senses soon enough,
and it seems like its already started by looking at their quarterly numbers.
There is. Your carriers are shit.
@Mark Anderson: So true. North American operators are by far the worst in the world...
Agreed mark,
but their are nokia phones available and still no one buys so explain that?
you know what it is with Nokia, Symbian might not be all that but they make some really good hardware. All the Nokia phones I've owned, 3310, N91, E71, 6610, never ever died on me. They know how to make quality stuff that survives the harshest conditions (I accidentally put my 3310 in the washing machine and it came out still working). I love my iPhone and it replaced my E71 but it just pissed me off that the black plastic back was scratched within the first 3 days of use while my E71 after being dropped 6 times over several heights doesn't have a scratch on it.
"No one" in the US buys Nokia because of marketing, or the lack thereof. "No one" buys iPhone in the rest of the World because they know they have better choices. That's the truth, fanboy.
why carry this device in addtion to a phone, when there are smartphones capable of doing what it does even better, like the HTC Touch Pro 2....
And this year with Tegra and Snapdragon, those phones will also handle HD video (don't know abou snapdragon but Tegra will)
tegra is garbage. it's based on an ARM 11 core so it will be slow as balls for anything other than video and who cares about 1080p on that small device. I'd rather have an OMAP3 with 720p video.
"Slow as balls" doesn't describe how it handled Opera 9.5 rendered in 3D + Youtube + 720p video + Slideshow + 3D Widgets + OpenGL ES 2.0 effects seamlessly in a smooth performance unrivaled by any Snapdragon demo I've seen.
for all you iTards watch this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UDFD4iROBQ
nokia tablets > iGarbage
Almost any device by any other manufacturer is better than an Apple one. They just have good design.
They usualy have restricted features or incompatabilities, but the marketing and fanboys overshadow this.
Don't believe me ? Compare user submitted issues with apple products to anything else
http://www.notascoolasitseems.com/fuzzysearch/results/apple
HOLD ON A MINUTE!
What the fuck is up with that video. It says the Nokia N97 and it's clearly a Nokia N96...
This is old. Nokia has basically retooled what the N900 was going to be, and created something a bit different - rumors include the N900 to be a Maemo based telephone.
This was to be; however things seemed to have changed.
Don't think of it as a phone but more like a powerful Pocket PC. Not something as powerful as the OQO (RIP), but something convenient to carry and actually do some work and have access to the Internet whenever possible.
I'm a nokia fan, but honestly i don't see the usefulness of this device with all the fancy phones and netbooks out there on the market.