Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

A New Challenger Appears!

Droid vs n900: (both nude)
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/5135/droidvsn900.jpg

Released on Nov 2009, the Droid is Cortex A8 based with qwerty keyboard, 1400mah pack, 854x480 screen, digital compass, and a sturdy micro USB slot.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

And you missed the point of MY post.

1. You were an apple fan way before the iPhone4 came out. During that time, when you still owned an iPhone 3GS, you made fun of N900's thickness too. My point is some people carry the N900 nude..in which case, according to you, they need 'super baggy pants'. At that time too, most people would buy some sort of protection for their iPhones, which would mean they need 'super baggy pants' too.

2. Wallet is thicker and many things are thicker. 18mm is not thick at all when compared to most things you put in your pocket (excluding phones). So if you don't need 'super baggy pants' for them you won't need it for the N900. This idiocy with thinness has got to stop. If it feels comfortable, and fits well in my pocket: it's perfect. And the N900 feels much more comfortable than the iPhone 3GS ever felt. And guess what, since we're taking cheap shots, I can hold it whatever way I want. How's that for comfort?

3. Size is not an issue, and even if it is, it is not that big a deal. I agree, it looks enormous but it feels very comfortable and fits my normal sized pockets very well. And that is all that matters. Not to mention the fact that this thing is a tank. it survived 3 strong falls (up till now) without a scratch..I couldn't find one!

If you had complained about weight.. I would have agreed. But size??

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

why didn't you post that picture in the first place?

imo it is the most stupid thing in the world to do: compare touch only device to qwerty physical kb device...

e: now I got it. you only want to make n900 look bad for some bizarre reason....

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

@pantera: original post edited further to address your concerns.

I beg to differ...

iPhone 3GS vs Droid: (both nude)
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/4...3gsvsdroid.jpg

No, I took up Pantera's challenge and played his game. My initial post was just a reaction to all the "walk 5 steps" "look at the stars for guidance" "compass is unnecessary" remark.

Unfortunately most users here tend to get caught up with the technical details than actually getting the point.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

It's like talking with a child.. I give up. You are rightl The N900 is the worst thing since Hitler.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

it is still stupid. they(no hw kb vs qwerty) have very different footprint and all my kudos to motorola crew. they just showed that 3gs and 4 iPhones are just bricks full of air....

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

+1 for digital compass - new augmented reality apps are going to suffer, and in more immediate concerns I may use the gps to navigate, but will stop, then look at phone -- it may not be clear which way to go.

Or parked in car park/side road and having to decide whether to turn left or right.

IMO a compass is extremely useful..

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

but *they* dont have it too ... so i guess its ok :)

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

+1 for holodeck

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

talking about that, we need to be able to reroute power from life support to the forward shields and vice versa, and don't forget about the ability to reverse the polarity, and also, send a message in all frequencies

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

It wasn't a 4, it was a 3, true, but if N900 would have one it would probably be a 3-like.

How do you realistically use a compass? I watch it as I go around, and it takes me 20 seconds to make a corner on foot, for a larger corner, not running. I feel this to be realistic enough. Also, in a car, you can leave it in place and turn. Minding pedestrians, it's still a few seconds, more if yielding. I feel this to be more realistic than shake before use.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

an electronic magnetometer don't got inertia, it always "point" north no matter how you shake or spin it

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

Not to be sidetracked (again), I think it's best to answer your original remark:

The current implementation of digital compass is VERY usable. I'd reckon they work even better than an analog compass. Certainly easier than to ask a camel.

-------------

The one on iPhone 3GS (I think) is prone to magnetic interference. I didn't use it too often (only when trying out AR apps) and never had much problem with mine, but I've heard sporadic negative reports of it.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

Quite frankly, there's just too much ignorance flying around this thread. Some of us could explain how GPS, 3D accelerometers, magnetometers and clocks work, but then we'd have to kill you.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

well, north could change locally, but the magnetometer points to it

i can't picture a way you would be able to shield a regular compass from a close magnet, EM radiation, sure, but not plain magnetic field, though if the magnetic field is always at an exact offset from the magnetometer, you can calibrate it to ignore it (that way you can get rid of issues with speaker magnets etc, but depending on the wiring, it might still go crazy when the bass go bumping)

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

Quick reply about holography...
Research into holographic displays has produced devices which are able to create a light field identical to that which would emanate from the original scene, with both horizontal and vertical parallax across a large range of viewing angles. The effect is similar to looking through a window at the scene being reproduced; this may make Computer-Generated Holography the most convincing of the 3D display technologies, but as yet the large amounts of calculation required to generate a detailed hologram largely prevent its application outside of the laboratory. Some companies do produce holographic imaging equipment commercially.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_imaging
http://www.zebraimaging.com/products/motion-displays

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

lightfield displays (true displays, not "hardcopy" holograms) require lots of processing for anything not pre-recorded, and still quite a bit for prerecorded stuff, due to the simple fact there is so much more information to be displayed at once


btw, i don't have a link at hand, but there is research being done on tactile feedback from virtual 3d environments in free air, somthing about focused ultrasound i think


and on a slightly more fictional note, it was Sony i think, they have a patent for a method of stimulating arbitrary neurons with transcranial focused ultrasound pulses, it's only on paper though, no experiments nor anything have been done

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

Confirmed! I walked out testing your hypothesis GPS locked using GPSJinni's compass. It nicely provides directional guidance. More than enough for me. The only annoyance is it usually takes a while [5-10 min] to get a good lock.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

Same processor as the Droid which runs Android 2.2 and Flash 10.1

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

I assume that's non-assisted?

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

The missing USB OTG / USB Host is a limit. Maybe the USB Host will eventually work thanks to some good coders, but even then it may never leave BETA Stage meaning that not everything may work.
A Compass? Well, i never feeled like needing a compass in a device like the N900.
The N900 doesnt have a compass, but the GPS seems to be very good. Maybe its due to the AGPS support, but its faster than the GPS of my Car. The (free) software isnt that good, but thats not a hardware limitation.
A Deathray? Well, that could come in handy, but the iPhone or the xPeria doesnt have one too... and the GPLv3 doesnt allow Deathrays because they are evil (the GPLv2 does, i dont know which of them applies for the N900). I would expect Microsoft to be the First one offering Deathrays or anything like that. Maybe Win8 will have built-in Deathray support.
The iPhone 4 has experimental iReality. Its a reality-distortion-field emitter that makes iPhone users believe that a Mouse with two buttons or more is actually, uh, mighty... and stuff like that.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

bear in mind, a lot of those 'x' will not run 'y' because of 'hardware limitations' speculations can be chalked up to corporations fooling mass market buyers into buying the next model of the same thing (a la iphone). 'revamped' hardware 'redesigns' and 'software optimizations' = OS 'refinement' to run 'better' on the 'same hardware'. true story.

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

Correct. No xG data so far on my device. I am testing the device once in a while for the future wild travel days...

Re: Do you know of any upcoming commercial physical hardware limitations for the n900 devices that may limit it's life?
 

For T-Mobile USA customers, I would say lack of USB host/OTG and HSPA+ will prove to be limitations compared to other commercially available devices a year or so from now.