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

The total device is considerably smaller than the N810, hence the keyboard is too.

When you shrink the total area of a keyboard, you generally have 2 options:

• Less keys
• Shrink keys

Unless you have pencil shaped fingers, option 2 just isn't very comfortable :)

It was a lot easier to use this keyboard then the one on my n810. Better shaped keys and less pressure needed.

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

The third one is to make the overlap between upper and lower device halves smaller to increase the available keyboard area.

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

... except, maybe, when you use the device as a portable media player, but then ...

... maybe we'll have to buy a dedicated portable media player in addition to the dedicated GPS unit for that, too.

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

exactly.

haha! and a spare phone for when the big fat one has run down the battery in other uses...

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

On the screen size issue I'm quite indifferent. The reduction was unnoticeable enough that I heard it about here and didn't notice it while playing with the device itself.

However, if smaller screen would make the tablet more pocketable, I'd be all for it. Similar reasoning to why I think it would be great if it had a phone:

• maemo device that fits into my pocket
• maemo device that also functions as a phone

...means a maemo device would be the "universal communicator" that I always carry with me.

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

I'm sticking with my opinion that the first ~4" screen without the N810's peripheral real estate will be a mind-blowing success.

I take that back: COULD be.

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

I think there is one key difference: The GPS you most likely use only in the car... so why not just leave it there all the time? The media player though... that you take with you everywhere, so there you have a point.

What I see that there should be two "device classes":
1) Pocketable with ~3.5" screen
2) "Cargopocketable/Purseable" device with ~5-6" screen.

The first device is the "take everywhere" device (including phone) that fits in pocket. The latter should work good as GPS navigator, video player and ebook reader? Likely better for serious web surfing too...

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

I'm trying my best to consolidate gadgets. When I go to my car now, it's:

Nokia N810
Garmin GPS
iPhone 3G
Sony PSP or Nintendo DSi (sometimes)

There's an overlap in features, but I'm tired of carrying so much to my car and charging so much while in the house. I wanted to get rid of two of these... the Nokia N810/Garmin GPS (originally the N810's GPS was to be the only one... yeah right).

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

Heh - the 'confirm or deny' phrase springs to mind... the weekend just did not give us enough information to go beyond speculation. The prototype cases had a big plastic bezel on them that came up to the edge of the screen - short of sliding a screwdriver inside and levering it off (which I didn't do) I don't think there was any way of saying yes or no; and that pre-supposes that the plastic simply covered and didn't stand-in for a finished faceplate.

If you were really interested then there may be clues in the SDK? I really wonder how you'd expose an API for something like that? I can think of a few approaches but it's quite a challenge.

I suppose it could be totally reserved for the task manager and not available to apps... but that's a bit odd too.

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

I read someone used xterm, was the device used to emulate 80x24 terminal? I ask this because many ncurses applications won't work with anything less than that.

Were any (Mozilla-related) milestones achieved during the hackfest?