Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

This includes 770, 800 & 810

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Based on the few ballpark numbers we've gotten and a variety of other factors, I'm putting it in the 600k range +/- 200k.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Looking at the download stats at Maemo.org and total lack of buzz, then, defining sold as "bought by an end user" rather than "makes it to a store" I went for the lowest poll number.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

I guessed 500k; poll is awfully coarse, but that's probably a good thing.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Well, the number was 350k (50k 770 and 300k N800) back in August 2007, and I definitely know there have been a lot more tablets sold since then (especially with the major N800 price drops).

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Those were official numbers on sales, not including items that were in the hands of sellers but not bought yet? Where can I see the actual Nokia figures?

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

No offense, but just because you definitely think something is so doesn't mean it is true.

If there are 500K NITs, then forum traffic here, ebay trading, commercial development, and downloads at maemo are freakishly small, unless you believe people are buying the devices to use as drinks coasters.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

That would be true if there were just the 350k NITs too (i.e. all sales stalled after August 2007), so I don't think that argument is relevant. I'm with GA on this, I can't imagine the sales haven't continued at an increased pace.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

The first two options are obviously wrong - according to Anssi Vanjoki's talk at the Web 2.0 last October, they have sold 300K 770s alone (source: http://stuff.tv/blogs/live/archive/2...ia-launch.aspx)! That's the model that was only available in about a dozen countries, direct-from-Nokia only, and received nearly zero advertising and promotion.

The N800 & N810 are much more available and promoted, and in fact both made Amazon's best seller list.

My best guess would be somewhere between the other two, definitely more than 1M but probably less than 10M. The xohm situation has the potential to change this dramatically too :-)

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Whey does Nokia seem to want to keep this information "secret" ?

Most (not all) companies pan all the time about sell through numbers to help well sell more products.

So is there a certain reason Nokia wants to try to keep this number so close to their vest ?

I've never checked but do they also keep their cell phone bus. numbers this secret/quiet as well ?

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

No they publicize the mobile sales figures often. I think they did not want to hype up tablet sales figures because for them this product line was a complete market and R and D research experiment, if the tablets had failed to sell I don't think it would have been the biggest deal.
They are gathering data and observing this new community focused product development cycle, their resource inputs for this semi successful product line have probably been some of the smallest ever put into one of their devices.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

It's unrealistic to expect every single tablet purchaser to join much less frequent this forum. At best you get a decent percentage, as is the case in general regardless of the focal point.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

At least a fact on this subject. Thanks a lot, I missed that.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

I was going through that article and found this

"09.00 So, why no SIM? This is apparently a 'clean internet device' that has got rid of legacy technology of mobile phones. However, Anssi Vanjoki has made it pretty clear that we can expect to see a version with a built-in mobile phone modem in the future - this is a third-generation device, and they have five generations mapped out."

Is this true? Did he really say that??

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

"It's unrealistic to expect every single tablet purchaser to join much less frequent this forum. "

But this means that many of the great third-party apps aren't even known to many of the N8xx owners, and those with a problem with sdhc corruption or with powering on have no idea about a solution. That's amazing.

The next time I see a newbie arrive and start re-asking the frequently asked questions, I'm going to remind myself that perhaps the majority of N8xx owners have the same questions but never ask at all, and especially never search the forums for the answer.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Best comment I have read to date on these forums. I realize that over time the same questions get asked over and over and those who offer their free help on a regular basis can become bored with this...well, in that case, for most cases, put your hands in your pockets and don't answer if you are going to be curt and arrogant to an honest question. The difference between someone too lazy to search and someone who just does not understand the process becomes kinda obvious quickly as the user adds more questions.

Still nothing wrong with explaining the search to someone who is new. It's all part of helping the newbie learn how it all functions. But it simply does not need to be an angry response. And I am saying this as a person who has little patience for those who are unwilling to help themselves learn... ;) But, I have come to get-it that people who want to learn do ask silly questions at times and it's more constructive to provide not only the answer to the question but also an explaination, by way of text or a link, of how they can find some of the answers themselves.

Keeping this all fun goes a long way to helping the whole community of typical-users as well as the guru-types...and if the platform/line is to continue guess which group will be larger? Run them off and well, guess which group will be larger then...and guess how long the NIT's will last? Face it the user community is the group which will build this product line for Nokia and do it free of charge. But WTF, it's still all fun even if it does not put cash in your pocket directly.

BTW, to answer the OP and poll...my guess is the between 1M to 10M devices worldwide. And I suspect many of those are simply for mobile web access as well as for use as an Ebook reader. To be honest there are few other apps I find very useful...yet...though I just tried myPaint and it's an AMAZING app that I have a lot of need for...plus it's fun!

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Its really scary to imagine a tablet user who has never come to visit ITT!!

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

I don't believe this. If more then one million tablets exist where are they? We don't know which percentage of tableteers join ITT or use maemo.org, it may be just a very small fraction. However, we can assume that tablet owners surf the web because this is what they are marketed for. One million users should be visible in web (browser/OS) statistics.

When Vista came out it showed up, the iPhone show's up. NIT should show up, too, if > 1M

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

If the 770 itself sold 300k there is no doubt it is well above the 1million mark. Also remember that the iphone statistics are only from the US..... wheras the tablets have been sold all over the phone and so thos statistics would not show in the US ones.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

According to Internet World Stats*, there were 1,319,872,109 Internet users in December of 2007. One million of them sometimes using a tablet to browse various sites spread all over the world with a browser that reports itself as Opera or Mozilla could easily disappear into the background noise.

Also, keep in mind that with their device hoarding, Thoughtfix and GeneralAntilles each account for 1% of worldwide tablet sales, and neither of them is skilled enough to browse using more than six or eight tablets at once.


* I do not know if this site provides accurate information.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Hmm . . . interesting. I had a different source for the same talk (don't feel like trying to dig it up) and it said 300k N800's, not 300k 770s.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Was that a general epiphany, or did you have something specific you wanted to direct at the rat you quoted?

Don't be shy!

:D

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Well... doh. I don't think anyone is quite stupid enough to need telling the above. The salient point is that this forum is much quitier thank I would expecct for a total user base of 500k. Especially given that this is an Intenet device, and users' need for support. I've seen forums for quite obscure hobbies and webcomics with much higher trraffic than this.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Believing a platform owners claims about sales figures is about as reasonable as believing a politician's claims about what taxes will be if he is elected

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Registering in ITT is not mandatory. I used this forum for a month without being a registered user. I just registered to thank a solution to a problem I had.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Yup. It was an Ari or Quim Q & A I believe. The quote was something of the effect that "Nokia was pleasently suprised that they had sold 300k of the N800" and that it "Certainly wasn't expected".

This was this past August or so. I think it was the same posted convo where the 5 steps of platform develelopment and the 770 was for uber geeks comments came from.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Not necessarily..
Whenever I start a new browser window, it shows me a big splash screen with a prominent 'Tableteer' button. I imagine most users will sooner rather than later click this button. It says 'Get support' and other things above the button, after all.

On this page it immediately tells me that I have an old software version, and that I need to upgrade. There's also a link there to 'Remind me again when the software's available'. This would have taken care of the earlier SDHC corruption problem, eventually. It would also take care of the boot problem, although there's a potential catch 22 there of course..

On the same page there's a list of 'Featured downloads', and it changes all the time. There's also a presentation of a couple of applications, today I see Xournal and Maemo Mapper, with nice pictures.

In short, users won't be cut off from upgrades or great applications even if they've never heard of ITT, or if they do but choose to ignore it.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

I know 2 whom I give support directly. So you can count me as 3... ;)

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Exactly. I'm tech support for about 15 or so owners...

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

And the same thing happens on other forums. And more to the point, so what? Unless you believe all of:

1. Almost everyone here is "tech support" for a horde of other users....

2. This phenomenon is unique to the NIT...

3. For some other, equally bizarre, reason NIT owners download far less software than other users (even though their machine is shipped bare of a PIM, even though the software is free and of good quality)...

...Then it's irrelevant.

For any device, there will be a few people on any forum who help out a crowd of other users, so comparisons of forums come pre-adjusted for the factor you're trying to "compensate" for.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Out of interest, what percentage of S60 users do you think subscribe actively to forums and download software?

Either way, forums are a pretty weak metric for measuring sales figures. The numbers we got from the talk last year are much more useful for that. ;)

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Anyway, I really don't want to upset anyone over this, but no competent person in the business side of the software industry would ever take a press release about sales of a platform at face value. The platform owner will wriggle, use ambiguity, take the maximum of every estimated range - use every trick he or she can to get maximum numbers. When a platform owner says "300, 000 sales" that always means to the retail chain unless if is clearly stated otherwise - that's how the business works. If a manufacturer is claiming sales, look at the supporting evidence - stock counts in online retailers, downloads of apps, forum traffic, numbers of amazon reviews, ebay transactions, wiki interest, book publications. In the NIT's case these all say that end user sales are far lower than Nokia's claims, if you take them naively.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Apparently you don't know the Finns, meanwhile.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

You're both very worked up over a stupid sales figure discussion and more than a little cynical. <_<

Well, even assuming this point is entirely meaningful, there's maybe 2 places that actually sell the thing retail, and that doesn't work out to all that many units.

Personally, I'd disagree.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Yeah, his posts convey a little irritation with us platform-preacher-loving incompetents, don't they? :D

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Especially if they try to load the front page with their tablets.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Currently, on Amazon.com, the N800 ranks # 28 in "Computer & PC Hardware", # 8 in "Handhelds & PDAs", and # 20 in "Notebooks". The N810 does even better at # 20 in "Computers & PC Hardware", # 6 in "Handhelds & PDAs", and # 15 in "Notebooks".

On Buy.com, the N800 and N810 hold sales ranks of 228 and 314 respectively. (Just as a point of comparison, the iPod Touch 8 GB ranks at 245.)

On PriceGrabber, the N800 and N810 are # 2 and # 4 respectively in popularity in the "PDAs" category.

None of this shows actual sales numbers, but the rankings do appear to indicate that Nokia is moving a fair number of units.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

..Which is why I would only use them them as part of a package of about half a dozen indicators. If it was just forum size vs Nokia's claims, then you'd be in a strong position. But it's not. (Btw - substituting a strawman version of an argument you disagree with rarely works on the Internet or real life...)

Sure. Whenever someone with a vested interest tells you something to their advantage it has to be truth: there really *were* WMD in Iraq, and those pills you were offered really *will* make your penis larger. Honestly! Keep handing over the money and you *personally* will be a WMD!

Every independent metric I can come up with says that NIT sales are probably tiny - can you come up with anything but "Nokia says <insert ambiguous, non-legally binding claim>"? Because that just isn't an argument an average grown up will believe, any more than he will believe that adding self-approval smilies makes his or herself look more intelligent or his argument stronger.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

That's excellent - you looked at a source of hard data that isn't beholden to Nokia, well done!

Otoh, if you analyze this, it isn't necessarily so great. Product #1-#5 in such rankings normally get several orders of magnitude more sales than those at #20-#30. In this case, "Computer & PC Hardware" shows the Eee at #3. And #6. And #11, #12, and #17. So if you really believe that a #28 position relates to 500K units, then we should be seeing Eee's almost as often as Coca Cola cans. (Always do sanity checks like this on your data sources when you can.)

You have to remember in looking at Amazon figures that people use it as a way of getting hold of hard to get stuff, just like ebay. A poorly distributed product will look unnaturally great on Amazon, because they will get a large percentage of its sales. But still a nice try at product intelligence.

Another good tool to use is Froogle - see how many places sell a product, then watch the ones that show inventory. You have to weight by various factors to do with outlet size and specialization, so you get a very fuzzy answer, but this is a lot better than listening to what people want you to believe for their own purposes. Doing this got me an estimate of a few thousand Nit's a year sold in the UK. I took this seriously because I know a business with a product coming out that would be a good match for the Nit, and if it was really a relatively untapped 500K unit market, it would be worth porting it - they'd make several 100K for a few 10K's effort. But the real economics look very difernet - they'd do well to break even on the porting cost, and there would be no chance of a profit worth the hassle of an extra SKU. I will tell them to check out the Eee though.

I like the Nit, I can imagine liking it much more with the next OS, if there is one, but I can't believe that 500K people bought one.

Re: Till date how many internet tablets do you think were sold?
 

Isn't it worth noting that a lot of outlets were out of stock of N800s for a while? This would seem to indicate that there weren't a lot of N800s "sold" to retailers but not really sold to consumers...