Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I really had high hopes for the N9 and its an amazing device that will no doubt penetrate the mass market but its not what i am looking for.

Most forum members here will understand what i am saying.
I want a device with that will offer a desktop linux experience - hildon is a perfect example of that with a hardware keyboard and all the nerd kingdom goodies out there.
I want a device that will replace the need for a tablet and a dumphone combo.

In the end, it seems that i want what most people on this forum want, a stronger N900.

Is anyone going to make that for me?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I think we will have to get lucky. Some chinese company to make a MeeGo-compatible phone and then the community to fill in a lot of holes.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I was in china this year and from what i saw there i really have high hopes for a Shanzai/Shenzhen Meego phone, those guys know their stuff but is the geek market really so small that most major players find it unprofitable to make a such device every year or two?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Hi,

If, finally, the Openmoko GTA04 appears, it could be great to adapt it to Meego.

http://www.gta04.org

Regards,
Àngel

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Yes, the market is way too small. You can only hope that N9 sells well, and NOKIA will make you what you want as they have done with N900. A start up will focus on the biggest market segment, rather than geeky small market

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I cannot believe the N900 did not bring ANY profit to Nokia. Is there any actual sales number published anymore?? The least I could believe is that they got it at cost lol, to me that would still make it worth it. You might not won any money but you didn't lose any, and you made a lot of people happy.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

The N9 won't do well for the simple fact that, Nokia have decided not to release it to anyof the large markets :(

No UK, US, France, Germany, Spain... ect

This is Elop's way to ruin the N9 as he knows it offers a much greater experience then any of their WP7 devices will offer and they are due to be released around the same time, Nokia don't want MeeGo to stop WP7's chances :(


The world you want also consists of fairies and all sorts of other fantasy :P

Companies only care about ONE thing, making a profit. They don't give a flaming monkey crap if they make people happy or not, unless they make a profit, its a failure and they won't waste time doing it again :(

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I dont get your point, n900 is for geeks and N9 is can be for geeks. There will be a community edition so people can throw out the official UI and replace with something else IF they want to.

Have you bothered to read about this at meego.com and developer.nokia.com?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

this thing has been blown way out of proportion imo... i think they just dont have carrier agreements in these countries. either they will eventually, or you can just buy an unlocked phone.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

please show a link with official STATEMENT from NOKIA this is the case else you are a troll.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

If it takes 2 or more months to reach the major markets, the hardware will be even MORE out of date, also there won't be many consumers buying it unless there is money spent on advertising :(

Tbh I reckon alot of people wont even know the N9's exists until it has its own advert :(

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Agreed, updated N900 would be great (better HW specs and slimmer), hopefully Nokia do another "NIT" device, as well as more "N" series.


This is probably the best way to get a proper N900 successor, if the N9 makes money, hopefully that increases the interest in MeeGo etc and more devices/support are born from its success.

What worries me is the support it will be given, don't get me wrong the community has done more for the N900 than I thought was possible :D but that is only because I came on here and geeked it up, the average N9 user isn't going to do that, so it needs good support from the source and from third parties.

If that doesn't happen it will surely fail along with our dreams of an all-singing-all-dancing MeeGo based N900 successor....

That beginning said the N900 pretty much covers all my needs at the moment, but better HW tech would be nice :)

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

There website says no availability for any of the major markets. Have a look yourself.

www.nokia.com/n9

Also somewhere on a conversations blog with the N9's UX a Nokian was replying saying that they werent planning general availability in the main markets mentioned.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

better hardware? who cares about better hw when OS is not optimized for it? (=android, wp7)

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Yes i have and you should reread my post, aside from the UI the N9 lacks major hardware components from the nerd kingdom to suit my needs.
As much as a prefer FOSS i am not a fanboy and i will not spend money on a device just for the sake of it.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

MeeGo has been built up and would support the better hardware..

Meaning that it would have a much longer life cycle in terms of usability with the extra core or even just for the sake of better power consumption as the new Mali GPU and the OMAP4 would have much better power consumption then OMAP3 and the SGX530

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

that proves nothing. it maybe will be release FIRST in smaller country.

I really hope this is the case. Othervise we should make this clear for Nokia thatt US/UK/German also want this device!

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Agreed, but better HW + optimized OS = :D (+ "future proof")

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

i would argue that traditional advertising is much less important these days. more people are reading engadget and cnet than ever, and these pages are often linked to from popular pages like huffington post and cnn. word of mouth is what matters to the n9, and thus far it has been overwhelmingly positive :D

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

yes - we will have another 1000 page thread and online petition !

Nokia will listen - I _know_ in my heart they will !

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Your use of the word "maybe" is just as speculative as the person you're going up against.

Until anything is official, the lack of the aforementioned markets being announced is not exactly a good sign. Having hope that will change isn't one that I'd suggest either.

And ultimately, where are the content services (music, video, maps, search, e-mail, apps (non-repository), et al) that are needed to be in place for such an endeavor? Ovi is being renamed, perhaps re-rolled out. And there's no music any longer - Comes With Music is "dead". Gaming? N-Gage is dead.

So there's a lot of missing parts to these announcements, looking at what's there is abysmal for those of us that want those things to be answered too. So it's beyond just a phone or platform. Developers need tools (already delivered), a place to put their findings (repositories) and a keyboard to compile/program on the device (Developer's Edition)... but not the consumer device. Less answers, a bunch of maybes, and a whole lot of folks wanting to say they know a lot, but the answers are just not in place.

Answer those, and I think you'll see the entire scope of what Nokia needs to do, or should do. And to answer the OP, the N900 was a geek phone. So is any phone that you can edit the UX/UI, kernel, file system, or can develop on.

That seemingly includes the N9. Let it be released to make final judgement on that.

Or speculate on...

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I would love to see Meego hacked on a non nokia device that has a HWKB for the heck of it. If successful it may raise more interest. What would be a good candidate amongst currently available devices? Is this possible to do on some current Chinese products? For example see

http://www.tabletpcmid.com/mid-c-87.html

My guess is the quality is suspicious and the components a little old but would be interesting if one succeeded to get to to work on such device or something better.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

- UX is mostly closed source, even more then the N900 was.
- Lacks gimmick features like FM that most geeks enjoy and like to fiddle with.
- Lacks major features like hardware keyboard, hdmi, a precision screen(note i did not say resistive).

I am not going to go in to detail about the features i miss on the N9 because this thread is not about the N9 but these few break the deal for me.

I think people like us, the geek type are not so few, we are consumers without met needs, ripe for the picking. Someone needs to come and pick.

I can't provide a link right now but i have read an article from some analyst familiar with the Chinese market that they are slowly jumping from the Android to Meego train because Google is still holding tightly on the Android reigns and Meego offers more freedom.
The projection was that Meego will completely overtake Android on the Asian market in 2-3 years.
I believe there even actually is a tablet running Meego from some Shanzai vendor so there might be a phone soon enough.

-edit-

http://www.shanzai.com/market-mayhem...ed-tablet.html

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Funny thing... geeks made the entire Harmattan come to life. Take a read and yet... it's not enough.

And for the record, the fact that out of the box the FM transmitter could not be used while charging was a serious deal breaker for me. Well that and I have a car stereo with USB connections as well as having a car stereo that can stream via Bluetooth, a FM transmitter is unnecessary. It's not a geek like, it's a your like. And I'm not a fan.

UX not being open? How sure are you about that?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I have already read Konttori's blog, my heart goes out to the guys working on Harmattan, i even posted it my facebook because it was honest and emotional and it really touched me but that does not make anything i have said not true.
I will agree with you on the FM transmitter part, its MY preference but its a preference of many other people too. I can go in to detail about other issues i have with the N9 like the battery but that was not my intention when i started this thread. I don't see why people have to persuade everyone that this is a device they want and need when they feel the opposite.

As for the UX not beeing open(not just the UX, core apps too), i am pretty sure since has been mentioned by Quim Gil on more then one occasion.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

@godofwar424

Extracted from the source page of:

view-source:http://europe.nokia.com/find-product...k-availability

Australia
Austria
Bulgaria
China
Croatia
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong (English)
Hongkong Chinese
Hungary
Malaysia
New Zealand
Portugal
Poland
Romania
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Singapore
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland German
Switzerlang French
UAE-Arabic
UAE-English

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Or just KIRF a N950 that just happens to be able to run meego.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Why should the developers get the keyboard while consumers have to go without? There are plenty of consumers that also are developers, just not blessed with Nokia's approval to get a N950.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

it may be a YOUR like, however why take it out? if the tech is not deprecated why take it out. it is the most IMMEDIATELY compatible feature in n900 ANY radio in the world will work. so bluetooth however useful, isnt the most saturated technology ... so merely because your positioned not to miss the Tx doesnt mean its not a geek want, the geeks developing the SoCs wouldnt include it, if it wasnt. ;)

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Hi, I'm gerbick. I tend to play devil's advocate. This would be one of those times...

I don't like the FM transmitter. Found it a wasted feature. I have a 32gb microSD card filled with music in my car stereo. It's more reliable, less fiddling, and better sounding than a FM transmitter. I have 32gb in Atrix. No music on there. I have 16gb in my HTC HD7s. No music there. I had a 16gb iPhone... no music on there either. I'm just not into having music on my phone - encourages people to touch my phone.

Again... personal preferences. Not saying you're wrong, I'm right or vice versa. I just cannot get behind that as a rallying part around liking or disliking anything. It's a frivolous feature.

Now the hardware keyboard... I could see why folks are rallying behind that. It directly affects the user experience. But to be honest, none of that compares to what will happen once the vendor support is announced - or lack thereof.

A pretty phone is pretty damn useless if there's nothing coming out for it. And I don't mean the open source apps either - those were already coming.

I've read it too, thought you knew more than I on that. But if that's the case, then let's be honest... this isn't an open phone either. Neither is Android. Neither is iOS. So in that regard, the whole idea of "it's open" needs to be dropped from people mouths and the truth needs to be said... this is a pretty UI on top of a Linux kernel that might/might not be more or less open than its competition.

So with that said, the OP has it more right than wrong... when will there be a geek phone that isn't an OpenMoko?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Outside of this group of geeks... I seriously cannot think of anybody that's used FM transmitter in their N900. I think it's a waste.

Just like I think that having an OS that has no support by any worthwhile vendor more than just one iteration of paid for software is worth a crap either.

I get what you're saying, but adding features to a phone that people used in a minority is called wasteful. And ultimately, the N9 is clearly not aimed at the core TMO member. Right now, people are justifying purchasing one - no hardware keyboard, no FM transmitter, the continued use of the OMAP3 CPU, it's no more open than the prior iteration of Maemo, no talk(s) about Flash, et al yet, even the switch to the Webkit2 based browser - is all being justified around here because... well, the N900 is getting old. This is the new shiny, shiny.

And as it stands, the so-called core features that people flocked around here aren't consumer friendly to begin with. Who releases a FM transmitter than won't work when you plug it in? Who releases a phone that will fill up the root fs if the apps aren't wisely optified? Who releases a phone to replace the aforementioned phone and removes: the keyboard, the FM transmitter, microB, sd card slot?

N900 (somehow) hit a sweet spot with geeks. N9 is hitting a sweet spot with non-geeks. And neither will sell half as well as a Galaxy S and its variations.

So yeah... I can nitpick on the FM transmitter. I found it a useless feature. Same for current phones with NFC - no use for that either. Hell... I don't have much use for the N9 to be honest. But for totally different reasons than you lot are going about...

I just think it's overpriced. Plastic phones shouldn't start at $660. Especially ones that do not have a way to expand the memory.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Maybe i wasn't clear enough in my first post but the N900 was open enough for me(like you said, it hit a sweet spot, the current Android form just doesn't tickle my fancy) and i am looking for something that will prolong that experience(a beefed up, refreshed N900) so saying that OpenMoko is the only thing that qualifies as a geek phone is an exaggeration.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Ask Nokia. I find that whole fragmentation silly. Release one with a keyboard, one without... let the consumer/developer/whomever decide.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Last I checked, the N9 is new, the N900 isn't being manufactured any longer.

So exaggeration based on that; I think not. Glad you found the N900 open enough for you and the N9 isn't open enough for you it seems... so what part of that aforesaid logic is incorrect?

As it stands, within a few months, your ability to find a new, still in the box N900 will be dependent on back stock. That's not exactly what I'd call ideal.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

I think the N900 is more free...
And N900 have a physical keyboard!

It's amazing to know that Nokia don't heard us!

The N9 is very pretty, but not so powerfull (only one processor) and without keyboard, some geeks will keep the best Linux phone, the Nokia N900!

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Edited my post for a bit of clarity.

The chances of such device are slim at best hence this thread.
I am pretty confident that many of the TMO members and other IT enthusiasts not limited to the TMO realm have similar needs as mine.

Some of those will take the "one step forward, two steps back" and buy the N9, others wont.

Are those others so few that no big company finds it profitable enough to design a device according to the needs of those others?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

Hi, I'm daperl, an actual Maemo 5, Maemo 4, former iOS and just-starting Harmattan developer. You're spreading FUD. Please don't.

Open isn't binary (that's kinda geek funny), it's a spectrum. You can't talk about the "openness" or "closedness" of Diablo/Fremantle/Harmattan and iOS in the same sentence and still be credible.

When us developers and hackers finish going through the APIs, we'll let you know how open or closed Harmattan is. Thanks.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

One small step for Nokia, one giant step backwards for maemo kind.

It really is a big dissapointment in terms of hardware specs. Sure it LOOKS nice, and has a half decent looking camera, but processor is already almost out of date and no hardware keyboard. It's big myth that 'nobody wants a hardware keyboard'. Salespeople in phone shops keep telling my wife SHE doesn't want one, but ever since she played with my n900 she has been waiting for a decent android phone WITH a keyboard. People buy what is in the shop and not many people wait for long. They will just do without. There are a few people at work with iphones and most of them have said 'I wish these had hw keyboards'. If the companies make them, people will buy them. Perhaps one day in the future there will be a 'clip on/off' keyboard that integrates with several phones and can slide in/out.

Anyway what I really wanted to say/ask was that with the dissapointing hardware of the n9, what about turning an already existing device into a 'geek phone'. A good start might be the SE xperia pro, which my wife has decided she wants. It's got better specs, a hw keyboard. Comes with android. I've been reading about alien dalvik and what it could do for meego, BUT what could it do in reverse? Is that even possible- i.e to put alien dalvik on an android phone, and get it to run maemo/meego stuff, or actually achieve what may be the holy grail of allowing boot of maemo 5 or meego. So instead of using an n900 to dual boot NITdroid or maemo, you could use whatever adroid phone to dual boot adroid or maemo etc.
THEN it could be like having a new geek phone available to choose from every few months, every time an adroid hw keyboard device is released. Everyone could potentially have maemo/meego put on it.

Does anyone know more info about that possibility?

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

who is going to compromise and buy an imperfect device?
EVERYONE
what manufacturer is going to make a phone that has every possible feature?
...
try to choose a device that exists rather than complaining forever.

Re: Who is going to make a geek phone?
 

The reason was alluded to by Gerbick. Cellphones with mass consumer appeal command high prices and garner good profit margins. Add to that the "ecosystem" related profits. No big company wants to forego those profits for a low profit margin open phone. Nokia flirted with it, but has now turned away. Our hope is the Tier 3 manufacturer who can't hope to compete for those same profits as the big companies. In the past, they might have turned to Android, hopefully they will turn to MeeGo in the future and we can leverage from there with what we have in the community.