When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I really love my N900, but after getting it and enjoying it every day since i got it, i as everybody want more :), is there anything on the horizon that has what i need?

My needs after having the N900 are without a doubt:
- Hardware keyboard
- BIG Screen (>4") and nothing less then the new res of 1280x720 or better
- Dual core processor, the coolest thing here where if it could be 32/64x instead of ARM
- Audio output as good or better then the N900, here im thinking of the speakers, not S/N and general audio quality.
- TV-Out, pref both analog and HDMI with the option of running FULL Dual view or going to external monitor and using the max res of external monitor.
and the most important of course, an OPEN OS, im thinking of ubuntu, maemo is so f*ng good, it is without a doubt the best i have ever used on mobile devices, but i would just love a full ubuntu install, and then we could develop an UI like maemo to go on top like the cordia project.

Now the processor in the good old 32x system would be sweet, then i could just use wine to play the good old games like insane and flatout etc... just having all the good old stuff without the need for port would be cool.

After having the N900 all the points are what is needed.
The things that are cool but not necessary since i only use them now and then and can be made as an addon are things like FM transmitter, IR transmitter, cool and nice functions tho.

The N900 for me is still the best thing i have ever used, still the device that offers almost all that i want, still even if it is getting old and hardware wise lagging behind the general smartphone field it is still so much better because of the OS and the build quality is also a good factor, despite the fact that i have made small improvements like the strengthening of the USB, but it is a joy to take apart and easy to work with.

I do how ever hope that some manufacture will make something like it but with the specs i put down, and with ubuntu on it.
But if nothing is offered i will enjoy using my N900 for years to come :)

Also note that i have written this post on the N900, and that would suck with an On Screen Keyboard, only thing missing in browser is spelling control :P.

The last thing to say is that an added + with the N900 is introducing me to this awesome forum, with all the awesome users here.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I say we just start our own hardware company, but then again we'll probably be sued down the ground for any patented features.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

That's the conclusion i always come to...., if only we had the tech and such to do it.

I would love to make an N900 replica with bigger screen and bigger keyboard well bigger everything, even speakers and maybe throw in an 2x3W amp like the one i posted in the diy audio thread

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Yes you are right an n900 with a bigger screen, a capacitive screen, 16.7 M colors, a better processor, a 12 mega pixel carl zeis optics camera, a 4 row hardware keyboard with a separate row for numbers, and a huge memory...

BUT ALSO WITH MAEMO OS.
that would be the only replacement for n900 at least for now.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Good old times eh?...
The specs that you have posted are insane. Nothing in the market still has that!
I would love to make it simple:

• 4" Super Amoled Plus @ 960x540
• 1.6 GHz Quad-Core Arm Cortex a9/15 (Tegra Kal-El?)
• A beastly GPU clocked @ an insane speed (Tegra Kal-El?)
• 1.5 to 2 GBs of whatever fast DDRx is here RAM
• 128 GB internal HDD
• A ****IN' HARDWARE KEYBOARD!!!!!!!
• 3D stereo
• NFC!!!
• At least some dual 8MP Cameras with 3D 1080p video recording @ 60fps
• LINUX! I don't care what type, what UI, just make it LINUX! Not java crapware!
• All the extra goodies: A-GPS, WiFi, BT, HDMI...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

BTW, Nvidia is very late regarding its CPUs, the Kal-El that will be released in devices (Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime) will have to face the god damned TI beast, the OMAP 5!!!
We're talking a 40nm built processer vs. a 28nm processor
A 1.3GHz quad-core arm cortex a9 vs. a 2GHz dual-core arm cortex a15
One-channel LPDDR2 vs. Dual-Channel DDR3

The Omap 5 defeats the Kal-El in everything, except the GPU. Nvidia certainly has put some effort on its 12 core ULP Geforce, vs. the single core SGX544.

I just don't understand why TI likes going cheap on the GPUs, the OMAP 4 currently is still using that 4 years old SGX 540, and the OMAP 5 won't be a wowing upgrade...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

on the screen note, samsung note and one of the new LG models have that resolution, one in 5"+ and the LG has 4.3 or 4.5" and they have 1280x720 and 1280x800.
Just think of browsing web pages without having to scroll sideways.

When all is said, im not upgrading for less then that res, dual core cpu and HWKB.
The 86x cpu would be nice for the sake of not waiting for game ports, as far as i know almost all linux programs have been recompiled for ARM.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

might not be a real problem it appears,
you need to actually be an economic threat
before anyone (apple,google nokla whoever)
takes any serious interest.

With the raspberry and other such sbcs
coming out soon it will probably be the only way to go.

the key is to identify a platform ( someone else builds)
and then assemble/integrate such a machine and OS
over the top, adding accessories (GPS, telefony, camera, etc).

right now our beloved n900 is still the only best solution,
but it would only take a few weeks with a few crates of parts
and something like ArchBang or Gentoo to make
a real impact.
i just finished looking at a relic I have had,
the old AIGO p8860 and only now, three years later,
software has caught up with it - almost.
it is still a joule-guzzling brick, but it is so sweet to carry,
Too bad it is a piece of spaghetti implementation.

all the Androids are useless for this due to their lockdown
(I regard the 'root' process and all the pre-packaged
binary hacks as a _fail_ - if it cannot be reprogged to
boot and install a clean distro then it is just a transitory kludge)

personally ( only my skewed opinion )
it appears to be time to start using rolling distros,
as the pace of all this is now measured in weeks
where the static distros (with their cyces measured in months)
will soon find themselves unable to compete.
I have used Mandriva and opensuse over the years,
but am now migrating to LMDE which, while not quite 'rolling'
is quite a bit closer to the leading edge (with all the woes!)
I refused to upgrade my mandriva2010.2 since
the repositories are so far behind what we can have
by a simple download untar make make install sequence.

although I still enjoy puttering around inside Maemo,
the siren call summons - of having a system that does not have
locked down blobs that are dictated by some *****
in a corporate cubicle.

this will all come together now, it is only a matter of time.

good luck

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

All I see on the horizon these days are corporations lusting after the dollars Apple is making, and therefore copying everything they do. In short, devices specifically targeted towards technophobes. No keyboards, no stylii -- a fingerpainting-based ui is sufficient! Besides, users are consumers of data, not producers. They should just sit back and watch the device. And, of course spend money while doing it.

And yeah, no access to the underlying OS, no ability to run arbitrary software, heck, the last time I touched iOS you couldn't even put files on the internal storage yourself, only iTunes is allowed to do so. (Dunno if that has changed any in the last year or two.)

I don't know how long my n900 will last (or if I'll be able to find replacements for it), but I'm starting to go back to the idea of carrying around a cheap dumb phone and a small useful computer. As the phone companies continue to churn out locked-down cookie-cutter idiot boxes, there are now a decent variety of little open devices starting to appear:

http://openpandora.org/
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
http://beagleboard.org/
http://www.gumstix.com/

I still think my old HP Journada was the perfect form factor for truly portable computing. A keyboard just large enough to touch-type on, a screen large enough to be fairly comfortable. I still dream of someday fitting one of these newer boards into it, and setting up the perfect portable Linux box...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

with, I forgot to mention,
a real screen (5in?) and a frakking hardware keyboard

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

i'd love a N900 like device with PS Vita's SoC. Quad A9 with a SGX543MP4+.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

It depends on the clock speed at which TI will run the SGX544. At 400 MHz, bye bye T3 GPU.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Me too. Something with the size a Nokia E7 with a better camera.

;)

Edit: I mean an E7 with Maemo but with E7 body and N8 Camera.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

im gonna use the n900 forever, ill probly stockpile them for when they get scarce. mmmmm. id rather have a handheld computer and a seperate dumbphone than most of the smartphones.

that being said, and not to hijack your thread, but...

i signed up for nokia developer in a scramble to try and get an n950, but just missed the boat. well i just checked my email for the first time in like 6 mo and nokia sent me a notification of a free lumia 800. has anyone else gotten this? is it worth filling it out for them to send it to me?

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Just get an iPhone 4s. It works . It's great.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

:D
N900 Hardware upgrade thread here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32864

If the chips swap out and swap in, and we find someone that can do a bunch of these, I would be in :)

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

In this case it would be better to have a whole new MB designed, this way we could have dual core, better camera and such, even get a better screen with a bit more higher res.

But that is not enough if you ask me, i would rather have a bigger device with all the things i describe in post #1, this will also allow for a bigger battery in length and width.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

No see guys manufacturers have decided that all you want to do on your devices is "download apps". Dont need a hwkb for that, or an OS with any smarts. On the contrary the more simple the UI is with cool transition effects the more you like it. </trolling>

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

GTA04 http://gta04.org/ is a nice example for hardware upgrades done by an almost community like setup.

Maybe a GTA05 can have the spec you are looking for....

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I think I could easily live with the N900 for another year (or more) if there was a decent mapping/nav solution. I know, everyone says to look at Mappero, Modrana, or something like that...or perhaps the enhanced Nokia maps...but none of it works as well and as easily as the native Google Maps client on Android or S60. That's really the ONE deficiency that irritates me regularly.

I'm actually surprised that with all the dev time in these other apps, no one has tried to copy as close as possible, the Google-made client.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Yes that project is very cool, something like that but a MB that fits in our N900 would be awesome, then all that is needed is a higher res screen, and it could be 1 year+ before they get to the point of having HD res in <3.5" (1280x720)

But would be nice to upgrade our N900 with dual core, and better GPU etc.

But all in all i you like my N900 bigger as stated in post #1

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I also never thought I would find a N900 replacement until I got the Galaxy Note and it's the closest thing to a perfect phone right now on the market for uber geeks who want everything in a phone.

5.3" Super AMOLED HD (1280x800)
Capacitive touch + passive stylus digitizer (Wacom based)
1.4GHz Exynos SoC. (I'm running mine at 1.6Ghz rock stable)
Supports 64GB Micro SDXC card.
Can read/write NTFS. (>4GB files e.g MKV videos)
VNC, VPN, USB OTG, full native USB or BT mouse/keyboard support, HDMI out etc.
Also has user replaceable 2600mAH battery. (nearly 50% more talk time than iPhone4s or N9 according to gsmarena battery test)
ICS upgrade by Samsung in Q1 2012.
Plays practically every video container/codec combo on the internets.
Super loud/clear earpiece speaker for phone calls.
Better WiFi reception than my N900.

Oh, and the gazillion number of apps pretty much allows you to have every function/feature you ever wanted or was used to on the N900. (heck, it's even more customizable than the N900)

Anyways, I got used to the size after a day and now I don't think I can ever go back to a smaller sized phone.
Until something more radical comes out, I truly believe there is no better phone on the market than this little, errr, humongous beauty.

btw, N900's hardware keyboard is AWESOME. I've owned the E7 as well and it just doesn't compare to the N900 in terms of comfort even though E7 has bigger button layout. It's due to the hard gaps between the keys on the E7 it seems. N900 is so much more comfortable IMO to type. Also, the OS doesn't do the HW keyboard justice on the E7. It just doesn't compare to the amazing N900 + Maemo5. Galaxy Note doesn't have a hw keyboard but I prefer it to the E7. Swype is actually pretty cool if you get used to it and is less prone for errors and is faster to type. But yeah, it's no N900. But nothing is. :p

This video of it gives you a good rundown of what you can expect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JyfrD4VrHY

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Go for The note. I love it. Galaxy note II with Tizen and hw Keyboard would be the dream...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Yes the note seems awesome, from the first time i saw it i was thinking of having something like it, putting a keyboard on it, can live with a BT keyboard like you can get with tablets/ipad, and i would actually prefer it as such, have it like a normal laptop in the sense that you unfold it like a normal laptop.

I would just love it if android could be TOTALLY deleted and have one of the *buntu ARM dist's on it instead.
There are so many things i love with the note, just 2 VERY critily points, no HW-KB and Android.

I would rather have a full linux instead of android with 200,000+ apps.
no matter what they do with android it will never really be ROOTED, it will never really meet what we maemo users crave, the N900 for me offers the most so far.

Also i have no problem with using it for years, will rather wait instead of just buying this and that.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Agreed ..I resited/never wanted smartphones for many years they all seemed like glorified ipods with a cell phone ...until the N900

It is the only phone that I ever "really" wanted and am willing to wait years for these manufactures to get their heads out of their asses and make something atleast equal to the N900.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

We're probably not seeing a phone manufactured by a big-name officially running a GNU/Linux distro ever again, because right now, everybody's buying Android.

A lot of normal folks find Android fantastic compared to iOS - just a few examples: desktop widgets, extendable notification bar and best of all, adding media is just like adding to a USB drive, no iTunes needed, sideloading apps is incredibly idiot-proof (4shared being the #1 example)

It's either Maemo.org makes a Maemophone N900.1 pocket rocket 5" octo-core phone (I don't think we can name it that, though) or we wait for somebody to make a device hackable enough and hack it to fit our needs (Sharp IS01? Toshiba AC100? Meizu MX? Xiaomi MI-One?)

Either way, it's going to be a long time before we can have something usable as a daily usage device.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Uhm, the N900 is not usable as a daily usage device? :)

I got my first "smartphone" something like five years ago when I picked up an iPhone. I thought I would be using it intensely, every day, to perform all sorts of tasks. However, I quickly found that I left it sitting on my desk all day long almost every day. I really don't need to play games, or watch videos, or even listen to music all that much... The stuff I do spend my time doing, the iPhone was practically useless for. It ended up being just a terribly expensive phone.

All I see coming out of the phone companies today are bigger, brighter, more beautiful expensive paperweights. I'm sure there are lots of people out there happy to sit hunched over all day watching the little television set in their hands -- I'm just not one of them.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

How about building a phone ourselves on the Raspberry PI board? Would that be viable? Would we be able to install Maemo 5 on it without the closed source bits?

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

or just plain ubuntu with homemade gui that looks like maemo, like a reverse easy debian :)

The "extreme" PI that plays 1080 would be nice, it has a connector to attach a LCD screen, and still has HDMI out
So with that we can pretty much use any LCD, this could mean something like the 5" HD screen.

good idea there, this will actually give a real alternative, give a choice to make your own mini laptop like i see the N900, and the PI even has LAN and such.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I used to be (still am) a Maemo user and the N900 was a love and hate relationship from when I bought it back in 2009. By end of 2010, I felt that N900 couldn't do majority of the stuff that I needed/wanted my mobile phone to do which high-end Android phones could provide. (both software and hardware wise) Come end of 2011 and the supposedly-successor N9 wasn't that much better. The limitations started to outweigh a lot more than its capabilities. So I ended up getting Galaxy Note which could fulfil all the things which N900/N9 couldn't provide or was really lacking in. If Nokia makes something which can compete with it, I will consider it for sure. But for now, there is nothing that comes close. :(

For me, yes. N900 is non-provisioning so it can't be used for my work Exchange server emails. (this started to matter this year when I changed jobs which made me look for another mobile) It also doesn't provide the level of Korean input support (e.g. no VKB for it) so it's quite frustrating to use sometimes for me. (Nokia had the worst Korean-input support of all phone companies until they took onbboard WP7...)

Add to that, faster, more capable and more supported. N900/N9 has become a paperweight to me after I got the Note. I reckon this will happen to many here if they get one and try it themselves as it can browse web better, has longer battery life, take photos/videos better, play videos/music better, play games better, is more customizable in both UI/UX with less tinkering, has more apps/games for my kids, is a better VNC/RDP client etc etc. I've never liked Android OS that much and I'm with you on Maemo/Harmattan being awesome, but when paired with Note's amazing hardware, I realized N900 just wasn't enough anymore.

It's sad that Nokia didn't take advantage of people like us. They should have released a production version of N950 with the HW keyboard as well as N9 etc with better hardware and more investment put into it. Did you know that in Australia, N9 is already considered end of life by most telcos? Vodafone no longer sells it after 2 months and it's out of stock on most other telco's also. That just makes me upset as it seems Nokia doesn't really care much about N9/Meego/Harmattan anymore. (well, to the people that make the decisions at least)

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Ah, now here's something I've never really understood. Something like, oh, maybe ten years ago, we had these things called PDAs. And they somehow had perfect integration with Windows e-mail; at least that seemed to be how it worked. Every serious business person had a Blackberry, it seemed.

Nowadays, we get more and more features on phones, and they get less and less able to communicate with Windows e-mail servers. (Not any other type of email, mind you -- every phone out there, the N900 included, works just fine with all normal e-mail systems. Just not with Windows e-mail.)

But yeah, if you need a Microsoft-compliant phone, you gotta have a Microsoft-compliant phone. I guess that's just the way the world works.

(I apologize for the tone of voice, I'm not a big fan of Exchange.)

Yeah, this is a problem for Linux in general -- internationalization is spotty and oddly-implemented. Thats one area where the big corporations seem to have the edge these days.

And again, here's where we diverge. I see all the people doing all these amazing things with their phones. I expected I would do the same. I got one of these wonderful phones. It did, as advertised, provide all these wonderful capabilities. I used these capabilities for, oh, maybe a week or two. After that, it was just a phone sitting on my desk.

The idea of my phone being a wonderful little toy was appealing. The reality of my phone being a wonderful little toy was underwhelming. My desktop computers are much better toys, and I'm just not away from them long enough to make having a little smartphone toy worthwhile.

Hmm. "Less tinkering" I might believe. "More customizable" seems highly unlikely. :) I'm here writing my own little apps for my N900 (in C++ no less, something verboten in both iOS and Android), I'd have to jailbreak or root any other phone to do that...

Yeah, Nokia has been in something of a tailspin for years now, unfortunately. But I've left the iPhone world behind now, and have no interest in hopping on the Android bus. If I have to get a new phone, I'll get a cheap dumb phone. If I need to work with Exchange, I'll get a cheap netbook or something. (At least with those, I can dual-boot into Linux to get real work done.)

The modern world of portable-toy-smartphones just leaves me cold for some reason...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I am seriously thinking about doing this. I will buy my Raspberry PI as soon as they are available. But will it be possible to use a touch lcd screen?

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

lol the lights are on, but nobody's home?? :D

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

i read on the forums for PI that it was possible to do so, all about "drivers" to reconize touch screen

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

bingomion what??

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

By this you mean get $LINUX_DISTRO and install Fremantle Hildon-Desktop? Maemo needs a massive rework from the ground up, from the horribly written initscripts to the proprietary bits (and d-bus abuse). It's a lot better to start from a regular Desktop Linux distro, slap on the things that make Maemo look like Maemo, thus making a nice cushion of support for core components while letting devs focus on modernizing whatever components of Maemo we have (you know, like our multitasking that's still 9000 years ahead of everybody else).

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

I love my N900, that is why I have two. One in the box waiting for my current one to die, which is fortunately not looking like it will be soon. So, I hope to have an N900 on my pocket for the next few years. I am perfectly fine with that. I just did my first PyQt application for it and I am delighted.

I have been a KDE fan for a long time. So, what I am looking forward to is a pocketable KDE device. Give me a pocket device with KDE, and PyQt or PySide on it, at a reasonable price (under $500) and I will buy one, or two, or ...

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Well, all iPhones, Windows Phone 7 or higher phones. Android (gingerbread or higher) phones, Symbian phones, Meego Harmattan phones (N9 at least) can all work perfectly with Exchange provisioning. But sadly, N900 does not.

I can totally agree with leaving the iPhone world. :p My wife has one and no matter what, I hate it. Even my wife now wants an Android phone as iPhone is so restricted, too dependent on itunes and the screen size is way too small. (she wants minimum 4.3" now)

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Yes this is something in line with what i was thinking.
Can't we also make something like this for our N900, i mean is there not some way of making a custom flash and flashing it like normal eMMC and Vanilla?, like the easy debian, but flashing only that no maemo.

Lets face it everybody maemo is awesome, but it should not be hard to transfer/make own to some barebone DIST, also it would be awesome to could go out to a log in screen and instead switching to KDE or even GNOME (if possible), maybe even some lightweight Unity for those that like it.

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

Well, cool then. My iPhone didn't work perfectly with Exchange, but then my iPhone was a first-generation model... I guess I don't keep up with this the way I used to.

Maybe I'm getting too old. 3.5 inch screen, 4.3 inch screen, I gotta squint either way. Being stuck with Apple's severe restrictions, or stuck with Google's slightly different severe restrictions, just doesn't make a huge difference to me. Being forced to use the iTunes app store doesn't seem that much worse than having a choice of which Android app store you are forced to use; Apple has certainly put tons of time and effort into their store...

In the details, iPhones and Android phones are certainly different. As a whole, though, I look at an Android phone and I still see Steve Jobs' handiwork -- an amazing, ultra-friendly user interface, helping you every step along the way, while keeping you from ever touching any of the guts of the machine. "A computer as easy to use as a toaster" was Jobs' mantra back from when he created the first Macintosh.

The "cellphone easy as a toaster" concept is a great idea, for the right audience. Maybe for most people, even. But honestly, there have to be other ways of creating products out there, for other kinds of people, right?

Re: When will there be anything that can replace my N900
 

i like the way gnome 3 multitasks, kinda like maemo