Congratulations!

Spoiled we are, both by incredible hardware (just think of it: the N800 was introduced in early 2007 and still, two and a half years later, is the best piece of mobile computing for many people here) and equally amazing software. (I agree that many aspects of Maemo, like power management, multitasking etc, are a dream come true.)

But then: what's so bad about being spoiled? I want them to keep spoiling me with the same quality of hardware and software for years to come. I don't want it to end. I don't want the normal, so-so user experience that other gadgets provide.

Hardware wise the tablets are the best possible laptop replacement. Since the 770 was released in 2005, no one has come near to such wonderful hardware.

Why peter tell us? Why drop the tablet? Did they not sell very well. I understand that until now it was a side project. That is fine. It is good that maemo is finally moving mainstream. But how hard is it for you guys to remove the guts of the n810 and replace them with the current hardware addtions? We really dont want anything else. Just give us that.

Please

Heh.. And an effective way to deal with spoiled children is to ignore their whining.


YARR!
}:^)~
Canarupt

Thanks for pointing that out. I (mistakenly) take Maemo for granted. Having never used Linux before, I've just figured this is what modern-day Linux is like.

Hmmm GeraldKo ... huh, are you just kidding me or is it true ?

Anyway, to my experience, other Linuxes are a lot less user friendly on small laptops and handhelds than Maemo on N8xx.

C'est vrai.

How is that compared to the default, and why did you pick this? Is the default good, and comparable to the quality of a Kindle or iPhone? You want the default settings as tuned as possible to the general public (not niches or special cases) while giving those with disability an easy option to opt for their optimization.

I realize they might matter to some people but it is called making sacrifices. I, and I believe neither does Nokia, do not believe the market for e-book readers of the N8x0 screen size and resolution is that high.

I don't want niche niches on my device. I want to have killer applications. Applications which are the best job on a device. Not 300 video players and 400 audio players. Not 20 browsers. Too much choice is not good, and as I've visited K-Mart, Fry's and Media Markt I've experienced this myself. For mobile device I want 1 very good browser as default which suits most people needs. Yes, I want you to be able to use Skyfire or MicroB but not as default browser. Likewise, I don't want to read a lot of text on my mobile devices because the screens are too small, no matter how good the font is. For that I prefer a bigger screen (Kindle/netbook or bigger), or good ol' paper. You'd be surprised how small one book is, and that is most I can read in a limited amount of time anyway. Yes, you can have a lot of with you on a mobile device, that has its advantage too. Then ofcourse some people might prefer different, and those people I want to give their right to change that (but there are always limits!). Meanwhile, I want others (Nokia, Apple, etc) to research what the best font is for the job. And when there is room I want to integrate my own applications and use cases on the device. That 400 different audio players phenomenom is something which was Captain Obvious in Linux 10 years ago, and to me it is a sign of an immature platform. We see something similar now because 1) hardware size (physical, memory, storage, cpu cycles) is smaller 2) its interactive device 3) its mobile device 4) it tries to do a lot of things at same time 5) all that, on Linux (not OSX or S60 or ...). So that means you really have to adapt the software and hardware a lot, so you cannot simply take all of Linux with GNU and put simply Debian on the device. Its too bloated, and not specially made for the specifications of the hardware and goals of the device. Now that was mostly software. The hardware limits are different. You can work around them, and one of the ways to work around it in our user case is using an external screen. Because even if you still want a swiss army knife sacrifices have to be made, and will be made. I do understand you might not like some of the choices being made! But we have to live with the fact that this is Nokia's choice.

It has been long clear that many of you folks, including benny1967 and daperl, are not happy with the direction of Nokia's Maemo products. Why not design your own hardware and use Maemo/Mer as software stack and make your own swiss army knife, leaving Nokia making their NokimAE(mo)Fone with capacitive screen, Linux, multi pointer X... I can't wait... while clearly some dislike or hate this direction.

Also keep in mind sometimes its better to not opt for a swiss army knife. If you're truelly an e-book freak, this is your main purpose, and find something like Kindle too big then consider buying a dedicated, small e-book reader. Such as Readius. That has a foldable screen.

I have tried many Linuxes on notebooks, netbooks, and laptops, though not on handhelds, and I have found them pretty user friendly.

Those 4 features all my mobile devices have. Even my old S40 phone had that. It only would crash 1 time a month, and taking out and in the battery would reboot the thing then. For the rest, it Just Worked. Ofcourse, it did not do much.

So, hardware is different too. Zaurus also had different hardware. Yes, compared to default ROM for Zaurus Maemo is indeed amazing but the general public compares Maemo to:

* S60
* Windows Mobile
* iPhoneOS
* Android

Or rather, they compare an end product (with hardware and software) to another product. And, usually they compare the out of the box experiences with each other. So the out of the box experience and default settings are very, very important.

What you will see is for example G1 or G2 compared to Nokia N900. Or the new iPhone compared to Palm Pre. What OS they run is not even mentioned in name. The general public will not care the device runs Linux or not either, because it Just Works. A minority cares, and that minority wants to be able to modify the thing under the hood. Some kind of legal Cydia community.

I don't see the point of this discussion about default font & font size.

What is nice with eBook is that you can change these fonts and sizes according to your taste and your eyes. The bigger the screen, the more words you can display, or the bigger fonts you can reasonably use ... and the more comfortable you'll be. And so, eBook reading is a lot more comfortable on our NIT than on iPhone.

Obviously if pixel size is too big, small fonts will not be very smooth.
But you can compare with Sony eReader : 6" and 800x600 pixels.
If we get a tablet in 7" with 800x480, pixels are bigger, yes, but i believe it's still ok, especially if you consider that on a tablet's color screen, you can use very efficient sub-pixel font smoothing technology, not available on Kindle & eReader.