If it involves a detacheable and reversible screen portion, it's been suggested already.

In fact, just about anything possible and impossible has been. I think that in the end the clamshell design has one huge thing going for it: It's simple and less prone to breakage.

I love clamshell designs soo much. But, I'm really starting to dig the tablet design even more.

The only thing driving me away from the Pandora is the super wide thumbboard. If they're gonna make me stick with a crappily designed thumbboard like the first HTC slider devices that came out years ago, I'll just stick with the Gigabyte M528. I really don't like sliders, but if that's the only way I can get a keyboard on a tablet-like device... so be it.

It's also hard for me to put money into something like Pandora, because I don't have faith in all open source communities, only a select few. The Gigabyte M528 will prolly only have 3hrs of battery life, but with Canonical and Intel backing Ubuntu Mobile & Moblin on the most common x86 platform... support will NOT be an issue there. I think I could manage to carry around an extra battery or two if need be. I almost feel like Nokia will be soon giving up on their tablet endeavor if they don't start pumping out better hardware. It's sad that the N800 seemed better than the N810 all around, and now they've discontinued the N800. Sad, sad, sad, Nokia!

Karel, do you know when the Pandora should be released? ... and what the supposed dimensions will be??

You try the link in his sig? I think there's dimensions there, but if not, just search around a bit. They're on one of the three or so Pandora sites, which seem more-or-less equal in officialness.

WRT communities, I hope Debian is sufficiently faith-inspiring? It's likely, from what I've seen, that Debian will work nicely on the Pandoras with no closed-source components required.

As for Nokia, I think the N810 is hardware-wise ahead of most competitors; the
N800 is just better because it's so much ahead of the competitors. (No, there's no good reason for falling behind, IMHO, but that doesn't make it worse than it is.) And the next hardware version will be a lot better, though I must confess I'm concerned they may keep some of the external blunders.

That's actually a hard one at the moment: Developer editions of the Pandora have been shipped already since may (100 select developers received a DIY, semi-prototype version, in order to get software development running).

Normally, commercial versions of the Pandora should ship in July, but the makers have hit a snag: The manufacturer of the analog "thumb sticks" (game controllers) has unexpectedly bailed out. There are replacements available, but they are all compromises and the community is still arguing about it. At the moment, august is put forward as a reasonable shipping date.

Keep in mind that the original production run will "only" be 3,000 units, but new runs are dependent on its success and, given that the first 3,000 are likely already spoken for (there are no preorders possible yet, but the preorder mailing list is rather full, I'm told), I shouldn't worry if I didn't get one of the first batch.

Dimension wise, the Pandora is a little bit larger than a Nintendo DS Lite. It is quite pocketable.

I admit that I'm too lazy to check the website and ml, but hopefully you can answer few questions:
-what sort of kernel is it going to run? TI one?
-is there any contribution to the linux-omap ml? I don't recall seeing anybody mentioning pandora in patches
-what omap is it gonna use: 34xx or 35xx?
-does it use the IVA? For what?
-does it use the DSP bridge in the original form?
-what power management techniques does it implement?
-are the operating points known?

This is my point. N800 is miles ahead of everybody because it was first in line.

N810 would be selling lots more if there was more R&D put into the keyboard/input. For example, moving the 5-way pad from the top of the tablet was friggin' ******ed. Ridding the 2 SD slots of the N800 for 1 miniSD slot of the N810 was friggin' ******ed. Really... the only reason I could see to buy the N800 is the *slightly* smaller dimensions (insignificant) and GPS (so slow that it's also insignificant). The N800 & N810 were supposed to sell "alongside" each other... but the N810 didn't sell like they'd expected, so they canceled the N800. Smooth move, Nokia.

As for the Pandora device... I'd highly consider it, but they'd need to change thumbboard to something like I described above. Treo keys with slightly more space between keys. Then gaming joystick/buttons to the left & right of the thumbboard.

I could live without the swiveling clamshell feature, and I'd gladly pay more for licensing fees to get that feature... Wondering if there'd be some kinda way for the current Pandora's hinges to just fold all the way around, so that the keys would be showing on the other side... but they'd be disabled. That idea can't be patented, right?

Oh yes it can. And it has been.

(Your idea was suggested on the forum and dismissed by the developers because it too has been patented)

Two things I DON'T want to see:

1) Anything remotely resembling a GSM radio or SIM card. That means that there will be exclusive carrier contracts, and people will be left out in the cold. Besides, don't like the company and drop the coverage? Chances are your fancy toy is dead.

2) Charging via USB. The idea here is mobility. How mobile are you if you can only charge from a computer (or spend even more for an adapter), instead of being able to plug into any wall outlet (think hotel, airport, coffee shop, etc). May as well leave the Nxxx at home and bring your laptop, since you wouldn't be able to charge your Nxxx without it anyways.

Now, a couple things I DO want to see.

1) A keyboard with nubs or something. Seriously, my fingers are fat. I like the concept of a keyboard, and it's fine when you get used to it, but that flat keyboard is hard to type with.

2) A swiveling camera (didn't the N800 have it?). I don't videoconference, however, I would value the ability to take photos not including myself from my Nxxx... (cause face it, I'm ugly)

Nothing not already suggested though.

@spaceman3750:
#2: There are lots of small USB A\C adapter in the market. So you can have your cake and eat it too on this point.
ie: http://www.usbfever.com/index_eprodu...roducts_id=443

PS: That's an interesting public disclosure on your list of things u DO want to see...
#1: You're Fat
#2: And ugly

Two days ago I was watching the Italy match against France ( *grin* ) on the sofa with my tablet as a companion (my girlfriend was not interested and was playing with her toys in the kitchen).
During the match I was commenting with friends on-line that are now living around the world (one was in New Delhi [at that time in Columbus], one in Germany and one [still] here in Italy).

At the end of the match, one of them asked me:

"where are you skyping from ? you're typing really fast!"

He thought I was skyping from a laptop. And he knew I can type really fast from a laptop too!

And that made me think that after being accustomed to the keyboard, you can type really fast.
I'll post a picture showing my fingers on the keyboard, so that you can see if I am fat or not

Update: there you have it

http://picasaweb.google.com/anidel/M...04142767011602