So the default position of your thumb is over the screen? That's very uncommon usage. Why would you care about the screen size if you don't see it anyway.

In my case, I generally have my hands and thumbs positioned in a way that makes it most comfortable to hit the screen, so hitting a hardware button requires some repositioning.

I generally am not comfortable using any of the hardware buttons on the N810, although the fullscreen button is not so bad.

So what you are saying is that Nokia decided to abandon its attempt to create a new market (IT) and decided to compete instead in the markets created by Apple (iPhone) and Asus (eee).

Heya everybody !

I hope these specs aren't really official, otherwise, i won't buy such a device. 3,5" screen isn't enough for me. 4,2 was quite good but i would have enjoyed 5".

3,5" is just like many other smartphones, and so, doesn't make a big difference.

The N810 kbd is really disapointing, so if I want a kbd, i can take my E90 with its amazing kbd (and E90 is a lot more powerfull for video than my NIT)

Even the rumored HTC HD pro will be better (better keyboard).

And if i don't want so much a good keyboard, iphone will be enough, with far better multimedia and user interface.

I really really hope this is just a stupid rumor.

Maybe the keyboard is a second lcd display and you can configure any kind of controls on that space? That would be awesome :-)

When I was using my tablet (I haven't since October):

1) Email
2) RSS reading
3) SSH to my servers to check on them, or work on them while standing between rows of them in the machine room (ssh to console server, work from there).
4) VNC+SSH to my desktops to check on them
5) IM
6) Web browsing
7) Taking notes in meetings, or having light
8) Reading PDFs and similar documents
9) light gaming (to pass time, mostly)
10) various little gadgety apps for my life (weather, dice, etc.).
11) Rhapsody (I never got around to converting my iTunes library to mp3, for using the NIT for general music listening)
12) A very few times, Skype

And, before you list which of those were things I could have just done on a phone:

a) When I was still using my NIT, I had yet to find a decent mobile web browser (I don't consider the NIT browser to be mobile, it gives you access to full web sites, not ones boiled down for Opera Mini, nor even boiled down for the iPhone and Android), or a decent phone IM program, or a decent SSH or VNC program, etc. There were no phones that would fill in for that role.

b) Android fixed some of that, but not all of it.

c) Some of it turned out to be things that a pocketable (any pocketable, including the NITs) just isn't good at -- I found that I needed something in the 7"-9" screen range for more than the most trivial of those tasks (ie: I can take light notes and bullet item type notes on my G1, or on my NIT, but to take REAL notes, I really need something more like a netbook).

To get back to full screen: the ONLY time I ever used full screen mode, or found it to be a noticeable improvement, was with VNC. There were a few cases where it was also useful while using SSH, but not really useful enough to do it regularly. (though, I think Rhapsody invoked it automatically, but I wouldn't have been bothered by it in non-full-screen mode) The rest of the time, no, I didn't use full screen at all. Once or twice I tinkered with it while doing Google Reader, or something, but it wasn't enough of an improvement to be worth losing the status bar and task bar.

It may be significant that I don't use my pocketables for watching TV shows nor movies. I'm a film buff, and I care a LOT about being able to clearly see the screen ... not only is a 3.5" screen too small for that, but even a 4.1" or 5" screen is too small for it, IMO. I never really considered the NIT to be a PMP ... and it wouldn't surprise me if that's the differentiating factor here: people who think the NIT is/should-be a PMP end up using full screen mode a lot.

The cutoff for "younger people" must be between 24 and 25, then. (Or do I not have money to spend? ) I'll be honest, I don't use a belt holster for my N8x0 very often -- a basicHolster suits me better, because it carries several other essentials as well. But I did buy a couple, and I use one perhaps half the time that I'm carrying 2 tablets. (Pants pocket the other half.)

Let me tell you, not all young folks are quite as obsessed with fashion over function as you and your ilk, and even for those who are, holsters aren't necessarily unsexy -- or else Urban Tool's singularly annoying marketing is completely misdirected.

Yeah how could Nokia possibly think to compete in that "phone" market, which we all know was created by Apple during the jurassic period.

Also the stylus/finger sized menus!

I am, actually. Even on the N810 (while ironically also sliding the keyboard out so I can access the d-pad), it's just faster for anything other than purely alphabetic input.

Well, I can only judge from what I've seen in the pre-alpha/alpha/beta SDKs so admittedly there's not much to go on there yet and it's quite possible that the final on-device UI will be improved. Still, compare and contrast:



vs



or



vs (sorry, I couldn't find any online examples of the fremantle file chooser)



There is a lot of useful context lost in the Fremantle versions, and I don't think anyone would argue that what's left makes better use of the available pixels.

(PS - I'm not calling anyone insane!)

A Maemo Phone vs an Android Phone would depend a lot on the specifics.

5 row keyboard vs 3 row keyboard? 5 row wins. a 4 row like the HTC Fortress would be acceptable. Other 4 rows would beat a 3 row, but not a 5 row. The N810 keyboard also loses for bad ergonomics. Not sure if "no keyboard at all" beats a 3 row keyboard or not... In fact, I might just consider the 3 row keyboard to be about as useful as no physical keyboard at all.

Full Linux machine vs Android Apps? Not sure. There are one or two Android apps that I am STRONGLY attached to, and having everything sync seemlessly with my outside contacts/calendar matters a lot too (a constant annoyance I had with the NIT; if it had just had SyncML for contacts and calendar, it would have been a HUGE improvement).

2007/8007 OS GUI vs Android GUI? Android. Dunno about the Maemo 5 GUI.

3.5" screen vs 4.1" screen? While I would prefer 4.1", it turns out the apps, keyboard, and UI matter more to me than the screen size.

Battery life? like the screen, it matters, but not as much as the apps and ergonomics (keyboard and GUI).

Dpad vs trackball vs none: Dpad > trackball > nothing.

WWAN: I'm not willing to carry two pocketables. So, a NIT would have to AT LEAST have data and work well with Google Voice. But I'm not sure if that'd be good enough or not, I'd have to experiment for a bit, first.


A 4.1" Maemo device (shaped like the N97 or Mako) with 5 row keyboard, Dalvik (for running android apps), decent photo camera (usable with Android apps that scan bar codes), USB Host+OTG for peripherals, micro-DVI-I out, USB Client for charging/data-sync, 3.5mm headset jack, micro-SDHC, full GSM/WCDMA phone capability, and 8+ hours of usable battery life? I'd _have_ to buy that. That would just about be my dream pocketable.

The leaked design here? ... I don't know. It's possible. Depends on what I'd do about those one or two Android apps that I truly love. It would be a tough choice. I might buy it just because I don't want a Maemo phone to fail, and just to try it out (swap my SIM card back and forth). But, just adding Dalvik to it would probably push me off of the fence and into the "must buy" category.

If I didn't buy it, or end up using it regularly, I expect the biggest reason would be it's design, not its specs. Like I said before, it's just too plain, and I would be annoyed by the lack of dpad, and I HATE the idea of a 3 row keyboard.

There's a slim chance that it could be due to just _one_ app on my G1 if I can't find a similar way to replicate its functionality on Maemo. (it's a diet related app, that has made my life a LOT easier, and while I can do 99% of it via any web browser, the one thing the G1 lets me do, which makes things amazingly convenient ... is scan a food item's bar code, and just tell it how many servings of that I ate, and at which meal ... and that's it, it's recorded for me; but, I find I'm needing to scan things less and less, as the library grows, so maybe I could switch to only using the web interface via _any_ device, not just a Maemo phone). Faced with a Maemo phone, in the wild (not just leaked), I'd have to figure out just how much that barcode scanning really mattered to me, and how much that need was changing over time.

So, as with any real, non-trivial, question ... the answer to "N900 vs G1" is "it depends". Unless that dream pocketable comes along, it would be a complex choice that I'd need to really weigh carefully.