According to Chinese.WindAndMac.com, Nokia will officially announce the Nokia N900 Hong Kong Edition in a press conference to be held on next Thursday (April 29th 2010). Stocks will be immediately available in local shops thereafter.

Wilson Communications Limited, a company that operates eletronic product retail chain stores in Hong Kong, has worked with Nokia Hong Kong to organize an N900 experience session in Mongkok last night (April 23rd 2010). Alan Mok, Product Marketing Manager, GTM Markets, Nokia Hong Kong and Macau, gave a brief introduction of the forthcoming N900 Hong Kong edition to the attendees.

In addition to the features that we already know, I was a bit surprised to see the following features being mentioned and demonstrated:

• Nokia has not provided any official Chinese support up to the current firmware version (PR1.1.1). Currently, Chinese users who bought their N900 from overseas would have to use community-created UI and MSCIM input method packages. In last night's session, Nokia demonstrated the Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese User Interfaces and input method support that would be provided as built-in features in Nokia N900 Hong Kong Edition. The official Chinese UI look and feel very similar to the community-created versions. Built-in input methods provided are Cangjei, Pinyin, Zhuyin, and the Chinese handwriting solution developed by Penpower, These input methods all based on the MSCIM engine, created and maintained by FirstFan and maintained by the communities.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Youtube video
  
  
• The Hong Kong edition will have the yet-to-be-released Maemo 5 PR1.2 built in. New features include enhanced application menu, night mode camera, and many more new features and bug fixes. Full change log can be found here.
  
• The Hong Kong edition will NOT provide the FM transmitter hardware and software due to legal restrictions in Hong Kong. However, FM radio module will still be provided.
  
• The N900 Hong Kong edition will also be the first smartphone ever to support Skype and Google Talk video conferencing. I'm not sure if this is part of the PR1.2 features, but this is really a great feature that must be highlighted. However, native 3G video call is still not yet supported.

As an existing N900 user based in Hong Kong, I really wish that I can download the Hong Kong edition firmware from the Nokia N900 firmware site so that I can flash it to my US-edition phone. I wish I can also get the PenPower Chinese handwriting solution from either the Hong Kong edition firmware; or through a free / paid download from Ovi Store.

Of course, it will even be better if Nokia can release the PR1.2 firmware to all language variants as soon as possible!!

I wonder if this means that song sorting in the media player is fixed for, hopefully all, Asian languages.

Do you know if the handwriting input engine is open source?

sounds good, sounds like we may get PR1.2 next week as it will be on the chinese n900

So I guess Tuesday 27th April is when we may see PR 1.2 as an update.

(or rather this is my hope).

I must admit not having the FM transmitter hardware and software would have made me less likely to purchase the N900. This feature makes the N900 a great device for road trips.

- *man writes on the N900*
- character shown on the N900
- Crowd goes:* OOOOOH.... *

Lol... I like the video

If pr 1.2 will be installed on handsets to be shipped and sold in Hong Kong by next week (on the 27th), then it's clearly been finished for some time. Release it for the rest of us, already!!

Hope next week has something for us -- current and long-time (early bird) N900 users..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwP1bW7ieaM


Is this PR1.2 on his device???

So my guess of an April 30th release for Pr1.2 might be spot on In any case it should be somewhere around the 29th.

That's why god qwerty12 gave us fmtx-faker.