Watch out! Here comes daperl now, with his BT steering wheel!


CC licensed photo by Alison Oddy

When I started reading this post, I thought you were going to go in a different direction. Like power the device with body heat from the user's hands and from the environment.

How cheap of a GPS chip are they going to use? You should be able to get a better fix than that with modern GPS receivers.

Well, it aint gonna be MTK.

Well, golly gee I see both those links suggest the next tablet(s) will have cellular data connectivity. Gosh, I think I remember reading that in multiple other places as well, including here at ITT.

Very specifically, there are at least two potential upcoming models, RX-51 and RX-71 correct? Are we then 100% certian, perhaps a Nokia blog or press release that indicates "both" or "all" future tablets will have the apropriate hardware? Perhaps we have information on the chip that will be used?

Your first link (your own article, no less) merely states that the code was included in the alpha sdk, and mentions the RX-51. The second link mentions that Maemo 5 (again software) will include data connectivity. If I'm wrong, please point out where.

I sincerely hope that from a cost standpoint one of the two potential models will be lacking the hardware necessary. This would allow those of us that have no need to spend another $30-$60 dollars per month a cheaper alternative. If in fact I'll have to pay for hardware I have no use for, that is a major strike in my book.

What we know is that Maemo 5 supports data connectivity, and applications are being designed to generally assume the availability of said connectivity.

I think it's fairly safe to say that we wont see a non-data tablet.

The N810 HW keyboard is quite sub-optimal, so to speak, for command line use, writing code or even just numeric input.

It really depends on the quality / layout of the new HWKB. With something like this or even this I would never bother using any touchscreen input method.

Aaah, the good old Psion Series5, 12 years old and still unbested... :-)

Like the old mechanical watches powered by movement of the arm ?

Or maybe after all they are removing the stylus just to make space on the side for an (optional ?) crank handle... :-)

I respectfully disagree for the following reasons:

1) I think it fairly safe to say that the next tablets will be data only, no voice (except perhaps voip) unless something is hacked. This means for voice communications, I will still need to carry a phone. Since I already have a phone, I may find it cheaper to tether than buy a data plan alone.

2) It seems that adding in cellular connectivity drives the price up substantially. This creates the risk of pricing the tablet higher than the major portion of the target market is likely to accept. In these challenging economic times, a cheaper model with a lower cost of ownership may sell substantially better.

3) There are potentially 2 models in the works. I haven't seen much significant difference between the two except for an as yet undecipherable keyboard layout. (I could be wrong on this, as I haven't paid read much of those threads lately). Wouldn't connectivity be a great way to differentiate those models?

4) A certain company has already shown there is a market for a tablet like phone and a tablet like device without cellular. Last I read, sales of both devices were doing well (and similar numbers). Big companies like to mitigate risks, and if a particular strategy has been proven to work, why not employ it?

5) As a business owner, I like the strategy of minimally increasing development costs (simplistically we're talking about adding some intelligence to the software and leaving a chip or two off). The reward being the ability to easily adjust production to match the market response.

Therefore I speculate that one model may not have the option for cellular connectivity. If not, Nokia may be missing the boat on reaching a significant market group.