Well, MicroSD is about 50% the size of a MiniSD card. Obviously there's the issue of latches, contacts, slots, etc. I think if they simply added an internal slot similar to the N800's setup it would work out fairly well.

I was travelling with my n800 in India and Andamans.. Sometimes staying on the beach with no power outlet its immpossible to check the battery level withouth booting the os. so my wish is :

to have hardware battery checker just under the back cover.
to have a hard case protecting the screen , just like palm one has - a rubber one with metal protector fliipping off.


thanx.

but why would they downgrade to Micro's? Whats the advantage here? Theres no shortage of space.

But there is a shortage of space, that's why the N810 only had a single MiniSD slot rather two two fullsize ones. Assuming the next tablet has similar size restrictions (likely), and given the choice between a single MiniSD slot—a format that doesn't really seem to have a niche, as MicroSD cards generally higher capacity and cheaper (economies of scale from the cellular market)—and dual MicroSD slots, I'll take the dual slots.

how much smaller is the n810 compared to the n800 though? they could fit in that

is it cuz of the keyboard? the sdhc slots on the 800 arent that thick though
and if there really is a shortage of space, ditch the minisd. nobody uses minisd.
micro is more popular, more common, cheaper, more capacity, and its much smaller than the mini

The N810 is as thick as the N800 is at it's thinnest point so not only does it include a keyboard but it is thinner. Overall the N810 is smaller than the N800. I think the space inside the N810 was set aside for the WiMax version.

Not that i want to kill the speculation, but some aspects of product creation are being completely ignored, for example the desire to have an always available container for the maps, then general tendency in latest Nokia products (N81 8GB, N95 8GB ...), expected state of the card market, you name it.
The famous 5 steps speech was underlying something deeper than just the technical evolution: it was also saying that the potential customer base is expected to grow. This implies both that eventually the features must be such that a large part of the target market segment feels compelled to buy one and that also the business model must be self sustaining and profitable according to Nokia expectations.

Notice that I haven't mentioned any technical reason yet, nor I will in this case

That's not _quite_ true. There are 2 card slots, you just can't manipulate the internal card (the one that contains the GPS data). But I don't know if the internal card is Full size, Mini, or Micro (or maybe just more nvram).

Personally, I'd rather have 2 user-accessible slots than a dedicated GPS data slot ... but, then, I don't use the GPS at all.

Good point. :<

Oooh, nice thread

N900 Hardware
- OMAP3
- haptic touchscreen
- 1 micro SD
- 8GB internal Flash
- same size screen as the N800/N810, less plastic around the screen than the N810
- context changeable exterior directional pad (music, web, docs, etc.)
- flush touchscreen; higher dpi but same resolution as current

N900 Software:
- much better web browser (microformats support and use; FF extensions support, and everything else others have stated about this browser; mini-map view for those sites that are extra large); offline mode
- noBounds
- auto (fix?) ability to swap from BT to WiFi/WiMax connections as situations allow
- all major web-runtimes (AIR, Flash, Silverlight, etc.)
- PIM support via SyncML with onboard database (MySQL lite kinda thing) where all data interacting with the IT can be mapped in such a table (shared, exported, etc.)

Perosnally speaking, I'm very content with things like battery life, wifi performance, etc. But given the time of development since my N800 and this one, I'd expect that things would improve in that 20-30% range just because of manufacturing techniques and their improvement.