Before the 770 came out I had created a list of all the things I would need/want in a portable computing device. It was a huge, impractical list but I had an HP iPac that I never used and I wsa determined to understand what I would need in a device to ensure that I would use it.

Happily, the 770 covered many of the items in my list. The N800 covers even more! Here is all that reamins of my list:

* USB support for drives and external monitors. (Keyboards, mice, printers, etc. can be handled with bluetooth, so I don't care about support for them.) Also, and this is in all caps so Nokia will see it, USB CHARGING!

* A real camera: either 3 mega-px with optical zoom or 7 mega-px with digital zoom. (Center the camera and add an LED lamp/flashlight for night-time photos)

* Either WiLan and GPS, or better yet a universal radio that can send/recieve TV, FM, AM, GPS, x-Lan, WiFi-x, CB, etc.

Does anyone know what it would take to have a universal radio? Why do we have all these special purpose radios?

* Thinner, lighter, faster: Actaually, the N800 is darn thin, light, and fast. But have you seen those calculators that are the size of a business card? If the device were made like that, I could run with it in my pocket. While the speed is actually enough for now, adding external drives and monitors would require an increase.

That's all! I didn't mention memory, storage, or a higher resolution screen. I'm surprisingly happy with the N800!

As far as software goes, Nokia should let open source handle that.. (I myself am working on something really cool!)

TEN YEARS: What about in the next 5 or 10 years? The above is fairly future proof, but I think it would be cool to have some sensors, like a spectrometer, to monitor things like the quality of air, water, food, soil, etc. And Perhaps a bio/chemical sample reader that could check blood sugar levels, DNA properties, etc. An IR reader could be used as a thermometer among other things.

Post your list!

Bruce

Using today's technology? A power budget of hundreds of watts or more and a unit price of somewhere around a hundred thousand to a million dollars... Projects like GNU radio will give a glimpse of things to come, but a general-purpose software defined radio is still far in the future.


Because it is the only feasible solution? Sheesh, give some credit to the engineers...

GNU radio sounds really great -- thanks for the 'link'. According to the GNU radio papers, it sounds like the major barriers are political rather than technological. Ne?

Ahh, you want wishlists? Then wishlists you shall get!

In no particular order of importance:
- Fully functional USB, either old-fashioned host mode or OTG.

- A firmware upgrade that allows to use SDHC cards at the highest speed possible AND WITHOUT DESTROYING CARDS!!!!!!!

- A Bluetooth icon that will stay on the status bar, even when BT has been turned off.

- Universal videocall.

- A complete overhaul of Hildon into something that actually makes sense on a small touchscreen.

- Functioning handwriting recognition! If Apple could do it ten years ago on a computer that was puny in comparison, what -- other than sheer incompetence -- might be holding Nokia back?

- Matter-antimatter powercells instead of these manky batteries! We know you've got them, Nokia, and we want them NOW! Quit playing the "we know nuffink!" routine!

(Okay, the last one was a long shot...)

This one is already out, but not from Nokia: The community provided the MMC plus patch that enable higher speed and as of today I have not experienced memory card corruption in my N800 that has this patch installed... I think most others who have patched their kernels have similar experience?

If the community's patch doesn't adversely affect sdhc cards, will someone in that community explain what they did right that Nokia did wrong?

Ah, a wish list... hmm....

* A more powerful processor (Use an i386 (embedded) so we can use Debian and Ubuntu binaries!!! And only if it can be kept fanless )
* More RAM for bigger applications (So the Canola camp can do some even more awesome stuff)
* Officially supported AD2P profile
* Officially supported KDE, GNOME, or Enlightenment (In binary form as .deb s)
* Officially supported Mozilla Firefox (Full thing)
* Officially supported, latest, Adobe Flash Player for ALL internet tablets (I still love my 770, damnit!)
* Latest libraries of GTK+, etc, etc, etc, in binary form
* That nokie DOES NOT EVER EVER EVER put a sliding keyboard on an IT
* Infrared (I can think of many reasons, but mostly as a universal remote and for temperature readings and such)
* USB Host mode "Out of the Box"
* Fully open sourced OS...

Same here.

Regulations are certainly a large obstacle in having a general purpose radio transmitter installed on an "open" consumer device. Scarcity of WLAN chipset documentation has already hinted at it.

However, real technical barriers exist. Encoding/decoding today's digital modulation schemes in pure software would not be economical using todays technology. Since we're talking about a mobile platform where low power consumption is top priority, it is safe to say that a software defined radio stays an impossibility for some years still.

What i want? That everything the tablet offers now gets finalized and works.
Only after that is accomplished let's look at the future.

Ton.