Most of the demand, he said, comes from people who want a data connection rather than a primary phone. And so Nokia finally fulfills the abandoned Hildon roadmap it developed with Psion between 2000 and 2002, that included "palmtops" with embedded data capability. A Series 5 with an embedded modem was just one of the products Psion never brought to market.
No (physical) call buttons
Jaaksi said that including cellular telephony and data was discussed at the tablet's birth - "what markets could we build out of that?" - but it was simpler to omit it, bypassing the complex approval steps.
"They made it very clear that they want a device that integrates the experience of Tablets but with added cellular capabilities. It was critical feedback," he told us.
So really it's because people want to check email or Facebook - another email system, but with knobs on - while out and about, rather than talk to one another.
"Heavy users need the ubiquitous connectivity more," he said. "Maybe the wireless LAN coverage didn't take off as fast as some people expected. They were talking about wherever you go there will be wireless coverage - that really didn't happen. But 3G really provides the same kind of experience."
Maybe in Finland, I pointed out - but er not in the UK.
UI tweaks abound
The device is much more compact than the earlier slabs - the N770, N800 and N810. It feels like a dense package of electronics though - around 30g heavier than the similarly-sized N97, and 45g heavier the much slimmer iPhone.
COMMENTS
compared to E90.....
I've been using an E90 on Vodafone UK for the past 18 months and will never leave a full Qwerty keyboard. Brilliant phone for work and play; Mail for Exchange works brilliantly as well as POP3 and IMAP. Shame there's no dedicated numeric keys. And same that they haven't adopted the lovely very responsive E90 keys. Thankfully it has a stylus so fat fingers can cope. I don't know enough about Maemo OS but I'm a little worried that the application source will be limited to a few, whereas S60/3rdEd is more widespread, especially due to the many Java app databases out there for S60. Can anybody help with that? Is Maemo5 big enough to be developed enough to combat S60 handsets? Charging via USB....so I don't have a choice about creating a data connection to a PC? Or is it a mains charger?
yes it does have a vibe
"Virbrating alert (internal)" says http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/specifications/
(of couse that page also says "Full QWERTY tactile keyboard" which is a joke.
It will be interesting to see ...
... how this fares. Seems that the success of the Apple iPhone delivered Nokia a desperately needed kick in the nuts about the importance software in their business ... then again reading the T&Cs at Forum Nokia (the acceptance of which is somewhat stealthily made a pre-condtion for obtaing the development tools) makes one wonder whether they in fact want to attract or repel 3rd party developers.
Slow loading 3GS vs N900
>while you really need a heavy site to slow down the 3GS, but my dusty personal archive took about 20 seconds to load on the N900, which felt like ages.
I have tested it on my device, and N900 load that archive for ~7sec (3G connection), iPhone 3GS ~13sec (wlan).
Oops
OK, so I had a blind spot and read 95 hence my confusion.
How's the camera and video by the way. I pretty much got my 95 based on them since I had twin nieces on the way and wanted all in one for easy flights.
I'm assuming cam quality is about the same but is it any faster and have they stuck with the 640x480 30 frames?
