We sat down at a roundtable this afternoon with Nokia’s Ari Jaaksi, VP of software at the company, and talked about the Nokia N900 and the Maemo 5 OS it runs. Describing the N900 as “your internet device on the go” and Maemo as “putting the internet first”, it’s obvious that Jaaksi – and Nokia – have the MID segment in their sights; however they’re also upfront about the issues they’re going to face not only with their first-gen hardware but the ongoing development of the platform.
Nokia rumors a-plenty today, as UK paper The Guardian suggest that the Finnish company are planning to release a touchscreen Android smartphone so as to counter falling Symbian shares. However, Nokia themselves have vehemently denied any such intentions, with a spokesperson quoted as saying “everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.”
Nokia’s N800 Internet Tablet has been many things, but it’s not normally a platform for running VMware. Just because nobody does, though, it doesn’t mean they couldn’t: at the VMworld Europe 2009 expo, the N800 was demonstrated running Google’s Android platform in VMware.
Video demo after the cut
If you like the idea of a secondary LCD screen, such as Nanovision’s UM-7×0 series, but are feeling less than flushed with cash after the holidays, how about turning your Nokia Internet Tablet into a wireless sub-display? Obviously that’s only helpful if you already have a Nokia Internet Tablet, but assuming that’s the case there’s a relatively straightforward guide at the Internet Tablet Talk forums. In effect, you use a virtual display driver called ZoneScreen to fool your Windows 2k/XP/Vista PC into treating the Tablet as another monitor.
If you’ve built a media PC and are now looking for a reasonable wireless keyboard and mouse, how about using the Nokia N800 or N810 Internet Tablet instead? BlueMaemo is a port of ReMoko for the Linux-based Maemo OS used on the touchscreen devices, and basically offers the Internet Tablet as a combined keyboard and mouse device via the Bluetooth HID profile.
Check out the BlueMaemo demo video after the cut
Nokia has finally, officially, announced their latest Internet Tablet. True to the rumors, it is keeping the N810 name, but appending the whole WiMax Edition thing to the end of it.
It has a 4.8-inch screen, which should give you a reference for dimensions, and it weighs a mere 340 grams. Technically it’s being called an MID or Mobile Internet Device, but it looks pretty capable.
Nokia’s ugliest idea for a phone yet, it’s an egregiously mis-proportioned device featuring dual screens, one or both of them presumable being a touch screen. It looks like they took an N800, thinned it down a bit, and put a giant crease in the middle.
Dual screens aren’t new, and the only way you could get by with such an ugly design is to either make it into a gaming system (DS anyone?) or to pack this thing full of features. The LG Venus is the first phone I’ve seen that had dual screens, and I haven’t held or seen it myself, but I wasn’t too impressed by its appearance.
If information on Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet is your current poison of choice, then you’ll want to go hang out with ThoughFix who is blogging the hell out of the compact net-surfing device. Not content with a nicely detailed overview video of the device (which you can see after the cut), he’s been comparing it to its N800 predecessor, checking out video performance (as the N800 was renowned for promising big things in mobile video but lacking the processor grunt to back up those claims) and generally exploring why the N810 should have space in your bag.
This will be the third version of this product, indicating a good level of success for a once-perceived niche market. This time they are pimping it out with a full keyboard.
The model number is the N810, so really it will just be an upgraded version of the N800. The internet tablet will have the Mozilla browser, Skype, a camera, music player, oh, and the best part, they are integrating the GPS hardware and a bunch of pre-loaded maps.
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