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Comments: 484 +-   Nokia Releases Linux Handset on Thursday August 27, @10:15AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 27, @10:15AM
from the where's-my-root-prompt dept.
cellphones
software
linux
galaxy writes "Nokia releases their first Linux mobile handset, the N900 The handset is based on the latest release of Maemo, the Nokia mobile Linux platform, and includes e.g. GSM and 3G access (with HSPA, giving datarates of up to 10Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink on suitable networks), WLAN, Bluetooth, camera, assisted GPS and, most importantly, a touchscreen complemented by a hardware QWERTY under a slider. The beast is powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 processor at 600 MHz, has PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support, 32GB internal memory etc."
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  • by andrewd18 (989408) on Thursday August 27, @10:31AM (#29217539)
    Sure, but does it run Lin... oh. Nevermind.
  • by popo (107611) on Thursday August 27, @10:31AM (#29217543) Homepage

    The iPhone was a 'fail' for me for several reasons, but most of all:

    1) No real keyboard.
    (The N900 has a pull out keyboard)

    2) No support for Flash
    (The N900 has Flash support)

    3) No real multitasking
    (The N900 has multitasking)

    4) Skype
    (The N900 has Skype)

    Add the fact that this baby runs Linux, and I'm 100% sold. This has huge promise.

  • DO WANT (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Becausegodhasmademe (861067) on Thursday August 27, @10:31AM (#29217551)

    Open source? Check.

    Looks stylish? Check.

    Hardware built by reputable supplier? Check.

    Did I mention it was open source?

    I know what my next phone will be!

  • Â Wireless. Bigger than an iPhone. Lame. Â
  • by Plug (14127) on Thursday August 27, @10:34AM (#29217607) Homepage

    Look at the N900 feature list [nokia.com] - "Phone" is fourth down.

    Maemo may power Nokia's high-end devices, but this is no reason to sound the death knell for Symbian. With regard to Nokia, they make a lot of phones that are not the N900, and do not cost 500 euro. There are also dozens of other companies supporting the Symbian Foundation [wikipedia.org], including many other manufacturers like Samsung [samsungmobile.com] and Sony Ericsson [sonyericsson.com].

    Symbian^4 will use Qt as its UI layer [tamoggemon.com], and Maemo is moving into a similar direction [maemo.org] (that's why Nokia bought Trolltech!) - targeting both platforms should be quite simple.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27, @10:37AM (#29217649)
    Symbian (from the famed Psion PDAs of the early 90's) can't be expected to evolve into the kind of operating system that competes with these new "smartphones" which are really computers with phone capabilities - iPhone, Pre, Android-based phones. Symbian is more a device controller than an O/S. It was designed for devices with very limited resources which is no longer the case. I'm glad Nokia has recognized that and has chosen a more powerful computer O/S on which to base their platform. I have an iPhone 3Gs, but I'm very happy that Apple has some tough competition because even though I may stay with the iPhone, it will only get better faster as Apple responds to the competition. I'm also happy that those who don't want iPhones have some worthy devices to choose from . Now, what worries me is Palm because the Pre is off to a good start, but is Palm big enough to sustain competition with giants like Apple and Nokia?
  • by marnanel (98063) <slashdot.marnanel@org> on Thursday August 27, @10:38AM (#29217679) Homepage Journal
    from the where's-my-root-prompt dept.

    $ sudo gainroot [wordpress.com]

    There it is!
  • by shtrom (1251560) on Thursday August 27, @10:41AM (#29217727) Homepage

    The spec says "Music playback file formats: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a"

    Being Linux-based, I suppose it would not be too hard to hack it to support Ogg Vorbis. It's however rather annoying that such support is still not provided by default...

  • Resolution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Colonel Korn (1258968) on Thursday August 27, @10:55AM (#29217939)

    No one here ever mentions resolution as a feature on phone screens, and they should. I have eyesight just good enough to pass the DMV tests without corrective lenses and that's sufficient for my old iPhone's 320x480 screen to be painful for me in comparison to the 640x480 screen on my new phone. I can read significantly smaller text, meaning I can see much larger chunks of real web pages, on the higher resolution screen.

    The N900 described in TFA has an 800x480 resolution. That should get people very excited!

  • by Exp315 (851386) on Thursday August 27, @10:58AM (#29217991)
    This is the long-awaited phone incarnation of the N800/N810 Linux/Maemo tablets. It's similar to the N810 in having the slide-out keyboard, built-in GPS, and micro-SD slot. I've been using the N800 for the last 2 years, and while I like it as in internet tablet, I'm not sure I would like it so much as a phone. Some reasons: - The tablet is cheap and not tied to a contract, so possible to forgive many faults - Tbe tablet has a bigger screen (4.3" vs. 3.5"), which makes it more practical for browsing and ebooks - Lots of Maemo Linux software available, but mostly amateurish/undocumented/90%-complete quality - User interface is not nearly as smooth as iPhone, particularly the web browser - Most programs can't rotate, designed for landscape mode only
  • by itomato (91092) on Thursday August 27, @11:02AM (#29218035)

    The n810 is great, except when you need to make a (non-skype) phone call.

    The new keyboard looks good, although it will take me another 9 months to adjust to the new key layout.

    The black plastic finish should take more of a beating (drops, in particular) compared to the metal finish of the current unit, but Man! It looks so thick! http://www.sizeasy.com/page/size_comparison/23639-Nokia-N810-vs-N97-vs-Nokia-N900 [sizeasy.com]

    The diplay appears to be the same, which is great, unless you're viewing through polarized lenses. The biggest complaint I have with the n810 display is the PDA-class GPU. The PowerVR chip should turn things around. Is it the same core as in iPhone?

    Good to see the stand present on the rear.

    Alert me when the price & demand drop so I can pick one up for $250.

  • UMA support? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by UID30 (176734) on Thursday August 27, @11:11AM (#29218189)
    Anybody know if this device has UMA support on it?

    Skype is not the win imo ... I'd rather just have my cell communicate directly to my carrier over my household broadband connection and not mess with an extra "skype" address to hand people for when I'm out of cell coverage area ... UMA is preferred since I don't need any special network hardware (other than a wireless access point) to support it.

    T-Mobile supports UMA pretty well ... I'm using it with my BB 8900 at the moment.
    • Re:how much is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Plug (14127) on Thursday August 27, @10:21AM (#29217367) Homepage

      500, in October. [engadget.com].

      That works out to $712 USD as of this post (click for a more up-to-date rate [xe.com]), but that will probably be European style - unlocked and with no contract.

      It will be up to carriers in countries like the US to decide how much to subsidise the phone, over what contract term.

    • Re:how much is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pak9rabid (1011935) on Thursday August 27, @10:32AM (#29217563)

      specs are better than the iphone and the interface looks nice. how much is it? I think the $299 price point is the most that most people are willing to pay

      How are these specs better then the iPhone 3GS? The 3GS contains:

      • CPU: ARM Cortex-A8 running at 600 MHz (same as N900)
      • Memory: 256 MB (same as N900)
      • GPU: PowerVR SGX (same as N900
      • Max Internal flash: 32 GB (same as N900)

      Aside from the hardware keyboard, I'm not seeing how it's better hardware-wise.

      • by swb (14022) <mobocracy@gmail.com> on Thursday August 27, @10:35AM (#29217623)

        You missed the part where it said "it runs Linux". At that point whatever stats it has you multiply by 911 to get the real stats. If comparing to the iPhone, you multiply by 911 *twice* to get the comparison stats.

        Act, Gary, act.

          • Re:how much is it? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by tolan-b (230077) on Thursday August 27, @12:14PM (#29219099)

            Yeah the iPhone is so free as in speech you can't install arbitrary apps unless you jailbreak it. Also as the other replier to your message mentioned, OSX doesn't have a BSD kernel, it has a Mach kernel with a BSD compat layer and some BSD userland.

      • Re:how much is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by alen (225700) on Thursday August 27, @10:43AM (#29217761)

        much better camera and 16GB removable SD cards are supported in addition to the internal memory

        i have an iphone 3GS 32GB and if this thing is good in 2 years i'll trade my iphone for it. I like the iphone but it has enough problems for a competitor to come in and take market share.

        My BB Curve has much better battery life than my iphone when comparing push email
        Apple screwed up contacts importation and allows double and triple contact creation. RIM is better at this.
        Apple seems to have taken a cue from Microsoft and if you read the forums, the magic fix is to restore as a new phone. Just like reinstalling Windows.

        I like the iPhone mostly for it's flexibility. i have 150 apps on mine which take up over 1GB of space. with RIM's ancient OS it's impossible to do this. The Pre is still in beta but is looking very promising.

        even though I'm an MCSE, Microsoft is dead in the mobile space. I don't even think they care. They licensed Active Sync to Apple, Palm and Google but you can't access MS Exchange from most WinMo phones or the Zune.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        It's pretty close to the GS, but it's ahead of the earlier ones. One obvious example is the GPU which, prior to the GS, only supported OpenGL 1.1 (i.e. no shaders). One thing I found interesting was:

        Built-in FM transmitter

        Given that these are illegal in much of the world (although the relevant laws are not enforced for low-power transmitters), I wonder if this will limit adoption.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          Low power FM transmitters are very common in the US. Many people use them to connect their MP3 player to their car's radio system. I'm guessing that is what this one is for. With 32GB (or 48GB) of storage you could use this instead of an iPod or other MP3 player.

          Cheers,
          the_crowbar

      • Re:how much is it? (Score:5, Informative)

        by ArcherB (796902) on Thursday August 27, @10:46AM (#29217793) Journal

        specs are better than the iphone and the interface looks nice. how much is it? I think the $299 price point is the most that most people are willing to pay

        How are these specs better then the iPhone 3GS? The 3GS contains:

        • CPU: ARM Cortex-A8 running at 600 MHz (same as N900)
        • Memory: 256 MB (same as N900)
        • GPU: PowerVR SGX (same as N900
        • Max Internal flash: 32 GB (same as N900)

        Aside from the hardware keyboard, I'm not seeing how it's better hardware-wise.

        Up to 1 GB of application memory (256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)
        Data transfers over a cellular network 10/2Mbps
        Removable battery
        Wide aspect ratio 16:9 (WVGA)
        Video recording file format: .mp4; codec: MPEG-4
        Video recording at up to 848x480 pixels (WVGA) and up to 25fps
        Removable battery
        Video playback file formats: .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp; codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263
        5 MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens and LED flash
        3D graphics accelerator with OpenGL ES 2.0 support
        Removable battery
        32 GB internal storage
        Expandable to up to 48 GB with external microSD card
        Removable battery
        800x480 resolution screen
        Removable battery

        There's more, but I'm tiered of copying and pasting. Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is nice, but these specs are better as far as I know (not sure about the widescreen). Oh, and there's a Removable battery

        • by dissy (172727) on Thursday August 27, @10:52AM (#29217919)

          I think you forgot the most important new feature.

          It has a removable battery!

          • by itomato (91092) on Thursday August 27, @11:20AM (#29218305)

            The iPhone is a fashion accessory, and fashion accessories do not require removable/swappable anything.

            You dispose of, and replace.

            • by H0p313ss (811249) on Thursday August 27, @12:00PM (#29218891)

              The iPhone is a fashion accessory, and fashion accessories do not require removable/swappable anything.

              You dispose of, and replace.

              And it even takes care of that for you by conveniently exploding when it's done.

            • by justkeeper (1139245) on Thursday August 27, @12:30PM (#29219411)
              Except that quite a few times I found when the iPhone got frozen there is no way to do a cold start, the only option is to wait until the battery drains out, which was not even an option when I was boarding a plane.
              • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27, @02:51PM (#29221655)

                Uhh yes there is. What the heck are you talking about? You hold the home and power buttons simultaneously for a few seconds, ignore any on-screen shutdown prompt and it will do a hard reset. I'm laughing at you waiting till the battery drains to start using your phone...read the manual.

        • Re:how much is it? (Score:4, Informative)

          by twoboxen (1111241) on Thursday August 27, @10:57AM (#29217975)
          FM transmitter, micro-USB.
        • Re:how much is it? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Plug (14127) on Thursday August 27, @11:07AM (#29218115) Homepage

          N900 has a single-touch resistive touchscreen, compared to the iPhone's capactive, multitouch screen. The demo video shows an interesting single-touch zoom method on the N900 - draw a spiral, like winding a display closer or further away.

        • Re:how much is it? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by root_42 (103434) on Thursday August 27, @11:11AM (#29218181) Homepage

          Actually the real things that set it apart from the 3GS are the following:

          * Expandable storage with up to 48 GB with external microSD card (vs nothing)
          * 800x480 resolution screen (vs 320x480)
          * Video playback file formats: .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp; codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263 (vs. some Quicktime codecs & FLV, not sure which)
          * Removable battery

          The rest is basically the same, especially CPU and GPU wise. I am not sure about the virtual memory stuff. Might be interesting for multitasking applications, although I am not sure how well this works out on the Maemo platform.

          The iPhone has on the other side the advantage of a really slick interface and IMHO very good usability. We will definitely also buy one or two N900s for development, and so far I haven't seen one in real life. But I am looking forward to compare them to the iPhone in both performance as well as usability. Also I am looking forward to see what the SDK looks like, never worked with Maemo before.

          Cheers.

      • Re:how much is it? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jfanning (35979) on Thursday August 27, @10:49AM (#29217859) Homepage

        Much, much higher resolution screen, 800x480.

      • Re:how much is it? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr Z (6791) on Thursday August 27, @12:27PM (#29219349) Homepage Journal

        Where's the iPhone's 3GS 5 megapixel camera with flash (and Carl Zeiss optics and integrated lens cap), and 800x480 @25fps video? Oh, wait, iPhone 3GS only goes up to 640x480 on the video and 3 megapixels on the camera, no flash, no lens cap.

        Also, what's the display resolution? The N900 ix 800x480, a whopping 384K pixels. The iPhone 3GS weighs in at a paltry 480x320, sporting less than half the screen real estate at 153K pixels.

        Identical specs indeed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      RTFA, It does.
    • Re:WiFi? (Score:4, Informative)

      by monoqlith (610041) on Thursday August 27, @10:28AM (#29217487)

      It does. "WLAN" - from the site:

      Data network: GPRS class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 107/64.2 kbps (DL/UL) EDGE class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 296/177.6 kbps (DL/UL) WCDMA 900/1700/2100. Maximum speed PS 384/384 kbps (DL/UL) HSPA 900/1700/2100. Maximum speed PS 10/2 Mbps (DL/UL) WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Dearest Nancy -

      It uses flash memory as it's storage method. Call it memory or storage, whichever you prefer, & it doesn't matter, since it's both...

      FTFW:

      Mass memory

      * 32 GB internal storage
      * Store up to 7000 MP3 songs or 40 hours of high-quality video
      * Up to 16 GB of additional storage with an external microSD card

      • Re:T-Mobile's 3G (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JSBiff (87824) on Thursday August 27, @11:01AM (#29218023) Journal

        "Another dumbass that doesn't bother reading the tech specs [nokia.com]:"

        Whoa, some people don't *understand* those tech specs. Seeing "* Quad-band GSM EDGE 850/900/1800/1900" doesn't necessarily make it obvious to people who aren't familiar with which signaling standards and frequencies a given carrier uses.

        I think it's a little harsh to calls omeone a "dumbass" just because they don't understand the particulars of cell phone networks. Granted, this is /. so you hope most of the readers understand, but, even though someone is a 'nerd' doesn't make them knowledgeable iin *every* area of technology. They might know more than you ever will about astronomy, or quantum physics, or computer programming, and not know anything about cell networks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Umm... what is exactly are you mad about?

      Thanks for obseleting my N97

      If you're mad that they've released something better, that just doesn't make sense. Should companies stop releasing newer, better products because this would mean existing customers are getting "screwed"? It's not like your current device is any worse than it was before the announcement, you know.

      I bought an N97 expecting it to be THIS phone.

      If you're angry that you bought the N97 expecting it to do things that it actually cannot do... then, um... shouldn't you be mad at yourself for not properly researching the

      • Re:CDMA (Score:4, Informative)

        by ari_j (90255) on Thursday August 27, @11:41AM (#29218649)
        AT&T's coverage map [cellularmap.net]. See all that vast, empty area? Here's a map from AT&T themselves [att.com]. Still lots of empty areas, and if you zoom in on their interactive coverage map [att.com] you'll find that the additional orange is actually "partner" service. What that means is that you can't get AT&T 'home' service if you are in those areas.

        Also, I happen to live in one of the supposedly "Best" AT&T service islands in the middle of the vast empty area on the first map, and typing in my ZIP code on the AT&T "build your package" wizard returns a message that "this is one of the few areas we haven't reached yet."
        • Re:CDMA (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ari_j (90255) on Thursday August 27, @11:43AM (#29218683)
          I should add that I am with Alltel and everyone here I know who isn't with them is with Verizon. All CDMA service. And I can place a call from anywhere in that vast empty area except for places where the terrain doesn't prevent it (which happens in the bottom of the Badlands [nodak.edu]). I can even use the Gmail and other apps on my BlackBerry from those areas.
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