Photo from Karoliina Salminen’s blog of the Hildon UI running on a laptop computer at way beyond 800×480. This is just a teaser of what is coming from Lucas Rocha, she notes.
Hm-m. This means future generations of internet tablets can be freed from the hardware specifics of the Nokia 770. (I changed “internet tablets” to lower-case, because I got to thinking how a UMPC might be dual-bootable, plus there’s that H9 UMPC we heard about earlier in the week.) Nokia could release a next-gen tablet with such a different spec sheet that the 770’s end-of-life could be extended as as the low-end, lowest-cost (and more restricted) model.
I wonder too if this doesn’t lead to overlapping and smaller-than-full-size windows in Hildon too, an in-no-way-beloved limitation of the current UI.
OK, Lucas — let’s see more!
– Roger Sperberg
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Added later: A post from Lucas gives more details and another photo, specifying the resolution as 1024×768.
With the help of ThoughtFix’s disassembly instructions, itT member sdrman risks voiding his Nokia N800’s warranty and decides to remove all the metal shielding covering the device’s chips. Along with the confirmation of an FM stereo chip inside, a USB power manager chip is also revealed.
Does this mean we can expect USB powered accessories for the Nokia N800 in the future?
Two surprises in one day! This is getting interesting…
View sdrman’s full post and hi-res images of the N800’s main board [ 300dpi (mirror), 1200dpi (mirror) ].
Andrew Barr has unearthed a quite interesting hidden feature on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet – it has an FM radio chip built-in! The Maemo Repository even has on its certified software folder an app to run it via XTerm (fmradio_1.2.0_armel.deb).
It is unknown yet why Nokia did not create a radio app when the N800 was launched but we can infer that it must either be a time issue or there might be problems with licensing its drivers.
So, when will Canola (pictured above) create an interface for this is seemingly getting ready, a radio interface already (as seen from Marcelo’s (aka handful) Flickr gallery).
Nokia, any other ‘hidden’ features we don’t know about?
Thanks to Jaffa and Andrew F.
EDIT: Jonathan Greene of atmaspheric | endeavors has already released a video of the FM radio in action:
I ran across the Iron Cook’s Spicy Gadget Roll blog this morning, where Cook (aka Phi Nguyen) has a lengthy appreciation/review of the Nokia N800, complete with 35 minutes of videos and 28 photos. The photo comparing the N800’s size to a ballpoint pen and credit card was so clever, I’m showing it here rather than just lifting the idea (I’ve cropped it slightly).
I also liked how Cook took six websites (engadget, digg) and showed what you get with 800-pixel-wide viewing, and what you would have to scroll to see. (Looking at all of these together shows how the sites that write about small devices make sure their content is on the left. Wish more sites would wake up to this need.)
So much video I didn’t get to watch it all, but that aspect puts this at the top or near the top of my recommended sites to learn about the N800.
– Roger Sperberg
I didn’t anticipate that the first Asian-produced Maemo internet tablet would meld features from the 770/N800 with UMPC traits — a 20 GB hard drive and 7-inch size, for example. (Above, the H9 UMPC from Beijing Peace East Technology Development.)
Priced at $490 in lots of 500, the H9 does seem to be the first reasonably priced competitor to the Nokia 770 and N800 Internet Tablets. No clues yet as to whether it can handle the Asian languages that the Nokia devices cannot.
Am I wrong in thinking that this sort of “follow on Nokia’s track” is not only inevitable but desirable? It seems to me that the open-source movement is built on the core tenet that people have different visions of how to get the ideal feature set and you have to allow them to build on what you’ve done or else we’re all stuck. So Nokia builds on Debian and Beijing Peace East builds on Maemo.
(Via pocketables.net, engadget and our ITT forums. Thanks to Hedgecore for the heads-up and company link!)
Added later — I shouldn’t gloss over the significant inclusion of GPS built into the H9, especially in light of considering the “ideal” feature set.
Just want to spread the word that links at Planet Maemo aren’t working for posts at Blogger-based blogs (from thoughtfix and Ari Jaaksi, off the top of my head). Appears to be related to the change in how blogs are linked now to gmail accounts.
This impacts Bloglines on the internet tablet too, with resolution dependent on the Blogger/Google folk straightening out code issues, it seems (as per this message in the ITT forums).
