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The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

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Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#11

Post by drudu »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #7

I loved the Nokia N900's design, that hardware keyboard that made it so easy to do remote system administration over SSH, or keep doing everything that I want to do in Emacs just like on my laptop or desktop computers. Also like all Nokia phones of the time, it was nearly indestructible and could easily survive drops that would destroy a modern smartphone’s screen or casing. However, in retrospect not all was rosy. A…

I had one of these and your note of "a cellular modem connected directly to main memory" makes me laugh. I didn't know that until now but I think that clears up why phone calls could crash the phone in some circumstances.

Like you said it was a fantastic little linux terminal - great for SSH and it was certainly fun and novel to have a linux CLI on my cell phone.

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#12

Post by sidpatil »

u801e wrote: post #8
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #7

I loved the Nokia N900's design, that hardware keyboard that made it so easy to do remote system administration over SSH, or keep doing everything that I want to do in Emacs just like on my laptop or desktop computers. Also like all Nokia phones of the time, it was nearly indestructible and could easily survive drops that would destroy a modern smartphone’s screen or casing. However, in retrospect not all was rosy. A…

I wish I had the opportunity to use the N900. I still have a partially working N9 (the SIM holder lock is broken meaning I have to hold the SIM in to use it for calls). I still browse and post on HN using it on occasion.

> the SIM holder lock is broken meaning I have to hold the SIM in to use it for calls

Why not just tape it in place?

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#15

Post by wmf »

Thom makes a really insightful point: "people who want a true Linux computer in their pocket". I wanted a more open iPhone and I hated the N900 because it was terrible as a smartphone. Between the stylus, unconstrained multitasking, desktop Firefox, and Flash it's like they were trying to prove Steve Jobs right. The G2 was so much better because it had an actual phone OS.

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#16

Post by windsurfer »

I have both an N900 and a Pro1 and it's everything I wanted in a phone/device. I'm using self-compiled LineageOS on it right now and it is as "Linux-y" as I need and want, complete with a usable terminal and SSH apps.

I'm not sure why you haven't been able to get a review unit of the new Pro1-x model, but I'll get in contact with someone at f(x)tec for you.

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#17

Post by 908B64B197 »

rchaud wrote: post #6
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #5

A family friend worked as an outside something at Nokia HQ around 2007(?) when the iPhone was announced. Apparently there was an ongoing joke inside of the company that every button on these phones was one of the executives. And so you had multiple buttons/ways of doing one thing because consensus. Sounds like they were just bogged down and crippled in a corporate way that so many European companies were between 1990…

Largely the same thing happened at Blackberry. Because the iPhone was an AT&T exclusive in the US, Verizon pressured Blackberry to rush the release of their first touchscreen device, the BB Storm. It was released as a Verizon exclusive in late 2008, and coincided with the release of HTC/Tmobile G1, the first Android phone. BB tried to argue that BBOS6 was a click trackball based OS and would not transition to touch w…

I remember trying out a Storm.

Webpage would render incredibly slowly because Blackberry weren't capable of putting a wifi chip in the handset (it was limited to edge if I recall). The whole UI was sluggish. Cherry on top? No apps. There was a way to write apps but it was pretty much a unique SDK per phone model. No app store of course.

It hit the market a few months after Apple revealed the iPhone 3G and the App Store.

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#18

Post by serf »

gtk40 wrote: post #13

I had a Nokia N800 "Internet Tablet" and loved that device. Android was a huge downgrade compared to what you could do with that in every way except interface, and the interface wasn't too bad.

I had an N800 and and N900 afterwards.

I used the N800 until the battery eventually failed.

It was amazingly liberating, as a 'computer person', to have a truly hand-held computer; all my friends and family thought it was a stupid toy with a hard-to-understand interface -- but they liked drawing on it.

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#19

Post by FooHentai »

908B64B197 wrote: post #17
rchaud wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largely the same thing happened at Blackberry. Because the iPhone was an AT&T exclusive in the US, Verizon pressured Blackberry to rush the release of their first touchscreen device, the BB Storm. It was released as a Verizon exclusive in late 2008, and coincided with the release of HTC/Tmobile G1, the first Android phone. BB tried to argue that BBOS6 was a click trackball based OS and would not transition to touch w…

I remember trying out a Storm. Webpage would render incredibly slowly because Blackberry weren't capable of putting a wifi chip in the handset (it was limited to edge if I recall). The whole UI was sluggish. Cherry on top? No apps. There was a way to write apps but it was pretty much a unique SDK per phone model. No app store of course. It hit the market a few months after Apple revealed the iPhone 3G and the App Sto…

When the Storm came out, the place I was working had placed pre-orders for the executive team. First day, they're all configured and sent out to much fanfare. Second day, many of them came back to IT, some airborne. After a month they were pretty much all returned in favor of something that actually worked, and we never placed any further orders.

Remember their 'haptic' touchscreen tech, SurePress? Click Clack. Felt like a child's toy. Quite the departure from genuinely great stuff like the trackball/pearl.

Re: The Nokia N900: the future that wasn’t

#20

Post by egfx »

jart wrote: post #14

My favorite device from that era was the HP Jornada since that with linux and an orinoco card felt like something straight out of the hacking movies. https://youtu.be/1s-tekLn7Nc

Interesting I didn’t know about this device. I had the HP Pre3. Looking at this is like watching the evolution of dinosaurs to mammals in a way.
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