Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
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Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#2Was the Communicator ever really influential? I was in a Nokia dominated market at the time and pagers and then blackberrys seemed to be what actually drove that side of the market. The Communicator was seen as a curiosity.
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#3Was the Communicator ever really influential? I was in a Nokia dominated market at the time and pagers and then blackberrys seemed to be what actually drove that side of the market. The Communicator was seen as a curiosity.
I don't think so. I worked on software on the (later model) 9500 and it was awful. Sure, it had a browser, but even over wifi it took minutes to render pages. Anyone I showed the hardware to laughed at it.
Series 80 was a dead end too I think?
Edit: I hadn't realised how much earlier the 9000 was. I guess in '96 it might have made more impact? I can't remember ever seeing one in use, though.
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#4Was the Communicator ever really influential? I was in a Nokia dominated market at the time and pagers and then blackberrys seemed to be what actually drove that side of the market. The Communicator was seen as a curiosity.
It changed the world as clinging to this form and function when it came to 'smart phones' is ultimately why Nokia ended as a viable mobile phone maker.
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#5I'd love to have a tin-foil hat device like that today, to make a stance in public against surveillance economy and mindless consumption. LCD, removable battery, GBA-like bulkiness, and other retro traits helping with power efficiency and sustainability would be a plus, too.
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#6Was the Communicator ever really influential? I was in a Nokia dominated market at the time and pagers and then blackberrys seemed to be what actually drove that side of the market. The Communicator was seen as a curiosity.
Idk if we go by Hollywood's idea of a hacker device, that would be a PDA with separate foldable keyboard (as in Die Hard 4.0).
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#7I'd love to have a tin-foil hat device like that today, to make a stance in public against surveillance economy and mindless consumption. LCD, removable battery, GBA-like bulkiness, and other retro traits helping with power efficiency and sustainability would be a plus, too.
GBA = Gameboy Advanced
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#8Was the Communicator ever really influential? I was in a Nokia dominated market at the time and pagers and then blackberrys seemed to be what actually drove that side of the market. The Communicator was seen as a curiosity.
I don't think so. I worked on software on the (later model) 9500 and it was awful . Sure, it had a browser, but even over wifi it took minutes to render pages. Anyone I showed the hardware to laughed at it. Series 80 was a dead end too I think? Edit: I hadn't realised how much earlier the 9000 was. I guess in '96 it might have made more impact? I can't remember ever seeing one in use, though.
A friend of mine worked at a bank and used early Nokia Communicator to remotely administer machines including AS/400. He could do it from his bed while on standby, or while on the go. An absolute game changer. That it had a browser is more of an afterthought. And of course it is slow; GPRS is slow. But if you use the text-based part, and were good with CLI, it was great. I never got to like very small keys, but for me a 'full' qwerty keyboard is a huge upgrade over T9. I never liked nor used T9 much. I avoided it as much as I could.
I own a Planet Cosmo Communicator which is a homage to the Nokia Communicator (as well as Palm devices). I also purchased the successor, the Planet Astro Slide, which has a slideout keyboard like the (patented) Nokia N900 (among others, like Symbian-based). The keyboard of these devices is, like the Planet Gemini's, great.
That said, I believe a smartphone like Nokia N95 was more of a game changer for the general consumer. And Nokia became popular because of their iconic dumbphones (and their networking pioneering, hence their name reference to town in Finland); not so much their smartphones.
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#9Was the Communicator ever really influential? I was in a Nokia dominated market at the time and pagers and then blackberrys seemed to be what actually drove that side of the market. The Communicator was seen as a curiosity.
I owned every generation of it and so did many of my colleagues. Can't recall it being regarded a curiosity. More like, serious business machine.
Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago
#10Interesting tech choices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator): Intel 80386 CPU, MS-DOS compatible base OS and GEOS shell. Later EPOC-based (which became Symbian) products had much less of a PC-like tech stack.