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Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

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Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#51

Post by dejv »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #25
marban wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had the 9110, 9210, and 9500. None of them really made sense as connected devices because data services were so slow. Web pages would literally take minutes to load, and for heavy use you were paying by the byte. The main benefit was a nice(ish) keyboard for texts and emails. I once wrote and emailed in a consultancy report from the back garden of a pub, just to prove I could. But it's not something I'd have been h…

Back in early 2000s I worked at company doing pharma CRM for emerging markets in rural places like central Africa, Mongolia and east Russia. We used Nokia commnicators as a client nodes for field representives.

The platform was really limited, app development was tricky, but at the end it did the job and there were very few alternatives.

We actually ended up using emails as our sync mechanism: internet connectivity in places we served were as limited as you can imagine and also because of device limitation. It worked in a way that changes in data were serialized and sent to server that merged the data into the master and sent you changes back via email as well.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#52

Post by sofixa »

ollifi wrote: post #32
antris wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a high-end device for businesses. The price range made it almost completely out of the question for regular consumers, and it was never meant as a consumer device. But when it was introduced in 1996, sending e-mail and fax and being able to browse the web on mobile was definitely a huge thing for businesses. Mind you, the dial-up internet just had started booming a couple of years earlier. The communicator pre…

I find it interesting that phones never got cheaper but now they are more useful so large number of people actually consider 1000$ to be ok price to pay for one.

They did, there are completely usable phones in the 100-200euros segment, which do at least 2/3 of what the 1k ones do, albeit more slowly.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#53

Post by mnmmn123456 »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #31
mnmmn123456 wrote: post #13

It didn't change the world. The iPhone did 10 years later. I guess the article is of interest because it has this wrong claim weaved in and even at it's time the "Nokia Communicator" wasn't a big success. Maybe we didn't know what FAANG-like success looks like at that time and everyone thought "Nokia is such a respectable, successful company in Scandinavia". Probably the article is of interest now because, we didn't…

We have all noticed that the world has changed with iOS and Android, and we're still trying to recover from that disaster.

We have a free marked and please just buy what you want. Did you buy a Nokia?

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#56

Post by wombatmobile »

kevingadd wrote: post #49
wombatmobile wrote: post #30

> 25 years since it changed the world Nokia’s Communicator may have been the most capable phone computer of the pre iPhone era, but it didn’t change the world. It was too expensive, too closed, and not well enough marketed to change much of anything. I’m surprised to see it glorified here, not because it wasn’t a nice piece of visionary tech, but because the company that made it had such little impact on changing the…

It feels a little far-fetched to suggest that one of the leading handset manufacturers putting out one of the very first "smart devices" had no influence on the future of smart devices that followed it, if you ask me. Yes, they weren't in the hands of every stylish adult or high-spending teen, but it wasn't for them. I'd guarantee it influenced the thinking of other people building products in that category for at le…

The communicator was literally like a toy IBM PC.

Blackberry innovated by shrinking the keyboard to thumb size, and making do with a smaller display so it could fit in a pocket instead of requiring a handbag.

Those two innovations/ bold compromises over the Communicator enabled RIM to discover the first addictive euphoria of an always connected social device with the crack berry.

I say “social” but it wasn’t really because the app was really just email. But RIM got it into the gossip columns through Paris Hilton and Janet Jackson, setting the stage for the blockbuster device that landed in 2007 when Steve Jobs showed everybody what a leap forward into a new category could be.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#57

Post by dagw »

aqsalose wrote: post #43

Question. I can believe Communicator didn't change "the world". However, Deutsche Welle is German broadcaster. How prominent Communicator was in Germany?

The launch event for the Communicator was in Germany, exactly 25 years ago yesterday. I guess that in the Germany connection here.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#58

Post by footlose_3815 »

“ugly but revolutionary”

every damn tech author has it built in to hate on old tech and QWERTY. Screw them all, id take a snapdragon in an “ugly” but massively functional form factor (like the one on the right) over these garbage screen-bars with trash virtual keyboards.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#59

Post by jonathantf2 »

fsflover wrote: post #46
p4bl0 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is off-topic but wow, following your links I just read this on the Puri.sm site: > Introducing Librem AweSIM: > Unlimited talk, text, and data for just $99/mo "just"? Really? Isn't that awefully expensive?! I have a plan with ulnimited talk, text, and 40GB of data that I use extensively (including for a lot of youtube videos) and I've never hit this limit. I pay €8/mo for that. For people who would need e…

1. You don't have to buy the AweSIM. You can use any sim-card with this phone, there is no lock. 2. This is not just a cellular service provider: Librem AweSIM adds an extra layer of privacy to your customer data to protect you from targeted tracking. We register your phone number in our name on your behalf and keep your personal and financial data private and out of the hands of companies who would sell it to others…

Is it actually unlimited data though? It doesn't say if they throttle at high usage, that'd be a dealbreaker for me.

Re: Nokia 9000 Communicator was launched 25 years ago

#60

Post by Zenst »

wombatmobile wrote: post #30

> 25 years since it changed the world Nokia’s Communicator may have been the most capable phone computer of the pre iPhone era, but it didn’t change the world. It was too expensive, too closed, and not well enough marketed to change much of anything. I’m surprised to see it glorified here, not because it wasn’t a nice piece of visionary tech, but because the company that made it had such little impact on changing the…

I owned one of these, not as good as a Psion 5MX that preceded if year before. Sure this was an all in one but no, always laughed at the ariel and the thing felt like you could almost use it as an ice-pick with the ariel folded down and the unit closed. But hey, was neat - just the usual issues of these open/close designs was the ribbon cable to connect the screen - those always seem to fail outside warranty period.

But crux was, this was too dam expensive and heck a few years later Blackberry would have it's moment and that did more for the market than the Nokia communicator ever did. Heck the IBM Simon did more than the Nokia did for pushing things or about the same lack-lustre uptake. FWIW I got my communicator for free from a friend who orded one and got two with the company failing to take back the second one in a period of time that made it legally his (he notified in writing so was 3months, maybe 6).

I would also ad the Sony P800 was more game changer as well than the nokia communicator. Also owned that and for the era - pretty darn good.

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