Handful of Nothing

So this weeks has been quite busy. Not only in the projects I’m working on (that goes far from the n800 platform) but also in the mobile world.

First, Palm Foleo

Ok, Palm released this little-big guy and apart from all critics and good reviews one thing I can say is:
It’s hell of a nice linux device. But I wouldn’t say it’s a hell of a nice “companion”. And Please don’t say it’s a smartphone. It’s far from being a smartphone. It’s a smartphone big brother at most.

I agree that “convergence” is nice, but quite hard to achieve, but separating devices is not converging. There will be people falling in love for the Foleo as a small laptop but not as a truly mobile device.

Question arises: Is that really the way to go? Supply a screen and a keyboard to “attack” the small screens defects?

While I kind of like the Foleo as a linux device, for me it should be a lot smaller. Thumb keyboards are cool for the fast on the go working, and come on… mobile email doesn’t need to come in such a big package. I hate typing on the screen, like in the n800 but that wouldn’t make me go to a Foleo kind of device. I completely agree with some people saying that it looks like a crappy mini dell. Yes, this should be pretty clear to users that this is not a subnotebook like those products that failed with windows CE on the past. Actually in the end, the very very simple UI could be the gate for scaping the failure. Also, a lot of linux hackers would love to create “working” machines out of those.

size. It really matters

Now, new nokia Design available
Nokia Has announced some new phones. And apart from the last one, which has a 2 color design I liked the other 2. Actually the “luna” device doesn’t get me that much, they keypad is kind of hard to use, but I’m felling quite good about the 6500. It’s slim, and the most important it doesn’t look like a copy of a motorola or samsung phone. Its Nokia. Has identity. I like that.

The 6500 has a lot of nice and welcoming design choices to Nokia, and the article showing how they did it is transcribed on ring nokia, if you like product design worth the reading.

The other slide device is really, really a drawback. Sorry Nokia, you hit big on the 6500 but in this one, it’s just the opposite. When it’s open reminds me of the old SE t610. In that time it could be nice, but not now.