In what can surely be called a surprise move, Nokia has announced that it will enter the netbook market with an Atom-based netbook which will ship with Windows 7. While many of the components appear relatively normal compared to other netbooks, it does come with a few features that will set the device apart from the rest. Instant update: Ars believes this is the first Intel Pine Trail netbook.
Post a Comment
Member since:
2006-01-28
Looks really promising.
I only have two requests:
1) Make it affordable. If it´s more than $500, it´s out of the question.
2) Provide choice in the OS: provide a model with identical specs but loaded with a good linux distro.
Nokia is doing some pretty interesting things: they bought Trolltech and released Qt under the LPGL, they are pretty active in the mobile os department with linux and now this netbook.
Can´t wait to get my hands on one of these babies. Here´s to hoping that the next generation of netbooks have all the features of the Nokia one built-in.
Member since:2009-05-19
Member since:2009-04-24
Member since:2005-08-28
Member since:2006-01-12
I think only way they different from rest of netbook markers is OVI service. So far I haven't seen single Nokia app ported to Linux or any other OS than Windows. It will support syncing with Nokia phones which means using PC suite that hasn't been ported. After seen how buggy most of Nokia software has been in history and how bad OVI store and other service are I'm not very impressed on this. If price is right it might be pretty good but if they charge too much for pre-installed OVI services I see no reason to buy it.
On side note I think this just proofs how badly Nokia is managed nowdays. Whole service strategy has been pure failure starting from N-gage and ending in OVI.
Member since:2007-09-06
The N95 phone was much thicker than I expected when I finally took the time to look at it but the tablets are fantastic. The N800 was great once I picked up a BT keyboard and the N810 has been even better; both being the first devices I could call an upgrade from the Palm T5 based on provided hardware functions and design. They also did the software right though. They took a Debian fork and opened it up to third party developers. The next release of Maemo is supposed to open up the last closed bits including the NIC kernel module. The N95 was a chunky bit of hardware though. I was surprised by it's width when I looked at it finally. My two Nokia phones have also been fantastic but phones is there big business.
I'm not familiar with there other hardware so I can't comment there. This notebook does look nice in the commercial but it's closer to low end sub-notebook pricing.
What I'm laughing about the last few days is the N900. The first time I booted my N800, my thought was that if they added a cell radio it would eat the mobile phone market alive. My reasoning was that they wouldn't do this because it would also eat there other mobile phone model sales in the process. Now the N900 has it early rumour release stage and it's clearly an update of the N810 with a cell radio added. The down side; it's due for release only in the US and with a single carrier so I'm really hoping it does go the same way as the N810 Wimax edition. I can't wait to see what the Maemo community does with it though.
Member since:2005-07-06
Nokia is actually in the process of porting the Ovi suite to the Mac. No word on when it'll be done, though.
In the meantime, they've already released a Mac client for Ovi Files.
http://blog.ovi.com/2009/08/04/i-love-my-mac-and-so-does-ovi-files/
Edited 2009-08-25 22:00 UTC
Member since:
2005-07-06
I usually admire the deep knowledge of technical details in Ars articles, but that one is bad.
Why not Maemo?
First of all, Nokia is foremost a hardware company. It builds stuff that it thinks sells well. You don't have to be a genius to know that the market for Windows offerings is bigger.
The second reason is that Maemo's GUI is simply not made for bigger screens. It's designed for very small screens. If Nokia offers Linux as an option in the future, it'll be likely based on KDE's upcoming netbook GUI which is targeted to be ready in January 2010.
If Nokia wants to put Maemo on netbooks, I'd be very surprised if it was a GTK-based Maemo version. GTK on Maemo is already a dead end. However, the Qt-based Maemo version is far from being ready.
Qt is already the mandated toolkit for application development inside Nokia ( http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/01/qt-goes-lgpl.html ). So whatever apps Nokia writes for Windows, they'll be based on Qt. If Nokia one day decides to offer Linux netbooks, those apps can be ported very easily.
Member since:2008-12-26
Member since:2005-09-27
Member since:2005-07-06
Why do you think that Nokia will even use multitouch on a netbook (it's not a tablet PC)??
And even if Nokia will use moultitouch, Qt is perfectly capable of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xTX7b6MSfg&fmt=35
Oh, and btw: If a Nokia employee says that Qt is mandated, that's likely true. Nokia continues to support Qt for Windows so why not use it?
Edited 2009-08-25 00:31 UTC
Member since:2007-09-06
Take Maemo, add a different DE; done. As a Debian fork, it's very easy to cross-compile packages that they want to include for the netbook. The platform history already shows that individuals cross-compiling .debs is no biggy. Mind you, even an Ubuntu or Debian netbook install would work given the full size screen.
I get why they have a Windows offering but I don't get why they have only a Windows offering. That's disappointing coming from a company who so far has done FOSS software on there own hardware right. I can only hope that they are planning OS options for later on.
Member since:2005-07-07
oh damn! someone wrong on the internet, I must fix it....
as I understood, directly from Nokia staff, also as reported here on OSNews, next nokia tablet is GNOME Mobile, full stack, plus Qt as primary UI toolkit... GTK+ is not going anywhere AND it will not have a single line from KDE... nor KDE's upcoming netbook GUI, if there's any
Member since:2005-07-06
1.) The upcoming Nokia internet tablet / MID is a niche product, unlike a netbook. Check the sales numbers of MIDs vs. netbooks.
2.) The upcoming MID likely is in development since before the Qt-Maemo announcement.
3.) MIDs are not the same as netbooks. You can't just slap a MID-targeted GUI (Maemo 5) onto a netbook. There is no official netbook GUI by the GNOME project. The closest thing is Canonical's UNR launcher.
4.) If Nokia even has plans to support Linux on netbooks sometime in the future, likely Nokia wants the same apps (Ovi Maps etc.) on Windows and Linux.
As I quoted earlier, Qt in the mandated development toolkit inside Nokia. So it's logical that Nokia prefers the one desktop environment that's already Qt-based and on top of that Nokia already employs a significant number of developers. Are Aaron Seigo and co. (paid by Nokia) just developing "plasma-netbook" just for fun or are they serving concrete plans from Nokia?
In the past Trolltech paid KDE devs, because KDE served as technology demo for Qt and hence drove Qt's commercial licensing. Maybe Nokia is just a sponsor for better publicity, but maybe Nokia actually wants to use plasma-desktop itself.
Member since:2008-12-26
IIUC, KDE devs like aseigo do not report to Nokia, they are merely sponsored by them. KDE is still an independent project.
Edited 2009-08-25 21:00 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Maybe that changed. I don't know.
Yes, it is. That, however, does not mean that individual components of KDE are not shaped how a company wants it to be. KDAB for example contributes to KDE PIM, because its customers want to run Kontact. And KDAB obviously only contributes features useful to its customers.
I never said that it's certain that Nokia pushes plasma-netbook. I said that IF Nokia has plans to offer Linux as an option, then from their point of view, KDE + plasma-netbook makes more sense.
Member since:2005-07-07
But you have to understand something very important, GNOME Mobile (a real project) and GNOME project as all has real values for companies... you may call GTK+ a weak point but all other underline technologies is so unique and no other desktops present such as rich and free technologies for companies to use...
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-07
Member since:
2006-01-07
Quite frankly, it's a dumb move by Nokia. They are basing this machine on an Intel Atom processor. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting for the new ARM processor netbooks to come out, which hopefully will be by the end of this year. That is where the future lies. Nokia's mobile phones are all based on the ARM processor, but they want to compete using last year's technology.
I guess they're proud that their machine will run Windows instead of MS-DOS.
Member since:2008-12-26
The engineering cost of Windows + i386 netbook is much lower than Arm + Linux equivalent would be. They can basically outsource most of the work cheaply to Asia, which is not the case for Linux yet.
There are also some rumours about Nokia going Intel for their phones as well (google for links).
Member since:2007-04-23
Bull. Nearly all the prototypes of ARM-based netbooks are from Asia, so Nokia could easily outsource both design and production.
You can find rumours saying anything. The rumours you mention may very well have started by someone noting increased correspondence between Nokia and Intel, and that was most likely about the netbook rather than about any use of Intel chips in phones.
Member since:2008-12-26
Bull. Nearly all the prototypes of ARM-based netbooks are from Asia, so Nokia could easily outsource both design and production. "
Yes, but it wouldn't be nearly as cheap. Windows on netbooks is a rather generic technology, and if the whole thing tanks you don't stand to lose much in R&D.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-07-06
It will be interesting to see how Windows 7 performs on these devices with the claims by Microsoft that their new operating system is optimised for low power, low memory devices such as netbooks. I've given one of the later builds on a EeePC 1000HA and it ran incredibly well - I wonder how it'll perform using the new range of CPU's put out by Intel.
There are some people here going on about how it s a travesty that Linux hasn't been chose; what I think is a greater one is how QNX, an operating system designed from the ground up for use in embedded devices is left out in the cold. I'd love to see an Atom powered netbook running QNX RTP with the neutrino GUI.
Member since:
2008-03-27
Member since:
2008-12-26
Seems they are hedging their bets:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090826PD204.html
