I think that is a very clever form for this device. I don't want to detract from Bunnie's laptop because that is such an amazing device from the story of it its inception to the real world implementation, but I think this is likely a better form factor.
It's not perfect, it's far from free hardware, and it's not a very good form factor for a phone replacement. But I rarely take any calls, so it's good enough for me.
And the ability to install whatever OS I want trumps everything else. I'm tired of phones where updates depend on capricious manufacturers. I want a real Linux and not a bunch of apps. I can't wait to see a tiling window manager running on that thing.
> And the ability to install whatever OS I want trumps everything else.
Agree, along with the ability of actually developing and compiling, and running your software directly on the same device. There's just nothing else out there in this kind of form factor.
> It's cool, but maybe too expensive and underpowered?
I feel like that would come with the territory of a niche, small-batch device. They wouldn't be large enough to benefit from economies of scale, and they're not bringing in enough money to employ teams of engineers to optimize and refresh the hardware regularly.
That's the issue with any device like this with small production runs - you can't get the same bulk discounts on components for a few hundred devices as you can when making, say, 10,000. Unfortunately, larger runs require larger investments, and most people who are interested in these projects do not have the resources to back such a big project.
What was so good about the N900? (serious question: I have often read in the internet that people loved the N900 very much and about the very political reasons why it was abandonded, but hardly anything about the reasons why N900's fanboys found it so great).
Also... True multitasking, tons of storage (32GB + MicroSD), accurate stylus input. But like sonnyp suggested, mostly that it was a full Debian-based Linux experience with a decent keyboard.
It wasn't perfect (I seem to remember the battery life wasn't great), but it was a great device, more like a Swiss army knife than a phone. Wish Nokia had done a full release of the N950 (the N9 with a hardware keyboard, only released to developers, with a weaker screen than the N9) as that was shaping up to be even better than the N900.
Somewhere along the way it slipped from an IBM product to a limited series of a device born out of a community to fulfill their own needs. To me those are two very different things.
I can imagine happily using this one.