15 hardware changes that would have made N900 physically irresistible – [15 essential hardware features for its successor]
The N900 is a great phone, but it is (as Nokia themselves have more or less said) a work in progress. I’ll say it again, it’s step 4 of 5 to Maemo glory.
Software evolution to one side (see firmware update wishlist for N900), understandably, this early adopter product isn’t physically “perfect” for mass market.
I.E. No point wasting resources on features not necessary to attract your target audience.
So what would the N900 have needed or at least what would the N900′s successor need to be physically irresistible on the hardware front?
Below I’ve quickly listed out top 10 physical attributes the N900′s successor needs to be inexorably alluring (physically) to your 2010 smartphone consumer. Areas I’ve omitted I’m assuming meet the N900s standard, e.g. 1) stay with the black theme 2) screen resolution 3) expandable memory 4) Notification lights etc.
I’ve included 11-15 but stopped there as I could go on forever adding features I’d like to see in the N900′s successor (continuous autofocus, placement of buttons/ports/additional buttons/more in built memory/oleophobic screen/e-ink keyboard/optical zoom etc etc etc).
This, as usual, is just an opinion [feel free to disagree and/or add your own points 
]. It’s mixed with a touch of personal preference , but mostly filled with what Nokia needs to do to satisfy the market’s demand from a 2010 smartphone leading the pack (based on frequently mentioned suggestions).
As such, 1-10 is ordered in what I reckon is the necessary priority of features that would make the N900′s successor undeniably physically desirable (to the mass market audience), leaving only OS of choice as the final deciding factor (which by then, Maemo 6 will have made its appearance with even more bling and eye candy UI]
- Capacitive Screen (with multitouch).
- I will not go into resistive vs capacitive, except that for the market the N900′s successor is trying to reclaim, it MUST have a capacitive display, and that’s already been confirmed as well as multitouch.
- Capacitive is essential to compliment the “feather touch” nature expected of UIs. It’s also necessary so Engadget won’t spit on it.
- Multitouch is necessary for multiple key input used when typing on virtual keyboard, gaming and finger gestures.
- Needs to be much slimmer.
- The concept of what size is acceptable has changed radically.
- It’s more acceptable for phones to be long (New LG chocolate) wide (TGO1) but not fat.
- If it’s long or wide, it’s OK. As long as it’s not thick.
- Ideally anything around 11mm or under. If there’s going to be a keyboard of sorts, try to stay within 14mm
- AMOLED display
- Go that extra distance with the better brightness, contrast and vividness
- Generally consumes less electricity (could contribute slightly towards battery life)
- Increase screen size – [Maybe 3.7", maybe at least don't go below 3.5"]
- The previous 4.13″ Nokia tablets had the perfect screen size for viewing the web on the go.
- Comined with the 800×480 screen, you hardly ever had to zoom in to view fine text.
- Though screen size (at the moment) is the main limiting factor in size, with minimal borders/space wastage, it’s possible to have a 4.13″ fit more or less in the N900′s foot print.
- N900 dimension – 111x60mm.
- 4.13″ [800X480] approx 90x55mm
- Made mostly of metal -minimise the plastic
- This will be a high luxury item.
- Metal phones are intrinsically more appealing than plastic ones.
- Keyboard – 4 row
- If we are going to have a keyboard, can we please have a 4 row
- 4th row must be for numbers
- More space must be used for the keyboard. I get that you’d want some screen interaction, but you’d save so much more time overall if you could have an extremely efficient text input with a well designed and thought out keyboard.
- I won’t go into keyboard layout, except for the love of god, do not hide basic punctuation as secondary symbols.
- Xenon Flash
- I’m hazarding a guess that the majority of photos the average consumer takes are of people [Friends/Family/Self/Spycam haha]
- On that presumption, Xenon Flash is absolutely necessary to make sure that in even low light conditions you can light up the scene and freeze the action.
- You can also keep Dual LED for video light. Don’t need to pick one or the other – have both.
- Increased MegaPixel count
- Nothing to do with picture quality, just keeping up with the times.
- It’s more marketable and you won’t fall prey to “Same 5MP cam as 3 years ago” comments.
- Higher resolution TV out. 720p at least.
- The N900 has proven itself to be a fantastic home media centre, plugging into the TV via TV-out functionality.
- HD output is a must for 2010.
- Compass/Magnetometer
- Assists in navigation of maps to provide real time Map orientation
- Gives the option of Augmented Reality style applications.
- Solid, spring loaded slide
- If we are going to have a physical QWERTY keyboard, it would be nice to have some kind of mechanism to quickly snap open and reveal the keyboard.
- Gesture areas
- These are spaces left or right of the screen (or both)
- Gesture areas can be configured to contextual function and may light up accordingly, but most of the time are invisible.
- Extend UI navigation without taking up space on the screen.
- e.g. Going back/forward/selecting menu/could possibly even work as green-red call/end buttons as well as dedicated music/media controls.
- Higher capacity battery
- Go back up to 1500mAh
- Possibly increase that?
- It’s great to have fantastic features but even better to know you don’t have to ration their use because the battery won’t last a full day. (N900′s battery life is fair, though I’m still pretty much in honey moon period so using it extremely heavily)
- You can of course get accessories like the Proporta Turbo Charger or a spare battery to keep yourself going.
- Wide angle lens and improved low light sensor
- Basically the N86′s optic prowess. Similar to #9 but this one actually does improve the quality of images that you’ll take.
- Wide angle lets you get more of your subject in the frame, composing better pictures – improved low light sensor means that you can take great photos when flash isn’t an option [e.g. distant subjects/through glass/situation of no flash photography allowed, often indoors with low light)
- Totally flat screen, no dust cave bezel
- Raised bezel accumulates dust and dirt
- Raised bezel interferes with finger swiping
- Make the bezel (if there will be one) flat and flush with the screen
Processor/RAM/Graphics card – can’t give definite specification on what I’d want, but at least improve on what we’ve already got.
We’ll have to wait it out and see what Nokia’s got cooking when the N900 successor is announced. If due in 2010, it’s most likely not possible for any major hardware changes to happen to it now. If it has the first half I’d be ecstatic.
Category: Maemo, Nokia, Nseries, Rant, Suggestions
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You can’t have a thin phone and a xenon flash and still have a good product.
I would much rather have a thick phone with great optics than a thin phone with a junk camera.
Sony Ericsson Satio is 13mm, albeit thicker at camera end. That produces good pics with its 12mp cam + xenon flash. It’s pretty slim IMO.
I’d also rather have a much thicker phone with good optics, but the average/target consumer might not.
The camera pixel game is a hard one — more pixels generally means smaller pixels on the same size die, which, in turn, means less light-gathering ability.
The wide-angle lens is a mater of taste as well — for 35mm film, a 105 mm lens (slight telephoto, compared to the “standard” 50 mm lens) was generally considered a good portrait lens as it didn’t have distortions such as the “big nose” that has become the norm with point-and-shoot and cell-phone cameras.
Since the N900 is pretty much an “enthusiast” (or “nerd”) phone, not an iPhone or Android competitor due to some very significant feature (e.g., MMS, by-user ring tones as far as I can tell, no Mac iSync support) and app store support (Linux is fun, but, for example, I can deposit checks to USAA with my wife’s iPhone and there isn’t a big enough install base to support that kind of development), I’d go with that initial target market until Nokia starts to regain market share.
Thanks for your comment Jeff. Take on board MP and wideangle one – both really not necessarily for function more for “tick box” list of something people would be interested in.
I think I get where you’re coming from – N900 is indeed more for the “enthusiast”, thus not necessarily having all the goodies Nokia could squeeze in if they wanted to.
For Nokia to regain their market share, they have to come out now with some Godly phone that when people think “ultimate gadget” it is one of Nokia’s devices. No more just “catching up”. They’ve already had all the hardware components to make a blindingly good phone, but never in one device.
on the screen tech side, i would rather like to see pixel qi then amoled, and restive multitouch rather then capacitive (yep, there are screens out there now that do resisitive multitoch).
still, to me multitouch is pretty much a marketing thing on a small screen (and i would say that engadget can take it up the behind for all i care, that they have become the kings of tech opinion worries me greatly) as outside of a on-screen keyboard, its only good for gestures. And gestures on a small screen makes close to zero sense imo…
Good points and don’t forget they have to remove the chrome around the flash which bounces light back into the lens ruining some flash shots
1. Capacitive Screen (with multitouch).
But it also comes with drawbacks.
* There is -10 in winter and so ppl wear gloves. For resistive screen it’s fine. But capacitive screen would not work at all. So iPhone owners are looking like an idiots when trying to place call in cold conditions.
* Such screens are less accurate. Right now n900 kicks the ass.
* Stylus would not work at all.
So, we have to forget about using ported desktop apps and have as much headache when browsing as with iPhone. All that sucks.
2. Needs to be much slimmer.
No, not too much. I’m not a dwarf and not a little girl, so I do want to sense something in my hand when placing a call. But slight reduce is welcome since it would make device fitting pockets better, etc.
3. AMOLED display
But it haves drawbacks as well:
* Sucking lifetime. Picture quality will degrade over time. Yep, vendors are silent on this but that’s life. Lifetime of LCDs much better than AMOLEDs. And if screen of my EXPENSIVE device would become worse quickly, that’s not acceptable.
* Transreflective LCDs can be read on bright sunlight. They’re using this sunlight to show picture so at least something can be seen on LCDs at bright conditions. AMOLEDs are emitting light on their own and are completely jammed by bright light so you can’t read anything. That’s not what acceptable for a phone. Phone have to place a calls. In various conditions, INCLUDING bright sunlight, etc. You rather want an expensive toy than anything actually useful in real world, don’t you?
4. Increase screen size
Yes, yes and yes! It’s a MUST for web, etc!
5. Made mostly of metal -minimise the plastic
Sure! 600-Euro device have to look like 600-Euro device.
6. Keyboard – 4 row
Must have! It’s tricky to use 3 rows for dual layouts and Nokia
7. Xenon Flash
Do not need that and unwilling to pay extra price for that. Furthermore, LED flash can be used for lighting, small light LED torch counts as bonus for me. Xenon can’t do that inherently.
8. Increased MegaPixel count
The more megapixels put to limited camera matrix size, the more noise you would get in same condition. So, weirdest wish ever. Would rather degrade photo quality as noone is willing to put large matrix to allow each pixel remain large enough to not produce too noisy signal. Basically shooting yourself to the leg with such wish (so you like noise on photos, right?).
9. Higher resolution TV out. 720p at least.
Dunno using it yet. So do not care. Not going to pay anything extra for this, definitely.
10. Compass/Magnetometer
Yeah, could be nice. As long as not increasing device price even further.
11. Solid, spring loaded slide
.
As for me, current slide is very nice
12. Gesture areas
Why this useless stuff needed if touch screen can handle this? I would rather prefer larger LCD and touchscreen instead. And there is no wizardry. The more stuff you’re putting into device, the more bugs and inconsistencies you would get at the end of day. N900 haves already a load of problems. Do not overcomplicate things even more. Or it will be full of bugs, even worse than now. Software would not react gracefully on so many input controllers – quite few existing software expects this and would react gracefully.
13. Higher capacity battery
Yes, yes, yes, yes! The more – the better! I’m want more power!
14. Wide angle lens and improved low light sensor
.
As for me, current is enough. Though if someone going to improve it while keeping device price at same point, that’s OK for me
15. Totally flat screen, no dust cave bezel
Then it would get scratched easily even in case because case material would always in tight contact with LCD and eventually it would scratch it due to dust, etc. Nokia takes care their devices do not look like a crap after some months of use. Me loves that.
But more metal means heavier device. Good hard plastic is good enough and also will make de device cheaper. Both metal and plastic will get scratched.
On the other hand, they should use some kind of anti scratch material on de display, like iphone and droid, thats the important part not the body of the device.
Also, instead of more megapixels, better camera.
I wonder… You had been so much descriptive and *demanding* in your listing HW items which you consider (almost) essential – that’s fine.
Now, just make second trip – this time you have to put money sum after every bullet item, and then make total. And then add that total to current price to figure out how much customers shell out in that case. You don’t assume NOK shareholders pay for essentially your wishes, do you? So are you ready for that bottom-liner? And how many people out there are ready to shell out same amount of money in our oh-not-so-easy times?
Talking about battery (my favorite item)… Ready to pay insane price for anything rocket science not yet common (read – cheap) on market? Or ready to increase size? Wait… You had been asking for slimmer device – so-o-o-o… Slimmer device or fatter battery (you must choose one)?
I am waiting for price to go down to get this fantastic device for all members of my family.
With protective screen my device do not gather any dust.
This phone do now or will do soon everything I need. I can only complain that the GPS is not as good as I expected.
I am waiting for: prices to go down, for next-generation (transparent with projector on both sides) 3-D glasses supporting native resolution, and for working tux paint.
While at it, how about:
* Make USB port able to be a host or OTG port.
* 3D accelerometer (not just 2-axis)
* 6-row keyboard, similar to Android G1, which is much easier to type on.
* TV output being compatible with VGA too…if possible.
* Extra sensors: perhaps temperature, heart-rate, pressure
* Laser pointer.
I am happy none of u asked for 3D Holographic displays and light sabers on the n900