“Leaked” MeeGo Tablet – ST Ericsson reference design board?

Do you remember the ST Ericsson U8500 1.2GHz dual core ARM Cortex A9 reference design with MeeGo handset on it, posted back in November? (Note: ST Ericsson not Sony Ericsson)

Andre Mentioned in the comment about the “leaked MeeGo tablet” that

“This device looks like a beagle board as opposed to an actual device. The board being used to debug drivers etc.”

John mentions this in the post:

“From some of the stuff I have been reading, some people are saying that it could only be a device for developing MeeGo on not actual hardware that will come out.”

Mobile-Review forum members ICEman_c81 and Cor72z agree have noticed some similarities (images provided below respectively).

And again:

Why the Nokia Logo though?

What do you guys think about Nokia Rumours? I know there are those that hate them but I think it’s cool that big blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo would run speculation stories about Nokia devices. They also did the same with the supposed Intel Chip in the N9.

I like the discussion and the intent investigation some folks go through to find snippets of truth about the N9. It’s exciting stuff, and it’s great to be talked about. Shows you’re still relevant. Who speculates on LG stuff? Some hate it when the rumour is “misreported”, i.e. Eldar’s mention of the N9-00 being canned being another nail in Nokia’s coffin is the interpretation to some blog posts.

Well, if the N9 was well and truly dropped, then you can say that Nokia is slowly but surely going downhill without any brakes applied, considering how their hardware hasn’t been as hot selling as they used to be.

Ubergizmo

Just to explain (and also highlight Nokia’s STILL confusing naming system) Nokia calls their phones Nx-00, Nx-01, Nx-02, Nx-03 etc. where N=the series branch (Nseries, Eseries, Xseries, Cseries, Sseries) and x=position number in portfolio. -00, -01, -02 etc denotes a “variant”  of that model.

e.g. C6-00, C6-01. Two different phones though they may be called C6 interchangeably and so confusingly. C6-00 could get discontinued and the C6-01 still sells on. A little bit like the N95, and N95 8GB or iPhone and various other iterations of “upgrades”. Unfortunately for Nokia, these “variants” of their phones are appearing not directly as next generation cycles with sufficient time difference apart but along side each other, stocked on shelves of the confused consumer.

So when the N9-00 may be cancelled, the “N9” is not. Unless of course Nokia scrap the whole naming convention. But they will still launch their Nokia MeeGo phone. Not drop it all randomly for a portion of the tablet market.

What was currently understood is that there are two variants, one with and one without a keyboard. The keyboardless N9-01 is expected to be what will be available on retail first. It was rumoured that a keyboard version would appear later. There’s also discussion that a keyboard developer MeeGo device would appear first so folks can make apps for it for a later release. Whatever that device is, it CANNOT (at least should not) be named N9-xx because the successor of the N900 is meant to be for mass market, not niche developers like N900 (as awesome as that critter was).

Chinese Whispers

Well rumours are pretty much Chinese Whispers. The “original story” gets so warped coming out of the other end. Worse, if there wasn’t much of the original story to go on. Thanks to huge social networks, this idle gossip spreads so much faster now and is all in your face as “news” happens. I guess it can get tiring, boy-who-cried-wolf stylie. But then that’s never stopped all these millions of next gen iPhone/iPad speculation posts. Rumours are placed out there (hopefully labelled as a rumour) for discussion/debate as to the likelihood of it being real.

In terms of the waiting for new firmware update – these can get frustrating for some who expect an update by a certain date that was provided by rumours. Having said that, despite Nokia saying “Early 2011”, Nokia India (twitter) did mention January 2011. And prior to that, Nokia (twitter) said the E7 would come out in December 2010 which now looks to be February/March 2011 at the earliest.

I think mystery and uncertainty is a spice of life, and piecing information together to grasp the picture is kinda fun. Or is this just overly analysing things :p.

What I know with 100% certainty in regards to the N9 is I reeeeeally want a Nokia MeeGo phone! 😀

Category: Maemo, MeeGo, Nokia, Nseries, Rant