Maemo
I doubt it will be Symbian based, more likely Maemo. They already have the tablets running Maemo, so chances are a netbook will as well.
Nokia could follow service providers into netbook territory, by offering a machine of its own. President and chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is reported to have said in India: "We at Nokia is [sic] actively looking at this converged market... We are looking at the netbook market to see what kind of opportunity is there …
well with the n900 going through the fcc process it looks as being the device you are talking about.
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-rx51-n900-en.shtml
It looks at their strategy will be both simbian and maemo though it could also be android.
what is a "netbook" if you are talking small computer they already have Internet tablets with the only real difference bing the cpu that they use.
The Nokia N810 already looks a lot more attractive than most netbooks (the Eee-clone family), with a screen that's just fractionally smaller, but one third of the weight, and hugely more portable. If they just repackage that too look more like what the punters expect of a netbook (i.e. a lot more clunky), they're already there.
I hope they'll stick with the ARM processor and solid-state storage, and thus dispense with the need for a big heavy battery or cooling. Add an e-ink screen (which seems, alas, further away) and you have a dream machine!
As for OS, why stop at maemo if going up the scale? Ubuntu would make a great consumer-oriented device.
Nokia may be "kick-ass hardware" but my recent journey to Nokia products (E71 and N97) leave me hugely unimpressed with Symbian after really looking forward to all the hype.
It looks like software written for retards by retards, sorry to say, no offence to retards intended. Not only that, but so many software bugs on the E71 implementation, really not fit for purpose. It left me yearning, amazingly, for Windows Mobile that I just came off!
If this new netbook runs on Symbian then I guess the retards will be happy with their software design and will foresake unstable crashing systems. I really can't believe that the mother of all blue screens is immeasureably more superior than the hyped, fabled Nokia!
As for the Mactards and iTard crowd, well maybe they will be swayed by the tardish nuances of Symbian and jump ship to this netbook away from the overpriced iToys.
So where are my wandering thoughts taking me this hazy sunday morning? I guess I am looking forward to experiencing -
1. my new old HTC Tytn 2 phone with WM 6.1 and touch-flo (a bit tardish, but not too much!) that should arrive in the net few days
2. trying WM 6.5 and 7.0 in the next 12 months.
3. netbooks running slimmed version of Win 7.0
4. still p!ssing around with (k)Ubuntu 9.04 trying to get it to run some win apps via wine. Other than that, 9.04 is a fantastic OS and Nokia should go for that on their netbook, but they won't for sure, great pity and missed opportunity for them to stop farting around with Symbian any longer.
On the one hand I look at this as another way for Nokia to perpetrate an Epic Fail of nGage proportions.
On the other hand, I see it as an opportunity for a well known gadget manufacturer to get in on the netbook market without being bound and gagged by OEM agreements from a well known software company from Redmond WA
I hope they do it and do a good job. It will have to be Open Source based if they hope for any traction though. That will probably be the difference between a win or fail.
"Nokia have came out to say they are looking to move their newer mobiles away from symbian to the Gnu/Linux Debian based OS that is Maemo...."
Actually, no they didn't. That was just a rumour.
This is all just speculation, and it could well be Maemo on a tablet or a netbook... but it doesn't make sense for S60 devices.
If what I've read about the N900 turns out to be true, I fear we may both be disappointed.
I was hoping for, in effect, an N810 with 3G and a 5MP Carl Zeiss camera (which I think is the kind of device you have in mind), whereas the latest rumours (see noknok.tv for one account) seem to point to the N900 being rather smaller and more phone-like - more akin to an N97 running Maemo.
If that's how the N900 turns out, I think I'll seek out a decent price on an Eee 701 (which I was stunned to find is still on sale in Toys R Us - good for them). Will keep an eye on this story, though.
As an avid N810 user I'd be very happy to see Maemo on a larger and more powerful device.
A proper keyboard and ability to run office (OpenOffice) software has to be part of the definition surely, so it's not likely to be Symbian. N900 look likely to be pretty similar form factor to N810, so a nokia netbook unliklely to be that.
Yup, something like an oversized N810/N900 would be nice. No too big mind, or it'll get trampled by all the other netbooks.
Ohj I dont know.........how about something the size of an EeePC 701, but with more power and more style........costing around 200 quid.
mmmm!
>> "The Nokia N810 already looks a lot more attractive than most netbooks (the Eee-clone
family), with a screen that's just fractionally smaller, but one third of the weight, and hugely more portable."
mmm .. a typcial netbook has an 8.9" screen , the N810 is 4.13" - that's hardly 'fractionally smaller' unless you work in marketing. Agree with your other points though.
We (Psion, Symbian, Nokia whatever!) had the netbook, then the secret arm debian netbook ( any one want to buy the one I have left?) that never got released and the windows CE netbook pro ( that did get shiped).
Before that was the MX5.
Noka would just end up wasting money in a market they cant compete in they started to do netbooks. ( go ask the Eee people and see how they got on). People just do not want to buy these things when they can get a HTC with the latest windows mess on it ( they all way toss it after a year when they find out it aint a phone)
PS. Yes the E71 is ergonomically rubbish compared to the E61 (was usable). Regretting upgrading
I'd be interested in the secret ARM Debian netbook. Why was it never released?
By the way, apparently we're supposed to call an ARM-powered mini-laptop a "smartbook". The only such thing I've seen in retail uses a rather old and low-specification CPU, but they say that better models are in the pipeline. Might Nokia be making one, in addition to the boring x86 Windows machine in today's reports?