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Nokia N900 announced — candidate for Kindle companion?
August 27, 2009 | 3:30 pm
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By Roger Sperberg, New York Editor for TeleRead
Nokia officially announced its fifth Internet Tablet today, the N900. (For full details, see maemo.org and nokia.com.)
With its flat surface, iPhone-like dimensions, camera, video, and phone capabilities, the N900 aims to fit into the same fits-in-your-pocket-and-does-way-more-than-your-phone category as Apple’s iPhone while still retaining its web-while-you’re-walking-around emphasis.
The N900′s 3.5″ full-color display has a 267 pixel-per-inch resolution (compared to the iPhone’s same-size 163ppi screen) measuring 800 x 480 pixels. This makes for dazzlingly sharp text. The device also includes Flash 9.4 and reads PDF files natively. This, along with the newly added 3.5G wireless capability, would appear to position the N900 as an ideal platform for a synching Kindle e-reader.
Amazon advises publishers to implement color, motion, and interactivity into e-books, despites its Kindle devices’ lacking support of these features. Clearly the bookseller needs more than just Apple’s iPhone and iPod to deliver these electronic essentials lest more entertaining products snatch its current format and pipeline dominance.
Of course, the Kindle 1, 2 and DX utilize a Linux-derived operating system, so porting the e-reader, book-delivery and synching software does not appear to be an impediment either.
The N900 is due in October 2009, with an expected price of €500. With larger-screen and cheaper e-readers arriving in the same period, it may not be the first choice as an e-reader. (Nor, for that matter, first choice as a phone, camera or video player.) But its unmatched versatility as a carryaround device makes it an undeniably attractive contender.
FBReader, the nonpareil open-source e-reader — it reads e-books in 12 different formats and runs on Windows and Linux handhelds and desktops, as well as Macs (unofficially) — has a long and close relationship with the Nokia Internet Tablet. Although it is not formally included among Nokia’s applications, FBReader is part of what makes the NIT’s great e-readers.
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Comments:
Heck with Kindle-companion… it sounds like a good netbook or PDA substitute, with 3G access to the web and e-book capability.
Please tell me it runs Maemo…. It would beat out all the upcoming Android phones for me if it does.
It will, according to the Maemo and Nokia websites.
At the same time that it appears to be enlarging Maemo’s role in its OS strategy and digging in in the netbook/MID (mobile internet device) category, Nokia also dropped “internet tablet” as part of the new device’s name.
To me, the N900 is still a tablet but Nokia must believe sales will be greater by positioning the device as a cellphone.
As a tablet, it fixes most of what ailed the predecessor NIT’s, at the cost of adding a heckuva lot of cellphone hardware and moving away from the low-end MID pricing.
As an ebook reader, the sharper, smaller display moves the N900 into the cellphone-reader area, and away from the larger-screen 800×480 UMPC’s, as well as the forthcoming CrunchPad, other keyboardless netbooks and the usual keyboarded netbooks, not to mention the eInk readers. Character size isn’t everything, but physically larger displays offer a reading experience the cel-size devices can’t.
As a cellphone-gps-and-camera, the N900 won’t dazzle the phone-geek or gadget-mad crowd, but the more that people experience the walkaround web the better the N900 will look. (Trust me: I know from experience.) And acquiring connect-anywhere-not-just-with-wifi is what gives the N900 Kindle-like bookbuying capabilities (and book-synching too). The Kindle has a bunch of flaws, but I bought a K2 once I had experienced that book-ubiquity aspect. That’s why I emphasize the ereader potential of this new Nokia.
As someone who appreciates an independent PDA that isn’t tied to a cellphone provider, this looks to me like iPhone competition for those who wanted the iPhone, but not the provider that comes with it. With its size, that’s the most logical target for their market.
As Windows has largely been elbowed out of the PDA and smartphone market, this looks like a good brand device to shift to when the time comes. Hopefully the web experience is all that, as too many websites are simply painful or even impossible to use on small screens (this site, for example, drives me crazy on my LG Dare).
Steve says “Heck with Kindle-companion…” I say the opposite.
A properly implemented Kindle companion would open a huge number of books that I’d like to read, on the type of device I prefer. I’ve been surviving reasonably well on the free downloads at http://manybooks.net/ and http://www.feedbooks.com/, supplemented by commercial purchases at http://www.ereader.com — but there are still many titles missing…
I have certainly been happy using my N810 as a e-reader device. I’ve read 20-50 books and short stories with it, after my wife read 15 in the first two months we owned it…
And now that I have had the N900 for four weeks, I can confirm it also makes a fine e-reading device. the addition of a 3G modem and phone functionality means that one device can be my book, phone web browser, email tool, music player and tethering modem for my laptop.
If *all* you’re looking for is a small color ebook reader, and you can wait until you find wifi to get the next book, get an N810. It will be quite a bit cheaper, and the physical size of the screen is a bit larger. I sometimes miss it…