I remember, some years ago, writing an email to PC Pro, telling them what I wanted, and asking why someone hadn't developed it yet. What I wanted at that time, was, essentially, a Palm, but with the ability to phone people on it, and also browse the web. I seem to remember my friend, Martin, telling me to wait 6 months, because he thought Palm were going to announce something which would seem to be what I was waiting for. Well, in the absence of any actual cashy money, I waited, and Palm, in due course, announced the Palm W. I do believe the W stood for wireless, and it's possible that it would connect to a wifi network. I'm not sure, because the reviews were not good, so I didn't look too far into it. And anyway, it didn't have a phone. I think I remember that you could get a "sled" for it which would allow you to shove a sim into it, and use it as a phone. The whole thing, then, would look rather like the mobile phone "bricks" from back in the 90's. The word "sled" was what I remember finding on a search of the interwebz for this device and its accessories.
I found this new device annoyingly underwhelming, especially as Palm had been so brilliant in the PDA market previously. And people like Sony had produced the P900, which, while expensive, seemed to have all that I wanted. So, the all in one device waited a bit.
Now, about two and a half years ago, I bought, at great expense, from eBay, a Sony Clié PDA. This second hand device cost me £150, which was at the top end of what they were selling for. Had I been more inclined (and less susceptible to the ghastly panic at the end of the auction) I might have waited it out, and managed to get something similar, but it would have cost maybe £30 less. The whole package, at the time, seemed like a pretty good deal. It did include the GPS receiver and all the necessary software for installing GPS on the palm, along with the car-cradle in which it would sit whilst you were driving. After all, I've got to be the only person in the whole Universe who doesn't have a GPS! OK - maybe there's a tiny bit of exaggeration there... But still no phone. However, it would pair nicely with my Nokia 8310 (using IR), and it had wifi built in. And yet Nirvana seemed just beyond my paupers fingers...
Moving on to 2009. There are at least 15 million devices out there which will do it all. Although they're usually phones which will allow a limited web browsing experience, there seems to be a bit of a trend to try to make this a less limited deal. Look at the Nokia N97. Although the reviews of it are less than glowing, it's certainly providing the all-in-one experience. The HTC phones are providing a similarly checked list of features (although I gather their keyboards are a little nicer to use). In fact, since I started this post, Nokia have been outed, with a large and embarrassing leak about the new Internet Tablet, which also doubles as a phone - so they had to announce it early. It's called the N900, and is, apparently, AWESOME! However, it's also going to cost upwards of £500 unless you get a contract for it. Not, I suppose, that this is such a bad thing - I've been pleased with the contract on my N78.
But I've rambled long enough. About 2 weeks ago I purchased, for a ridiculously small sum, a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. How ridiculously small, I hear you ask? Well, both Play.com and Amazon UK have the device available for just short of £130. Pennies short, I'll concede, but DAMN, how cheap is that?
So, the device arrived. I thought; it'll be just like a palm, it's got wifi but no phone, but maybe it'll browse the sites I haven't been able to get to on the Clié.
Turns out I was wrong. Oh, sure, I can browse the sites I couldn't reach on the Clié, and no, it doesn't have a phone. But it's NOTHING like the palm. Everything works. No messing, it just works. No installing interesting third-party drivers which cost a fortune, and aren't necessarily guaranteed to work, it just works.
This device (and the new N900) come with an OS called Maemo. Dumb name! But that's where the stupid stops. This is a little Linux distro, and thus you can write your own programs for it. Give me some time, and I'll borrow my brother's "Programming In Python for Dummies" manual, and knock you up a killer app. Assuming I can think of one which doesn't already exist.
Because this is where the stupid steps in again. Nobody knows that this device and OS exist, except a bunch of geeks who don't seem to mind it being a secret. Nokia, apparently, didn't advertise the Internet Tablets very much, and anyway, since Nokia make phones, I'd been perplexed as to why these tablets came with no sim socket. After all, there's not THAT much wifi available in the UK. I wasn't, clearly, the only one perplexed at this omission. These are some of the reasons I was able to get my fantastic new toy at such a great price.
So, the device here, fully charged, connected to my wifi and browsing the web. I'd asked my brother (also has an N810) which apps he'd recommend for download, and he'd started me off with FBReader - "Google it!" he ordered. And then, without meaning to, I'd clicked a link on the desktop of the gadget, and found myself at a site called Maemo.org - Wonderland! It was like discovering that the last 7 years of Palm idiocy had all been a dream, and I'd woken up to find that they were still the leaders of the PDA world (you guessed - I'm a bit of a Palm fan). I browsed through their catalog of, as far as I can work out, completely free apps, written by the fans for the N800 series, and downloaded a handful of applications which seemed interesting.
Oh, there I go, rushing ahead of myself! I'd connected the keyboard to the N810 with the same ease with which it had connected to the N78. In fact, the N78 connected with ease to the N810, allowing me to use the 3G capability of the phone, should a wireless lan be unavailable (as so often happens in my brother's house!) This is why the tablet didn't need to be able to connect to the internet via it's own 3G - you can just use your own phone. Yeah, early adopters would have found this a rather expensive route, but since I've had my phone for a year, and the N810 was so incredibly cheap, it's proven a sound financial move. Well, sound in as much as any gadget I want to buy will no doubt have my mother's eyes rolling, and her favourite phrase popping out "You don't need it!"
Favourite applications for Maemo? I think, at this point it would have to be a combination of Nokia 770 Video Converter (on the PC), teamed up with mPlayer on the tablet. Then there's Numpty Physics, a frustrating game I can't work out how it's supposed to be played. I did get a copy of something very close to Bejewelled, a sudoku game and a minesweeper game. Oh, and visit garage.maemo.org, too.
And do you know what? This wonderful experience has shown me that I don't really want an all in one device after all. I love the portability of my phone - it'll tuck into bits of my clothing (although not quite as invisibly as the 8310), and I love the huge screen of the N810. While the N900 looks like a really exciting machine and the internet buzz being so enthusiastic, it's a chunky beast and so I think I'll stick to my duo. It's a far cry from connecting the Palm and the 8310 with infrared and using a GPRS connection to send emails!
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