A hint to Nokia: to instantly create a niche and a small army of devoted followers, simply use <i>normal</i> quality LCDs with full 24-bit color, LED backlight, 178x178 viewing angle and matte finish.<p>I highlighted word <i>normal</i> because I'm not asking for a miracle or Star Wars grade technology, just the kind of quality displays that used to be <i>the norm</i> on $1K+ business class laptops 2-3 years ago, but slowly got replaced by ugly, cheap, unevenly lit, 6-bit color, often glossy junk [yes, even on macbooks]<p>In addition to my MBP's built-in display I have a 5 year old 17" Samsung hooked up as secondary monitor and comparing the same photo on 2008 MBP vs 2003 Samsung depresses me.
I'm a huge Nokia fan (N95 8gb here) but they keep building these "mobile computers" that few people buy -- their Nokia Communicator / N800 Tablet are two examples. They should stick to making great cellphones with awesome media capabilities for now. It's the whole reason why I don't buy an iPhone, I get a quality 5MP camera that does great VGA video at 30fps and has really loud stereo speakers for playback.<p>The whole mini-Laptop thing (which I'm guessing Nokia is looking at) is just another trend that will die off soon. It was a trend about a decade back with the Toshiba Libretto and will die out as another fad once people (again) realize how the mini-laptop is a failed compromise between a full laptop and desktop.<p>Now a "slate" computer (like an 8.5x11" iPhone) would be sweet, so long as it had a quality touch-OS.
Original dialogue:<p>Q: "Will Nokia produce a mini-laptop of their own some day?"
A (Nokia-CEO Kallasvuo): "Never say never. Of course we are also actively looking into this business opportunity."<p>Source: <a href="http://areena.yle.fi/toista?id=1923984" rel="nofollow">http://areena.yle.fi/toista?id=1923984</a>
(in Finnish)
Somehow I managed to anticipate something like this 9 days ago:
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485620" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485620</a>
in the long run, I think we'll see more and more of this consumer electronics cross-over. How much difference is there really between laptops, netbooks, and smartphones? Seems like things are converging and overlapping in new ways every day. Additionally, as computing gets woven more and more into the fabric of our lives, the discrete devices maybe won't matter as much, which probably isn't great for Nokia's brand. I'm just rambling, so maybe I'm way off.