Dear Nokia

September 20th, 2008

I'm confused.

You're making these internet tablets with a keyboard, built-in wlan and bluetooth. It looks like a pretty complete mini-desktop device. The KDE people are really excited about running KDE on it, that's wonderful.

There's just one big question mark here. Why do I need a little computer that gives me internet access? I don't know about you, but where I live there are computers anywhere I turn, at home, at school, at work. And if I really needed a smaller one I would get the Acer Aspire One, which is much more powerful and useful than your tablets (and it's the same price range!).

Because, you see, if I'm not at home or school or work, I don't have an internet connection. So your "portable internet device" just becomes a portable without connectivity. No different from my laptop.

I wonder... is there anything that would make this "portable" more useful? Perhaps some kind of universal communications network that doesn't require a nearby wireless access point? Like say, the phone network? I hear you're flirting with the idea of building phones, yes?

So why not build the phone into the "internet tablet"? That would actually give it something my laptop doesn't have, it'd give me a reason to buy it. I mean you've already put everything else a modern phone has on the tablet, how hard could it be to add a phone?

I'll tell you what, I'm in the market for one at the moment. I've never bought a Nokia product in my life, so this is your big chance. Do we have a deal?

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1 Responses to "Dear Nokia"

  1. mieses says:

    nokia prefers that we carry multiple devices for obvious reasons, but iphone seems to be forcing a change. HSPA support is to be added to future internet tablets. it remains to be seen how nokia will mess it up.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080918-nokia-unveils-maemo-roadmap-plans-for-3g-internet-tablet.html