No. It's not a fantasy. The Nokia N900 was amazing.
It functioned as a phone with a touchscreen to deliver the experience that had now become the dominant one.
But also, by sliding up the screen, it had a fully featured keyboard, and essentially transmogrified into a "pc that fits into your pocket".
So you could with a one handed push go from the touchscreen-only experience back to edit documents by using a combination of the keyboard and the touchscreen (with a stylus if neccessary).
I stopped using it because it lost software support and then the touchscreen stopped working, but I have it sitting here at my desk.
All the things you would use a phone for in the early 2010s:
* Phone calls
* Video calls over XMPP
* Text/XMPP messaging
* Web browsing
* Document editing
* Writing and receiving email
* Playing music ( it had a built in FM transmitter - how cool was that!)
* Setting Alarms
* weather widgets
* Writing PHP programms
* Writing python programms
* ssh-ing into servers
* gps navigation
* take and share pictures
* multi-colored status LEDs
* it had usb-otg so you could use as a flash drive
* share an gsm internet connection via USB
Some of these things work better with a touch screen - some work better with a slide-out physical keyboard... it was just a really good device.
Honest question: what is a real world use case for writing PHP or Python programs on a tiny laptop with a 7" display that wouldn't be better served by a 13" laptop. I can't imagine writing code while standing on a train, for example. But more important, I'm having trouble imagining what kind of work situation would require that.
> Honest question: what is a real world use case for writing PHP or Python programs on a tiny laptop with a 7" display that wouldn't be better served by a 13" laptop
A computer you can take everywhere when you need to squeeze in extra computer-time into any unplanned free moment opportunistically (e.g. Leetcode practice, dissertation crunch), or being on call and only need ssh & chat access 24/7.
I carried a high-DPI 7" tablet with a keyboard case to good effect. It was less of a physical burden than lugging around a 13-incher, and was inconspicuous when outdoors or places I may have felt unsafe carrying a laptop
> It was less of a physical burden than lugging around a 13-incher,
I guess this is a very personal thing, but I've always found the weight difference between a 7" tablet and a slim 13" laptop to be pretty minimal, and I walk-commute on average 3 miles a day carrying a laptop.
> and was inconspicuous when outdoors or places I may have felt unsafe carrying a laptop
It's probably a lifestyle choice, but if I were to feel unsafe using a laptop in a space, I probably wouldn't be able to focus enough to work, and instead of using a less conspicuous device, I would relocate somewhere that I felt safe. Also if I were on-call I would doubly want to be in a place where I felt I could focus completely on my work. I don't doubt that the market niche for inconspicuous general purpose computing devices exists, but I don't think it's huge.
> It's probably a lifestyle choice, but if I were to feel unsafe using a laptop in a space, I probably wouldn't be able to focus enough to work
You may have misunderstood the premise. I don't want to live my day-to-day life with a laptop on me 24/7, but I can tolerate a pocketable computer. Regular life involves activities in places without lockers - like typing up a dissertation chapter on the train to a ball game, or parking on streets that have occasional car break-ins, to have dinner with friends.
The idea is to make spontaneous computing on the go possible; so the device pretty much has to be on you all the time and everywhere, and I don't think a 13" laptop is a reasonable choice for that.
It doesn't have to only be about safety. I can't use my MBP 13 on the fold out tray of a coach seat. There are times where a less conspicuous device comes in handy.
A coach airplane seat? Depends on your body type maybe; I've done this with the 14" (and the 16" Intel) multiple times. Just don't set the screen angle such that it'll get caught by anything on the seat in front of you.
> I can't imagine writing code while standing on a train, for example.
This made me smile, because that used to be my morning commute. I had around an hour on a usually full train, and I could already start writing things that were on my mind. Everybody is a bit different.
Nevertheless, I have since learned to keep a better work-life balance. I also stopped commuting.
While all of these things are possible on a tiny PC, many of them are very sub-optimal - like how many languages are Turing-complete but not of equivalent use (e.g. assembly is not as useful as Rust in the vast majority of programming domains).
Things like "writing PHP/Python programs" and "document editing", while things that you can do on a pocket-sized laptop, are much better to do on a real laptop or desktop. A tiny PC will strain your eyes, decrease your reading, typing and interaction speed, hurt your neck, and react slowly relative to a full computer - regardless of whether you're using a soft-keyboard or a physical (but tiny) hardware keyboard.
Although ElCheapo may have thrown a lot of unnecessary junk into their comments, their point "The medium is the message, the form is the functionality." is still true - you don't want to use C# for tiny (kilobytes RAM) embedded devices and you don't want to use this pocket PC for writing code, even though you can.
Yes, it's suboptimal, but in many situations so is carrying around a full laptop, and the question becomes simply which tradeoffs works for you.
I've ssh'd in to fix issues from my phone many times because I was in locations where carrying a laptop would have been annoying and my phone let me. In that respect having a device that was suboptimal but serviceable saved me from carrying around a device that'd be better to use but a pain to drag around.
I've written short stories on my phone or my tablet because I happened to have an idea in a situation where I didn't carry a laptop with me.
In other situations I'd carry with me a tiny chromebook to be able to do more things without having to carry my full 17" laptop.
There's space for many form factors of devices which would be horrible for short term use but fine as an option for occasional use.
This may well fit into that mid-point to me as something more convenient and open than my phone, yet substantially smaller than my laptop to the point that it can fit in my jacket pockets at least the times of year where I'm wearing a heaver coat (and I'm in the UK, so that's a lot of the year).
Yup, absolutely. It's definitely true that it's better to have a more-capable device in your pocket than a less-capable one when a laptop or desktop isn't feasible - I completely agree.
I just wanted to point out that these devices are still significantly less efficient than a laptop or a desktop, because it's non-obvious to some people - including the throw10920 a decade ago, who thought that doing development on a phone when they had access to a desktop was a good idea. I wouldn't want to give other people that same impression, just like I wished I had never gotten it myself.
I used to think the only proper way of reading books is paper (or at least large format eink) but I see most people these days reading from tiny phone screens. Thanks to increased mobility they easily do it where it's too much hassle for me.
For many people with good eyesight it is just fine to use a small screen for programming.
Whether or not a large number of people do something isn't really relevant to whether its efficient or healthy. Many people in the US have addictions to social media (unhealthy) and use few keyboard shortcuts (inefficient) and draft emails on phone keyboards (inefficient).
It's also not fine to use a small screen for programming even if you have good eyesight, as it will worsen your eyesight even if you hold it as far away from your body as you can with your arms straight - the constant focusing on an object near your face will cause your eye muscles to weaken and give you myopia. You'll also damage your neck unless you hold your phone at eye (or at least chest) level - something that I've seen literally nobody do.
No, it's about what is practical and productive and habitual for a specific person. I hate large screen setups and I love drafting emails on the go and your opinion that it is somehow less healthy than doing that while stationary indoors (probably sitting, too) is just that, your opinion.
By that measure, looking at any screen or reading strains your eyes but I don't think you'll be switching exclusively to voice control programming and audiobooks any time soon because oh right this is not habitual or productive for you. (And if you do, now it strains your ears... I guess life itself is unhealthy, after all it's known to cause death.)
And no, it does not mean it causes nearsightedness. This is grandma's tale. Plenty of people have 100% vision while spending inordinate amounts of time in front of screens. Research points out this is more about spending too much time indoors, no matter screen size get enough sunlight on your retina especially as child.
I can only imagine how much nicer would it be to do the things I often do on the go (messaging, issue management), possibly more (programming), with proper physical keyboard. Swipe typing is just not helping much.
> No, it's about what is practical and productive and habitual for a specific person.
No, it's quite clearly not. In my comment, I stated "While all of these things are possible on a tiny PC, many of them are very sub-optimal" - explicitly stating that the domain of the comment was about efficiency (and then later brought in the topic of healthiness). If you start responding to that comment with arguments about what is "habitual", then your comment is off-topic.
> I hate large screen setups and I love drafting emails on the go
I don't care about what you like doing. This comment thread is not about that. It's about what is efficient and healthy. If you want to talk about what you like doing, find a thread where it's on-topic.
> your opinion that it is somehow less healthy
It's not an opinion - there's actual research that shows that smartphone use is linked to myopia[1]. As for being relatively less healthy, the only intrinsic difference between smartphones and desktops is screen size, and therefore how close you have to hold it to your face - which is worse for smartphones than desktops. So, smartphones are as bad or worse than desktops along all relevant axes.
> probably sitting, too
Because the vast majority of people do none of these productive behaviors consistently on a phone while walking, this just means that there's no difference between smartphones and desktops - doubly so because you can (but very few people do) set up a standing desk for a desktop - with a treadmill, even!
Furthermore, there's evidence that staring downwards (at a smartphone) for extended periods of time alters the shape of the spine in bad ways[2]. This health issue ranges from "much better" to "nonexistent" for desktops, depending on how they're set up.
> By that measure, looking at any screen or reading strains your eyes
Not "strains" - trains. Maintaining a constant focal distance causes your eyes to start to adapt to that focal distance, at the expense of others. And yes, it does. Humans aren't mean to read or look at screens for long periods of time either - it's just better to use screens that are larger and further from your face.
> but I don't think you'll be switching exclusively to voice control programming and audiobooks any time soon
Correct, because those things are less efficient. I want to try to maximize both efficiency and healthiness. Because those two things are in tension, this leads to an efficient frontier[3] where I have to pick a point on it, and voice control solutions are not on that efficient frontier.
> because oh right this is not habitual or productive for you
Again, this is not about "habitual" or "productive", this thread is about "efficient" and "healthy" and if you want to comment about other stuff, then find a relevant place to put it.
You also seem to be trading critical thought for sarcasm - I would advise against that, as it is neither efficient nor healthy.
> I can only imagine how much nicer would it be to do the things I often do on the go (messaging, issue management), possibly more (programming), with proper physical keyboard.
Yup, I'm not saying that a phone-sized hardware keyboard wouldn't be better than a soft keyboard - just that both are massively inferior to a full-sized hardware keyboard. I can hit 100 WPM on a desktop keyboard - which is faster than every single volunteer in this European study of 37k people[4]. I can virtually guarantee you that, for any amount of effort spent practicing, you'll be able to type faster on a normal keyboard than a phone keyboard, hardware or not.
Sorry, productive and efficient crucially differ how exactly?
> In my comment, I stated "While all of these things are possible on a tiny PC, many of them are very sub-optimal" - explicitly stating that the domain of the comment was about efficiency (and then later brought in the topic of healthiness).
And I stated that you're wrong.
If it is suboptimal/inefficient/unproductive to you as it is not how you are accustomed to do things, then sure. But not in absolute terms. Don't deny the experience of other people, it is as real as yours. It is optimal for me, and what is habitual is key. I would not trade being able to do work on the go for being chained to a desk, a chair, four walls and a large display because it is less efficient (it's all individual, I need fewer visual distractions, being able to fit more stuff on screen is harmful, and same reason I don't do video calls).
Furthermore, health is not orthogonal but an important prerequisite for sustainable efficiency and performance. To take it to extreme, some people would drug themselves to be more efficient in short term, so what?
Being able to do things on the go is not only more productive (or efficient if you like) because I can do it anywhere, but because fresh air, improved blood flow, and everything else helps me maintain the health that underlies that whole efficiency business you are discussing.
And I countered every one of your arguments, and you never responded to any of them. Your statement means literally nothing.
> Don't deny the experience of other people, it is as real as yours.
It's an extremely well-known fact of human psychology that human experience and subjective perception are extremely skewed and unreliable. I encourage you to peruse the list of cognitive biases on Wikipedia[1] as you clearly aren't familiar with them.
Furthermore, it doesn't matter that the experience of other humans is as real as mine, because we're not discussing something subjective like what flavor of ice cream tastes best - we're discussing objective topics - namely, efficiency and ergonomics.
> It is optimal for me
It is not optimal for you. Your subjective perception is not an indicator of optimality, which is an objective measurement.
> being able to fit more stuff on screen is harmful
False. Having a larger screen does not require you to put more stuff on it, and allows your eyes and brain to not work as hard to see things than on a tiny screen.
> To take it to extreme, some people would drug themselves to be more efficient in short term, so what?
I don't see how that's relevant? I neither said nor implied that anyone should pursue maximum efficiency at the cost of their own health, and that's not related to anything we've discussed so far. I'm just stating that phones are both less efficient and less healthy for you than desktops - that's it.
> productive (or efficient if you like) because I can do it anywhere
You're substituting your own definition of "efficient" for mine, the one we were originally using. Bad form.
The definition of "efficient" being used in this comment thread is, roughly, "work done per unit time":
> Things like "writing PHP/Python programs" and "document editing", while things that you can do on a pocket-sized laptop, are much better to do on a real laptop or desktop. A tiny PC will strain your eyes, decrease your reading, typing and interaction speed, hurt your neck, and react slowly relative to a full computer - regardless of whether you're using a soft-keyboard or a physical (but tiny) hardware keyboard.
...and for that definition, no, you will not be more productive "on the go" with your tiny phone than I will be at my desktop with my multi-monitor setup and full-sized mechanical keyboard.
If you want to use your own definition, find someplace where it's relevant.
> because fresh air, improved blood flow, and everything else helps me maintain the health that underlies that whole efficiency business you are discussing
Is there some law of physics that prevents me from standing up from my normal desk to get up and walk outside, or even set up a treadmill desk outside with my desktop? No? Then why are you bringing it up?
Regardless, the claim that those things will somehow overcome a massive difference in CPU performance, productivity software, screen real estate, and input mechanisms is somewhere between "absurd" and "insane". I know people that have lived horribly unhealthy lives for decades and can still easily out-perform someone on a phone. (I shouldn't have to say this, but apparently I do: I'm not advocating for this, merely pointing out that your claim isn't backed by reality)
Your comment is composed entirely of ridiculous claims, denials of basic mechanics of human cognition, and logical fallacies. Notably missing from it are responses to the points that I made.
Playing text adventures was a nice past time. I had Psion those days and a Nokia 6800. I really wonder what it would be like to have a nice android phone with a keyboard those days... But I guess this is mostly nostalgia.
Was my post confusing? Nothing you've written can't be done with an Android phone with a keyboard attachment. When is this super important general purpose computing thingy supposed to come into play?
The key is the keyboard is integrated and foldable, it's the convenience and portability that is key. With an android (with two exceptions), you have to have two separate pieces, something to put them on and then pair and charge both parts.
In short: You can pull it out of your pocket anywhere, type something with both thumbs on a full keyboard, then fold it down again in seconds.
There are Android phones with a full keyboard as well, but they are closed source/hardware.
First you say that with "android" (as if they made hardware) you can't have an integrated keyboard.
Then you say that Android phones with a full integrated keyboard actually exist.
But then you move the goalpost saying that they aren't open source/hardware. Which is false, by the way, since this device [https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/pro1] runs LineageOS, and phones with completely free software down to the firmware level don't exist, including the N900 which needs a binary blob to start the wifi module (as far as I know) and whose hardware is not open source in the slightest.
And even after all of this I've been given zero use cases that an Android phone can't provide with the proper application installed.
Let us be fair here: you moved the goalposts first by going from “it is an absolute fantasy” to, once people pointed out that they already exist, “but I can't see a use for one”.
Why even say this if you immediately proceed by not being fair?
Pocketable computers are not a "fantasy" in the sense that there aren't any devices capable of running a desktop OS while being pocketable. This was never the argument, as also demonstrated by my other replies in the thread. My argument is that using a pocketable device as a desktop or laptop is a fantasy. It's something that sounds very cool on paper and which has a small cult following, but in reality all these people would fare even better if someone wrote an Android app tailored to their use case.
Then it's an unfalsifiable argument and people are wasting their time discussing it with you in good faith. After I got my N900, I didn't feel a need to bring my laptop on short vacations, because I could do everything on it that I could on my laptop. But no matter what I say, you believe I'd be better served with a complete suite of apps that both are specifically tailored for me and don't exist.
Of course that's true. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that if you wrote an entire gnutils userspace for Android, and gave me a slide out keyboard instead of obliterating half my screen if I need to do input, you would have given me something that is almost identical to an N900.
Your arguments would be much better-received if you were less abrasive and threw less manipulative language like "Can we stop with this absolute fantasy" in them.
>My argument is that using a pocketable device as a desktop or laptop is a fantasy
It's not. My GPD Micro PC is currently my daily driver laptop, and it fits in my back pocket. I have done CAD work on it with no trouble at all. There's no "Android app" that can compete with the universe of PC software.
You should try one before you make sweeping judgements about what is and isn't possible.
> >Let us be fair here
Why even say this if you immediately proceed by not being fair?
Pointing it hypocrisy is fair in my book. If you significant change of wording isn't a shift of the goal posts then neither is the others posters clarification.
And has yet to actually ship to anyone. I'm pretty sure people have been waiting ~2 years for their preorders to ship. Not to mention the specs are quite dated at this point. I think they even had to start making them with a newer chip because they weren't able to ship before the original chip lost support from Qualcomm.
How is the presence of an antenna in any way demonstrative of the general purpose computing capabilities of the N900 as opposed to "not pocketable PC" Androids? I believe that if I were to attach a USB radio module to my phone I could write an Android app to make use of it as a trasmitter.
There are FM dongles that plug into a headphone socket, but building it into the phone from the start says to me that Nokia really knew how people would want to use it.
If the point is you can transform an android device into a general purpose machine if you use unenumerable amounts of hardware addons and hacks. Then yes, of course you are right. It will be unuseable in practice which is generally what people want to do.
The integrated keyboard had a tab key, so autocomplete worked on the terminal. This was a really big deal that made the tiny keyboard much more useful for real work.
The Maemo distribution that the N900 ran was based on debian, and you could point apt to the standard package repositories to install pretty much any Linux software. This opened many, many possibilities - for example, I had an always-on computer in my pocket with WireShark installed. I could (and did) occasionally sniff wireless traffic to troubleshoot something. If you couldn't find a mobile app that would do what you wanted, you could usually install a desktop app and it'd work (though sometimes the UI was awkward on that small screen).
While most of the functionality can be replicated on a modern Android device, these pocket computers were different in a special way. The integrated physical keyboard, the tab key, the full Linux kernel and apt, all combined to create an experience that was distinctly different from Android. It really felt like a pocket-sized workstation - it was a full computer first, and pocket-sized second. Android smartphones are pocket-sized mobile devices first, and potential workstations second.
For example I could prepare presentations with it, or deal with long emails, and write code - all day long. While it was less comfortable compared to full-sized PC, it was normal, alright. Appearing in the same situation with any modern smartphone I would surrender immediately, because it would be literally crippling experience. Not to mention that it was technically much more flexible.
When I travelled a lot, I just brought a pocket Linux machine with keyboard (first the Zaurus, then Pandora, then GDP Pocket 1) and that was all a lot more comfortable hauling along than my laptop. I didn't have to do stretches of programming, but for small changes, or some server management, it was great. I am waiting for the Astro Slide with Linux to arrive.
I had one, my brother had one, honestly it was shit at everything you expect from a phone.
The only good point about it was that it had a full and integrated keyboard, and a Linux based OS you could use to manage your servers over ssh in extreme cases.
Answering calls on it was a hit or miss, the UI just froze for several seconds from the incredible stress of suddenly starting up the phone app when someone called you.
I'd much rather 1) separate my work from my personal life and 2) have a laptop in a backpack for when I know I might have to do work.
I remember vividly smashing the stylus into the unresponsive tft screen until it broke in a white rage. The n900 totally sucked, although it did look neat. The wifi sucked, the screen sucked, no capacitive touch. Also the battery sucked like one and a half hours screentime. And the apps they sucked. Oh and it was slow enough every webpage loaded would have you near tears in anticipation. But - to nokias credit, it did fit into your pocket, helpfully to compensate for the wad of cash absent after the purchase.
having a keyboard does not a PC make. The N900 was great to type on by cellphone standards but it was still a cell phone. Maemo is not a PC OS. It did not do what a PC did.
You could easily (and I did) put a full Debian user space on the N900, and maintain all the cell phone functionality. It offered a pretty complete Linux experience.
N900 was a great deal closer to a PC OS than any release of Android I've seen past Android 2.x. It even has X11 and a built in, honest-to-goodness version of apt! You can't say that about many phones these days.
I'm almost sure that with enough swearing and elbow grease I could replace the entire GUI with something that I can write myself to be tailor-made to my needs. Doing anything even close to this for Android seems like a daunting task.
It functioned as a phone with a touchscreen to deliver the experience that had now become the dominant one.
But also, by sliding up the screen, it had a fully featured keyboard, and essentially transmogrified into a "pc that fits into your pocket".
So you could with a one handed push go from the touchscreen-only experience back to edit documents by using a combination of the keyboard and the touchscreen (with a stylus if neccessary).
I stopped using it because it lost software support and then the touchscreen stopped working, but I have it sitting here at my desk.
Every phone I have used since has been worse.