TamsS60 – the Symbian Blog

Access Co’s Garnet VM offers people who dislike smartphones a PDAesque experience on a Nokia Nxxx web tablet. It has actually done this for some time, and was met with general happiness.

The product has now been updated to “beta 5″ – while still not final, Access claims compatibility with more than 80% of Palm OS applications currently on the market.

More can be found at the URL below:
http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/index.html

P.S. According to various sources, the N900 is not supported currently.

Rumors about T-Mobile’s Project Dark have predicted the wildest of exploits from one of the smallest US carriers. Some predicted the release of the N900, others predicted other stuff, while others bet on a set of all-you-can-eat tariffs.

All those of you who have been hoping for a release of the N900 have now been disappointed – the carrier has just introduced the offer below:

As of now, no further releases are expected. However, there is one more bit of hope: the device will drop in November, which might bring an announcement then…

Nokia’s N900 has barely hit the road – yet NokiaPort.de has already uploaded the image below (which has since been yanked):

As of now, all we know about the critter is that it will not have a keyboard (touchscreen-only) and is expected to drop at the 2010 edition of the Mobile World Congress in February.

Nokia’s S60 handsets once were at the forefront of the mobile browser wars. Unfortunately, the manufacturer has slacked off quite a bit since…and ended up in the middle of the field.

However, the Finnish company definitely can deliver proper web experiences. The video below covers key aspects of the N900′s internet browser:

Even though it doesn’t have too much to do with S60, it nevertheless shows what Nokia can do – now all we need to do is wait and see whether they are also willing to do it…

Nokia’s N900 looks very similar to the N97. The real differences are below the hood – while the N97 runs Symbian, the N900 is powered by a Linux-derived operating system called Maemo.

Maemo has not had phone functionality so far: the N900 is the first-ever Maemo phone. This obviously makes room for interesting speculation on the quality of the UI…

Eldar Murtasin from mobile-review has sat down to create one of his usual, ultra-long reviews…and ended up pretty impressed with the platform. Of course, this being a v1 release, some eekers like the one below remain:

…

Unfortunately the fact that Internet Tablets developed more as mobile computers rather than cell phones didn’t allow Nokia to implement the portrait screen setup for the vast majority of features and applications, including the browser and this is a huge drawback. Most mobile devices allow seamless screen rotation and gesture-based navigation, whereas Maemo can only offer landscape orientation, which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but can easily make the browsing experience awkward at times.

…

Further information can be had at the URL below:
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-maemo5-en.shtml

Nokia’s long-rumored N900 tablet has just been released. Read on for all we just got (and stay tuned – more Symbian content is coming in the near future):

Press release
First of all, here is a look at the official press release:

Espoo, Finland – Nokia today marked the next phase in the evolution of Maemo software with the new Nokia N900. Taking its cues from the world of desktop computing, the open source, Linux-based Maemo software delivers a PC-like experience on a handset-sized device.

The Nokia N900 has evolved from Nokia’s previous generation of Internet Tablets and broadens the choice for technology enthusiasts who appreciate the ability to multitask and browse the internet like they would on their desktop computer.

…

More multitasking with Maemo
The Nokia N900 packs a powerful ARM Cortex-A8 processor (editor: 600MhZ), up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration. The result is PC-like multitasking, allowing many applications to run simultaneously. Switching between applications is simple, as all running content is constantly available through the dashboard. The panoramic homescreen can be fully personalized with favorite shortcuts, widgets and applications.

To make web browsing more enjoyable, the Nokia N900 features a high-resolution WVGA touch screen and fast internet connectivity with 10/2 HSPA and WLAN. Thanks to the browser powered by Mozilla technology, websites look the way they would on any computer. Online videos and interactive applications are vivid with full Adobe Flash(TM) 9.4 support. Maemo software updates happen automatically over the internet.

….

The Nokia N900 has 32GB of storage, which is expandable up to 48GB via a microSD card. For photography, the Maemo software and the N900 come with a new tag cloud user interface that will help users get the most out of the 5MP camera and Carl Zeiss optics.

The Nokia N900 will be available in select markets from October 2009 with an estimated retail price of EUR 500 excluding sales taxes and subsidies. The Nokia N900 will be displayed at Nokia World, Stuttgart, on September 2. More information on Maemo is available at http://maemo.nokia.com.

Image gallery

Datasheet (PDF)
Finally, here is a link to a PDF datasheet provided by Nokia Press:
http://tamss60.tamoggemon.com/contents/2009/August/than900released/Nokia_N900_data_sheet.pdf

Access has largely ignored its Garnet franchise due to export regulations issues…but has taken on the franchise full force now that Palm is abandoning its Palm OS system.

After asking customers and developers if they want new Palm OS hardware a few days ago, the company has now unveiled a new version of its Garnet VM for Nokia’s Internet tablet devices.

The changes are as follows:

What’s new in Garnet VM Beta 4
Release Date: May 29th, 2009
Release Version: 1.03b

Fixed issues:
Stability improvement
Minor bug fixes

Further information can be had here:
http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/index.html