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New Ultra-Mobile Smartphone Neonode N1
luigi writes "Swedish startup Neonode announced its Neonode N1 Smartphone. The touch screen phone runs Microsoft Windows CE.NET v4.1 with a custom user interface. The Neonode N1 includes a digital camera, MMS, eMail, mp3 player and games. The handset is only 52 x 88 x 21mm small and weighs 90 grams. It should be available on the market february 2003. I4U has hi-res images of the device."
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MS actually found a cell phone provider willing to put thier os in a phone. Lets see how long they use it until they dump it like Nokia did.
Didn't Nokia find it too unstable / restrictive?
If you believe that 8-to-5 should be more than a black hole in your life, Neonode is the place where you should spend it. If you want to attack the average usual, kick it and stomp on it until it gives in and becomes something better, more useful, nicer and cooler than it was, then you are a friend of ours.
What??
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Why do manufacturers think people want to run MS-Windows on a teeny-tiny screen? I think they'd be better off adding the cell-phone functionality to the Tablet-PC, then they are adding Microsoft-technology to a cell phone.
Sex - Find It
When will phone manufacturers learn that using a touchscreen to dial a phone is incredibly annoying?
OK it's running WinCE.net 4. something can do all these fun things and hrm it's running windows CE it's tiny CE is still a pig so the proc must run this thing down in what a few hours of use. I'm sorry I'm waiting for something that I can talk on etc for at least a normal 9 hour work day before recharging and not under a tower. I have a Nextel now 180 minutes of talk time not to bad but if your in a bad spot for range for a long time 48 hours of batter life on standby turns to 10.
No sir I dont like it.
Wish my mom was that understanding...
a world in progress...
A Handspring Treo using Windows CE!
It's great that they keep adding all these cool features to cell phones... But when are they going to start working as phones?
Here is a typical cell phone conversation:
(Ring, Ring)
Hello. Hello? Can you hear me now? I said can you here me now? Hang on.
Or maybe the service is just crapy where I live.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
This is strikingly similar to the P800. I am not sure how they compare spec for spec, but the P800 is Microsoft free!. (It uses Symbian instead.) I was holding out for the P800 until I was able to get the T68i on Amazon for $25. Comparing just the looks, the P800 wins. Plus, it has a pad to flip over the screen so you can both protect it and dial with real buttons.
Boom Shanka
PR isn't always a bad thing. Would you have known about this phone if slashdot didn't tell you about it? Would you get to see all these "but it runs windoze, it suxors!" posts?
Should we not discuss new products here?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
My next phone is either going to have bluetooth, or I'm not going to bother with a GPRS phone plan.
I don't see the use of having internet service and not being able to browse using my laptop or pda via the cellphone. Why buy another GSM PC or CF card for every device I potentially would like to connect to the net?
Like most people, I want a small cell phone. This is directly at odds with a screen of the size needed to surf the web reasonably. The phone's own screen would be great for proofing pics before sending and getting emergency directions I guess, but not for browsing.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
... it makes me wanna own one of these things, drink a new coke, drive a compact car-du-jour, and do all my clothes shopping at the gap.
Of course, following this I may need to upgrade my friends with some fresh-faced young dance-party hipsters but, hey, clearly sacrifices have to be made.
Shit, I wonder if they're going after a demographic?
I've played with one of these a bit, and I must say that the physical design needed a lot of work. The mounting for the stylus is nothing short of awful. Shaped roughly like a wooden coffee stirrer, it fits flush into the side of the device. To remove it, you push up on it with your thumb. Then, with it pinched precariously against the side of the device, you have to shift your grip to grab it. Since it's flat, this may be difficult for the less dexterous. To make things interesting, it's translucent blue, and nearly transparent. Should you drop it on the floor, you'll need a good bit of luck finding it again.
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
It's as much like a Treo as a Porche is like a bicycle. By your logic anything handheld with both PDA and phone functions is a Treo clone.
I own a Treo. It's a little early to tell, but my initial impression is that I'd much rather own one of these things.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
Someone port Doom to one of these!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Now when you encounter that annoying cell user they can have a photo reminder of where you had them shove their phone.
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
For all of us lazy US folks, the phone is approx 3.5" by 2" by about 13/16" thick, and weighs around 3.2oz (for reference, an alkaline AA battery weighs about 0.85oz, so this thing weighs less than four AA batteries, 3.75 or so.)
Infosync has a pretty picture of this phone.
The small size is very tempting but I'm afraid that this is a case where small is too small. There is no physical keyboard or keypad -- one or the other is necessary for a real phone. The phone is also running Windows CE with a proprietary shell which means that it won't run PocketPC applications. In fact, little or no third-party applications are likely to be available unless it becomes very popular. It's storage (16MB with an SD slot) and battery life are nice.
I think I'll keep my Treo for now. But the Kyocera 7135 is a very nice alternative with a more traditional form factor.
Does this
Sixty days???????????? Where the hell did you hear that??? I've been waiting for this phone for MONTHS!!!!!!!!!! TELL ME TELL ME TELL MEEEEE!!!
I thought a Treo would be cat's pajamas, but when
I got it I realized that I was unconsciously
depending on tactile feedback to dial in a suprising
number of situations, driving, etc... I gave it
away and got a P800 instead.
Phones need keypads.
What is this WinCE crap? The thought of BSODs
on my phone does not amuse me.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
In the windows world, .net signifies having to DL 12MB+ runtimes, and slow interpreted code instead of compiled.
so r they selling this device based on it using more of your ram for the OS and running slower than PPC2002?
They're small enough please work on one of the following:
1) Increase durability - using the unit as a hockey puck with no worries would be nice. Waterproofing would be nice too.
2) Increase battery life - I know this isn't directly under your control, but invest in some startup battery companies or something
3) I really, really don't care for a camera, web browser, or even a color display. Just make it cheaper and watch as I buy myself and grandma one.
I don't know... a touch screen in my pocket, together with the car keys... It must be a tough touch screen to survive that!
-- Cheers!
I went to the company's website and searched as much as I could, and I
could not find one lick of technical info. Their flash doesn't load up on
Mozilla and when I used a winders box, the flash was very unpolished. If you
go to the corp HTML part of the site they have a zip file with 3 press photos,
Infosync posted one.
The photos all have retouched screens and it's clear that the phone in the
pictures is simply a mockup. The hole for the USB jack at the bottom is empty
and there is no SD port on the side. Also, there is an interesting texture
to the case, almost like it was hand made and painted.
The major issues for me are no detailed specs and the fact that they list no
pricing and the featureset is too unrealistic. If you go and actually look
at all the phones with which they are comparing, they are all significantly
larger. The reason is due to functionality. The spec they released for the
battery was 1100mah, this is 50% more than the competing phones which are
larger; how did they magically increase the power density? Why would Nokia
settle for 750mah if these people can make a 1100mah battery?
For a company that is supposed to release a major telephone product, they are
conspicously unrefined on the website, lacking in details, and rather ambitious
with specs. Hell, they said they were only making 1000 units! That is a
paltry number of units when you take into account that an importer in the UK
has 40,000 Nokia 7650 phones (comparable) sitting in stock ready to ship
to somewhere else in the world!
I smell vaporware and a BS job, they don't even have a press release on their
website!
Nokia is the one of the few companies that have always had usable phones that never crash.
The hardware spec below was posted in Neonodes forum FAQ section. It has a 1100mAh battery that will get you 10h of MP3 time which sounds great but the talktime is only 4h. My fully charged T68 claims 11h talktime whit it's 700mAh battery so the radio part is probably not the most efficient in the word. A couple of other interesting flaws has come up in the forum. It has no vibrator function and apparently the touch screen is more like a glidepad, it has no per pixel sensitivity so handwriting recognition is probably out of the question.
All in all it looks like an almost perfect phone that will be out in limited release in february (only about 1000 units!). After that the plan is that the phone will be marketed by the service providers since Neonode is a very small company (only 15 people) that don't have the resources themselves.
We probably have not seen the real camera phones from the big manufaturers yet, just communicator models like the Nokia 7650 and SonyEricsson P800. I'm expecting something like the N1 from all of them. They at least has to compete with the Panasonic GD87 and similar.
But I would be extatic if the little guy would suceed, it's allways fun with new competition to shake things up.
GSM features:
GSM dual band mode 900/1800 MHz or 900/1900 MHz (US). GPRS Class 10. SIM card can be accessed without removing the battery.
Operating system:
Windows CE.NET version 4.1 running our own shell called "neoshell". We do not use Pocket PC or Smartphone 2002. Pocket PC use a minimum 240x320 pixel resolution and Smartphone 2002 requires a numerical keypad.
CPU:
96 MHz ARM 7
Display:
2.2" TFT LCD with 262140 colors (18 bit mode), 65535 colors (16 bit mode), 70 Hz frame rate, 176 (H)x 220 (V) pixels, 96 kb video ram. Touch screen with 4 navigation keys + YES and NO (Power on/off) buttons.
Memory:
16 Mb SDRAM, 73 MHz, 64 MB SD-Card included in price. Avaliable today: 512 MB.
Camera:
Built in camera with 640 x 480 pixels and 16M colors. QQVGA(160x120)/QVGA(320x240) and VGA mode(640x480). Continous recording 160x120 pixels at 15 frames per second to SDCard.
Audio:
Built in 1W speaker (for ring tones, conference calls etc) and receiver and microphone (for GSM talk). Built in connector for a stereo headset and microphone.
Audio Codec:
48/44/22/11 or 8 Khz, sampling rate, 8 or 16 bit stereo or mono. Mixer for GSM audio(input and output) and internal audio stream(input and output).
Communication:
12 Mbit USB Host function capable of 100mA/5V output to low power devices such as mouses, keyboards, joysticks..
12 Mbit USB Function communicating with PC or other Host simulating a serial port up to 12 MBit/sec (appears as a COM10 on PC). This port can also be used for Microsoft Acivesync 3.6.
115k, 1,1M and 4 Mbit multi mode IRDA port (This port can be used for Microsoft Activesync 3.6)
Remote Control Ir function for 36-44 KHz modulation mode simulating a TV Remote control up to 10 m.
Battery: 1100 mAh, 3.7V. Charge-time 2.5 hrs
Operating parameters:
Operating up to 10 hours for games/mp3 (Radio in standby), Talk time 4 hours and standby time up to 250 hours.
Size:
88x52x21 Weight: 93 g
Software:
Camera, Mediaplayer, File Manager, Address book, notepad, SMS, MMS, WAP-Browser, E-mail, Internet Explorer
...does that sound like a manga title or what? ;-)
Palm is dying on the PDA front as companys are convenced that Windows is better.
But on the cell phone Palm is growing in popularity.
This is a repeate of history.
Pen tops come in Microsoft pushes out the Pen Windows os on a 'tablet pc' that is entirely too expensive and nowhere near what people wanted.
It never makes it into the mass market.
Of all the pentop failures PenWin was the biggest.
Palm is successful in transforming the idea into todays pda and succesdfully captures the market.
Microsoft eventually creates WinCe to have it trampled. But at lest they got it out.
Still it takes years of stagnation of Palm and FUD from Microsoft plus an ecconomic down turn before users actually consider Pocket PCs. The drop in price was key to making this happen.
And Linux PDAs are also making a hit.
But the road to mass introduction is a long rough one.
Palm smartly recognises Palm os must move to the cell phone to survive.
Smart cell phones still need to be cheap. After all the hardware the computer needs to be less than $100. Palm os can go there Windows can not.
Eventually Microsoft will offer a number of poor designed cell phone oses giving WinCellphones the image of 'expensive defective brick'. People will depict the 1980's brick cell phones as 2003 Win Cells even thow Win phones will be in the ounces vs the bricks pounds.
Still all this makes Microsoft look trite to the manager who might not know enough to see WinNT defects but will recognise Win Cell defects and can see for himself that palm os is better.
Then Microsoft will forge a high end market where they can sell cellphones. Thats when Linux enters the market and scoops it up. Evetually palm os will die or move into the next big thing. Moving on is the most likely.
Then Linux will have a number of sereous compeditors who eventually push windows cell phoned off the market and punch a hole in Linux.
Linux and Windows move on to the next big thing. Palm os (or someone else) dose it right. Linux will be off but not by much. Windows in the market will be a joke.
Then comes the FUD... and the rebuttles from Slashdot, Business week and many other Tech or business related news entitys.
Each new statement by Balmer becomes a mem like 'all your base' to laugh at.
"Supper cell delux is the best thing we ever made" - Steve B
'I belive it' - annon Biz week poster.
I don't actually exist.