The Penalty Box

Nokia has a new device coming out which is a combination of their N8xx series tablet and their N97/86 phone, the N900. It looks pretty slick. With rumours that they’re transitioning away from Symbian into the fully open sourced Maemo OS, this could be a good competitor with any Android-based phone.

Of course, this will be a first generation device because Nokia has generally kept its phone-like devices separate from its internet tablets. Given how niche the non-phone MID market is, this seems like a logical step for Nokia to take. It did take Nokia a couple iterations of their N-series tablets to get it down right, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be the same for this new phone tablet. The smartphone market is bristling with innovation now that everyone has to do something to distract the masses from Apple’s “Look! Shiny!” approach. HTC’s got something going with their Hero/Dream line and hopefully Blackberry’s next phone will be something better than the underwhelming Storm.

I suppose the upside to my contract lasting another year is that a lot of kinks ought to be ironed out of these things. I imagine I’ll find something to gripe about though. Wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone.