Slashdot | Nokia’s Linux Handheld

This device shows a lot of promise.

I carry a mobile phone nearly everywhere. it’s nice, small, makes phone calls, receives phone calls, has a rudimentary (and, of course, rather broken) calendar and todo. it’s phone book is mostly pretty good and the ‘mobile internet’ that we were told was going to change the world, didn’t.

I have a laptop. it’s great, i spend *heaps* of time on it. in fact, it’s a primary workhorse for a lot of things. But, it can be a bit big, and i don’t take it everywhere.

I have a Newton (that I don’t use anymore, it’s only a 120, and getting it to sync with evolution would be, well, interesting). I love the newton UI, handwriting recognition and *size*.

Yes, the Newton was large, bigger than a palm, but tihs made it useful. you could see a fair bit at once, and it was easy to read.

I do not want a big mobile phone with a big screen and all the bells and whistles (decent cpu, free software, full net access, bluetooth, 802.11 etc). I wouldn’t carry it everywhere (which is the point of a mobile) – it would be too bulky.

having two complementary devices (as this seems to be) would be great for me. I wouldn’t take it when i went out on the town, but would when i jumped in the car going somewhere i hadn’t been before.

now, if only evolution didn’t leak memory like, well, something that leaks a lot – and it’d run on this baby.. then we’d be in business.

great promise though. all the right technologies – linux, X, gtk.

one thing it is missing though is a hard drive. i reckon this would be an ipod-killer if it had a nice HD in there and some sweet looking software to play tunes (ogg, of course).

they’ve also got the dev stuff up already. with a ‘howto port your app’ featuring gaim. very cool.

so, here’s to another possibly great ARM based handheld. Now, if only it was available in australia now, and there was a phone running free software to go with it.