First of all, no, that’s not a picture of the new rumored Nokia PDA — that’s the ‘Thor’ concept from Psion, circa 2000 or so. Psion, who developed the operating system that eventually became what is now known as Symbian, made a bunch of really excellent PDAs throughout the ’90s, most notable for their top-notch keyboards and clamshell form factors (the Psion Revo remains a highlight).
So now The Inquirer is reporting rumors that a new PDA is in the works from Nokia — supposedly called the 9800, or possibly (and in many ways more likely) the 9580 — that will have a large qwerty keyboard, Bluetooth, a 640 x 240 display, a camera, an MP3 player, and — this is the kicker — no phone capabilities.
Find out what why you want this after the jump.
So everyone has been moving towards device convergence, right? Hard disk MP3 players inside cell phones with QWERTY keyboards that communicate over GSM and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and Batsignal, and basically, that’s good. There’s no reason why a 4GB hard drive in a phone, let’s say, would be bad (besides power issues, but let’s ignore that for the moment). However, there’s still been one major failing in all this, and that’s as mobile input devices, mobile phones suck. T9, modern wonder that it is, is a joke for typing anything meaningful, but nobody wants to integrate a comfortable keyboard — one your can use all 10 fingers at once on — into a regular-sized cell phone, nor should they.
As a quick aside, I love thumb boards like those in the Treo 600 just fine, but they still just aren’t the same.
So Nokia just released a Bluetooth keyboard for some of its newer phones, and that’s a step in the right direction. But what if you were to take that same Bluetooth keyboard form-factor and add a nice screen and a PDA-worthy CPU to it? Why, you’d have a very handy little device for browsing the web, answering emails, logging into secure shells — whatever. And unlike your cellphone, there is less of a need to continue updating this PDA every 6 months because something smaller and shinier comes out. The relatively larger size is, in fact, one of the major selling points. So you buy this PDA, that uses your cellphone via Bluetooth to pop onto the internet whenever it needs to (the cellphone that can stay out of the way in your pocket or bag, I would add), and they replace your handsets every so often, as style or network upgrades warrant.
So that’s what I’m thinking Nokia is planning, and I don’t think it has anything to do with Series 60. I’d expect a full-blown PsionOS version 7 (or whatever it is on now) that utilizes the full 32-bit capabilities of the operating system that will give PalmOS and WindowsCE a run for their money. And if that takes off, there’s no telling what Nokia will do.
I’ll admit, this could be the wishful thinking of an old Revo fan, but it’s certainly not out of the question. Thousands of people where doing almost the same thing with their Revos and cellular phones over infrared many years ago. In fact, it was the development of a Bluetooth version of the Revo that screwed up Psion’s PDA work in the first place (cost overruns, they say).
Anyway, yes, make this happen Nokia.
Read – Nokia PDA speculation increases [TheInquirer]
Read – Details Leaked on Rumored Nokia Handheld [Brighthand]
