Nokia MeeGo Tablet: What To Expect?
By Stephen Ebert on August 25,
 2010 at 00:00,

Nokia MeeGo Tablet Has Legs With Nokia World 2010 little less than a month away, rumours have been bubbling about what Nokia has in store for the coming year. One rumour that won't go away is that of a Nokia Tablet, possibly running Meego. It got us thinking. What do you want most from a Nokia tablet? Lets have a look at the options.

Tablets computers are back in fashion once more, so it's of little surprise to hear that Nokia is rumoured to be working on its own tablet variant with its own unique twist sporting MeeGo- the operating system based on Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin project, paving the way for a multitude of open source app development to unleash the sort of apps not seen elsewhere.

With the Ovi Store in place to take full advantage the potential of a possible, and as yet unconfirmed Nokia tablet is enormous. What the world knows even less about are the core features of the Nokia Tablet, which leads us to ask - what do you want. here's a few things to consider.

What could a Nokia Tablet could look like? The design of the Nokia Booklet 3G hints at a sleek aluminum shell built to last and look gorgeous.  And size? Past rumours have suggested it could have a 3.5-inch screen. But it could be anything between that and 10-inches (more?). What size would tempt you into owning one?

Is a capacitive or resistive screen the way to go? Capacitive screens, such as that found on the N900 allow for more precise commands in apps such as MyPaint, which works brilliantly on the N900. But capacitive screens are just as popular. Will it need a stylus too? Features such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and Flash are sure to be a given. If the Nokia Booklet 3G is anything to go by, the Nokia Tablet could have embedded 3G from the off.

Will it need advanced gaming capabilities? Fish Labs, developer of previous N-Gage games such as Powerboat Challenge has already been reported to be working on an "AAA" title with Nokia featuring OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics "for a large screen."

And what about a front-facing, or even rear facing camera? Would you use such features? Or would you forego them if it meant keeping the cost down?

On the storage front, it's worth noting that the N8 can be expanded up to 32GB, hinting that any tablet is likely to have double the memory of the N8. Would 64GB be enough? Or should Nokia go bigger?

Battery power: the Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia has already shown from its use of low voltage processors that it can ship computers capable of delivering a 12-hour battery life, which suggests that a tablet could have at least near to that. How much battery life would convince you to purchase a Nokia tablet?

Have we missed anything out? An optical drive perhaps - even if it means massively compromising on size and portability? Already own a tablet computer? What would make you switch to a Nokia tablet?

We'd love to know what you think. Hopefully all will be revealed at Nokia World 2010. In the meantime do let us know what you want from a Nokia tablet in the Comments below.

  • Joey

    Paragraph 5, N900 capacitive?

  • Gary H

    How many devices does Nokia mean for us to have? The perfect one single device, or several complementary ones?

  • lucas

    Hmm I don’t think I’m ready to buy a Meego tablet. It is still new and unknown Put windows on it (or even better dual booting) and it could be an iPad contender. Meego will just make it a marginal product that only a few die hard fans will buy. Windows on the other hand with Nokia’s design will be a hit world wide. I still don’t understand what a rear facing camera would be for on a tablet as you won’t want to hold it up to take photos but a front facing one for skype calls is a great complement to the device. If they make the N8 (or N9 if the photos are to be believed) 10” and increase the power and memory then WOW that would be the tablet for me.

    A big device for looking at movies the internet etc and a small one for on the go Oh and a PC for games. Ill be happy with 3.

  • swift11

    Nokia will NOT have a MeeGo tablet: this market will be overcrowded:
    the whole Intel-ecosystem (Acer, Asus, …) will launch tablets !

  • Megabliss

    Well I was expecting to see this move for a long time. Meego is perfect for a tablet type PC.

    To have a winner, we need an all-round device. Who needs a tablet that costs 150$ and does nothing well? By all round I mean great for the couch (books/mp3/movies/browsing/chatting/gaming), home/office desk (PIM, info and social widgets), commuting (books/browsing).

    My suggestion is to start by taking an iPad and then fixing everything that is wrong with and then make it it really cool, Nokia-style!

    So here we go: Have USB support (USB-on-the-go would be VERY cool), lots and lots of (expandable via SD cards) memory, WiFi and a wooping powerful processor. Optical drives? Did someone hit you on the head? You are going for lighter-than-netbook devices here..

    Scr*w resistive input, go for capacitative (at least 9 in, 3.5 is just ridiculous), it\\\’s impossible to even compare the experience. Tapping hard with one hand on a device that is already too large to hold with only the other will be very bothersome. Oh, and give it the option for tactile (vibrational) feedback (another error Apple made with the iPad).

    Also, it ABSOLUTELY MUST have a trackball (not optical, make it physical, like on the Nexus one) or sth to double as a mouse for the UI and for online games where touch-interface is useless (a major advantage of the N900 compared to other smartphones when browsing is mouse support). And if you add buttons on it, for the love of Jee-whiz, do not make them touch buttons, make them physical so I can find them without looking away from my beautiful screen (a problem on the Nexus one but not on my HTC Desire).

    Back facing multi-MP cameras are a waste of time on these devices, I would not hike with my tablet, these are home-desk-to-office-desk-to-couch-to-bed (HDTODTCTB, I coined it first!) devices so you don\\\’t need a proper camera. Don\\\’t you have one on your phone already?

    Plz to be definitely adding a front-facing camera and mic for video chat/Skype, wireless file exchange and lots of utilities that you would expect to have on a powerful PC you can just leave lying around (clock, timer, notes/memos, calc, calendar, sync with mobile PIM devices, etc).

    You can\\\’t go wrong with great 2D/3D acceleration, you need it anyway for an attractive UI, (flash) gaming/browsing and for watching movies. And HDMI output. One last thing on this, if I see another Nokia powehouse device (call me N8) without out-of-the-box DivX support I\\\’m throwing my N97 out the window. Honest.

    I would really like to have a screen for having it on the desk next to me when i read a book or something, that should have streaming internet radio or mp3 player and weather/(night-)clock/facebook/tweeter/photo-gallery customizable screen (something like the widget-based screen for the N97). Which means, give it a small flip-open stand for both landscape and portrait modes. Naturally, mp3 playback means good quality stereo speakers have to be included.

    Also we NEED bookreading and bookdownloading capabilities (I side-load my books on my N97 and expect to do so on a tablet but many people like the convenience of an online book store), I think tablets are going to be stealing customers from the dedicated ebook reader devices.

    About the battery, give it at least 18 hours on WiFi (24 would be awesome) but make it an option to remove it (and therefore change it) and use plugged-in mode all the time. The battery is for when commuting/travelling, at home/office it just needs a dock on which to quietly charge. That means charge without wires. Yeah, that sounds great, do that.

    In general, go for POWER, a great bright screen, an attractive UI (Sense is a major selling point for HTC, it seems Meego is up to the task), and full browsing, multimedia (mp3/DivX/flash) and PIM capabilities.

    This would be my dream tablet PC..

  • Bjarne

    Give it GPS and Ovi Maps. Sell it with a car holder.

  • Shyne, KLA

    nokia spokesperson already confirmed on twitter that they are not interested in tablet market..! so end of story

  • Stylinred

    If it could replicate the screens such as Amazons, Kindle or any other Reader, I would be all over it like a toggle or switch which makes it replicate a reader as trying to read books on any tablet is like trying to burn your eyes out of your sockets

    otherwise i have no use for a tablet… ill either have my reader for non-fiction (i like real books for fiction) books or my laptop for my game playing @ home and my cell phone when im on the go

    if it could incorporate a reader (the screens the issue here) and be capable of browsing and using photoshop? i would sell my laptop and reader for one

  • Olly

    I’m not convinced by this Meego tablet idea. With the whole iPad fuss, I don’t doubt that there is a tablet market out there, but looking 3-4 years from now it’s going to come down to the usual suspects, Apple, Google and Microsoft. People can yap on about “apps” all day, stick Windows 7 on a tablet and there’s a library of a few million pieces of software available at your fingertips, does Meego seriously stand a chance, it makes Apple’s “appstore” look like a joke too, Windows 7 tablets are just around the corner. And in terms of the iPad, I actually think this is step one for Apple in this market, I reckon their long term goal is to have a tablet capable of running full Mac OSX, I don’t like the iphone, but my Macbook Pro is probably the best bit of kit I’ve ever bought, it’s a shame Apple are forgetting their Mac roots and becoming more insular and dare I say it “evil” day by day lol.

    I just don’t think there is space for Meego outside of smartphones, we have the Google Chrome OS coming soon, which is going to be ideal for netbooks and tablets, again I think these Android tablets are a short term fad, no doubt Google will use Chrome OS and replace Android on tablets, Android feels like a short term thing while Google get their serious OS ready.

  • Luke

    Olly,

    You wouldn’t be saying that if you have used chrome OS….
    If you have chrome browser on your computer, open your chrome browser to full screen you have in fact replicated chrome OS and can take use of all its features….

    It looks like a full screen browser and applications open in the same way chrome browser has tabs but I use the word application very loosely…

    Facebook app = just going to http://www.facebook.com
    Email app = just going to http://www.gmail.com
    spreadsheet/word processor etc = going to docs.google.com/

    Nothing that I saw when I used wasn’t a web page you can access already and apart from adding “applications” (bookmarks) It doesn’t actually let you install things to run on the machine…

    Plus even if they do decided to build in touch support, there wont be touch friendly applications because once again you are just looking at web-pages that were designed for use with a mouse..

    It is seriously pathetic, I can see it maybe has a market in OEM vendors having it as a quick boot option in netbooks but then with current hibernation/standby features I don’t know why people would even need that…

    Android is light years ahead of whatever chrome OS is going to be…if they ever actually release it, and that’s saying something because I’m not a huge android fan either..