Wed, 04 Jun 2008
Mobile Devices
Today part of the display of my Palm Tungsten T5 stopped working. The time for a new mobile device (and a new phone to replace my Nokia 6310i) has come. I would like the new device (or devices) to have the following properties:
Must have:
- bluetooth
- SIM toolkit
- PIM with synchronization with Linux (JPilot was extremely good)
- good Linux compatibility (backing up data like phonebook, etc.)
- audio player with OGG/Vorbis support
- at least 2 GB of storage
- application for car expenses (like AutoBase for PalmOS - at least calculate average fuel consumption and repair/maintainance costs)
- web browser with UTF-8 support (including Japanese fonts) and JavaScript
- Japanese dictionary (PAdict was excellent; searching words by an English equivalent, by pronnouncation and by Kanji required, Kanji info and stroke order optional)
- application for securely storing passwords (like gnukeyring) with a desktop conduit
- SSH client
- camera (any will do)
- WiFi
Prefered, but optional:
- GPS (with Linux-compatible software for uploading maps; voice navigation not necessary)
- keyboard
- open source operating system
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- camera software with QR-code and Semacode recognition
- EDGE
I expect to have the above features split within two devices (but it would be nice to have a single one). So far I am considering the following devices:
- Nokia E90
- A single device. Linux support is apparently poor, Japanese dictionary is only as a non-free software.
- Nokia n810 + some not so smart phone
- The phone: probably Nokia 6300, or something other with EDGE, bluetooth and camera. As for n810 - the problem is that it is not officially sold in the Czech republic. The OS support is not excellent: I used to have a n770, but it quickly got outdated with applications being released for the newest OS version only, and the newest OS was not available for 770. I am afraid the same will happen to n810 when the newer version is released.
- OpenMoko FreeRunner
- It does not have a camera, and apparently does not support SIM toolkit(?). It is not oficially sold in .cz. But it is a single device, and have other cool features like accelerometers and both open software and hardware.
Any other types? Maybe Nokia E51? What would you buy, my dear lazyweb?