A Communicator Killer?

I tend to think of the Nokia Communicator (aka The Brick) as a somewhat retrograde device, popular to folk who haven’t quite caught up with the shape of things to come (aka The Smartphone). But Indonesians and Germans don’t agree (link to a podcast I did on the subject for the BBC), using the Communicator in such large numbers that Nokia tends to focus most of its promotional energies in those two countries. This may explain why a German company is about to launch a Communicator lookalike: the HandyPC.

Tony Smith of The Register reports that Berlin-based phone maker ROAD GmbH has announced the HandyPC, a clamshell device based on the Linux operating system and Trolltech's Qtopia GUI. It's a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board too. No date has been given for when the product will be sold, or how much it will cost.

Linux-based HandyPC to challenge Nokia Communicator | Reg Hardware.

Comments

[Juha]

Hmm... has a touch screen but no stylus. Junk. :)

No, seriously, it looks nice, but the cellular broadband connectivity is EDGE and not UMTS which is a pity.

[Kahlil Rowter]

Jeremy, have you or anyone you tried this? The touchscreen sounds like a good idea on top of the keyboard.