Mobile handset-shaped gadget will offer "computer-grade performance".
Another day, another Nokia announcement in the run-up to next week's Nokia World conference. Today it's the N900, the company's latest mobile internet device running its Maemo software.
Shaped like a mobile handset, the N900 has a touchscreen plus slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a Mozilla-based web browser, an ARM Cortex-A8 processor and up to 1GB of application memory.
Nokia claims this processing power will offer "PC-like multitasking" so users can run many applications simultaneously, switching between them using Maemo's dashboard.
"The Nokia N900 shows where we are going with Maemo and we'll continue to work with the community to push the software forward," says EVP of Markets Anssi Vanjoki. "What we have with Maemo is something that is fusing the power of the computer, the Internet and the mobile phone."
Connectivity-wise, the N900 will support Wi-Fi and HSPA, while its browser will support Flash 9.4. There's 32GB of storage plus a microSD card slot, and a five-megapixel camera.
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Can you talk on it? The announcement makes no mention of VoIP, but perhaps more information will be forthcoming in Stuttgart next week on that front. Nokia does say the N900 will be on sale in October for around 500 Euros.
There's already speculation about what Nokia's activities with the Linux-based Maemo OS means for Symbian, which it uses for its other smartphones. Expect much debate on that point next week too.
