The Nokia N95 (just like the N93/N93i) has a TV Out ability which lets you plug the device into any television set. If you add a full-size Bluetooth keyboard, you get something resembling a desktop computer, both in appearance and function. In the first of a series of articles, Krisse looks at whether the N95, or indeed any smartphone, can replace the PC.
Read on in the full article.
Current smartphones are, in terms of processor power, as capable as PC's of 5 to10 years ago, and are therefore more than capable of functioning as a PC using an external keyboard an monitor. However, when trying to use this setup, the first issue is is that the smartphone's UI is tailored to it's own tiny screen and miniscule keyboard.
So what you see on the big monitor is what you see on the small screen and you interact with the full querty keyboard in the same way as with the tiny T9 keypad. This can be experienced already on emulators in Software Development Kits, the PC's keyboard doesn't act as an querty keyboard, but as a T9 keypad. Simple things like entering a '.' is harder than necessary.
So, if a smartphone is to be used as a PC replacement, then it should be able to take advantage of a big screen and a full keyboard transparently. This is apparently not easy, witness the E90.
Sander van der Wal
www.mBrainSoftware.com
How about comparing it to apple TV or types of players? I know it's not going to be that crisp clear ... but maybe soon enough 😉
"when trying to use this setup, the first issue is is that the smartphone's UI is tailored to it's own tiny screen and miniscule keyboard."
That's the theory, but when I actually tried it in real life, the UI just wasn't an issue for most basic tasks. It was just as easy to use the S60 UI on a big screen as on a small screen, in fact I preferred the big screen because it made all the icons and options easier to see.
The low resolution was annoying, as was the lack of a pointing device, but if smartphones have higher resolutions and compatibility with a pointing device (for example a bluetooth mouse) then for the average user there wouldn't really be any barriers in using a smartphone as a PC.
The question is NOT whether a smartphone can be as good as PC, because it won't. PCs will always have superior UIs and hardware, just as all separate dedicated devices do, even pocket calculators.
The question is whether a smartphone can be good enough for the needs of the average PC user. The average PC user nowadays isn't anywhere near as technical as a user from 10 years ago, they probably never install their own applications, and just stick with whatever was bundled with the machine. They use a limited range of applications, and very rarely change the settings on these apps. In other words, their minimum requirements are very similar to the abilities of a typical smartphone UI.
If a smartphone interface is good enough, then it can start to replace PCs, just as cameraphones started to replace cameras when they became good enough for the average user. Cameraphones were never ever as good as the cheapest cameras, but they didn't have to be.
If a user just uses five or six PC applications (browser, word, IM, email, media player, media editor) then you only really need a simple interface to access those.
On top of all this, more and more commonly used applications are becoming web-based, so the smartphone or PC's only task is to display a browser. In those circumstances, the UI of the PC or phone is mostly irrelevant, all you really want it for is rendering websites.
"So, if a smartphone is to be used as a PC replacement, then it should be able to take advantage of a big screen and a full keyboard transparently. This is apparently not easy, witness the E90."
I found using the keyboard absolutely fine. It took some getting used to the S60 keys because they're not on most PC keyboards, but it didn't take long. As I said before, I did severely miss having a pointing device though, and I think this is something required by smartphones with TV Out abilities.
The main problems on the E90 come either from advanced users trying to do something complicated, or else people who just don't like using tiny keyboards.
Neither of those would be the case in the scenario that I'm proposing: average PC users accessing a smartphone through a full-size bluetooth keyboard.
"How about comparing it to apple TV or types of players?"
Well... Apple TV isn't a smartphone or even portable, so it isn't really comparable to TV Out on a smartphone. The point I was trying to make was that people might prefer to have their PCs with them everywhere, rather than fixed in one place, just as they prefer to have their phones and cameras and music players with them everywhere.
nice idea.. back to reality though, i have a laptop as well as a N95 and I still prefer my desktop when I am at home. Different tools for different tasks.
"nice idea.. back to reality though, i have a laptop as well as a N95 and I still prefer my desktop when I am at home. Different tools for different tasks."
And I prefer my cheap separate camera for taking pictures, it's far superior to the most expensive cameraphone, with far more features and a much easier to use interface. Different tools for different tasks.
Yet the cameraphone IS taking over from separate cameras, not because it's better (it's actually much worse) but purely because it's good enough for most people's needs and it's something that they always have with them.
A laptop is very bulky and heavy, the power adaptor alone is heavier than a smartphone. It's not the kind of thing most people would carry around on a casual basis. A laptop is also far, far, far in excess of what the average user needs in terms of computing power, just as separate cameras are far in excess of what the average user needs in terms of picture quality and photo options.
The point I'm trying to make is that for most people buying separates is overkill, whereas for the most commonly used computing tasks phones are far more portable and just about good enough to do what's required of them.
krisse wrote:"when trying to use this setup, the first issue is is that the smartphone's UI is tailored to it's own tiny screen and miniscule keyboard."That's the theory, but when I actually tried it in real life, the UI just wasn't an issue for most basic tasks. It was just as easy to use the S60 UI on a big screen as on a small screen, in fact I preferred the big screen because it made all the icons and options easier to see.
The low resolution was annoying, as was the lack of a pointing device, but if smartphones have higher resolutions and compatibility with a pointing device (for example a bluetooth mouse) then for the average user there wouldn't really be any barriers in using a smartphone as a PC.
Ok, imagine the S60 UI on a modern HDTV. Lots of resolution. Now imagine you want to write a letter in which you need to make some calculations. So you need a word processor and the calculator. Both things can be done on the smartphone, but you cannot see the calculator and the letter at the same time. Copy and paste the calculator answers to the letter?
krisse wrote:
The question is NOT whether a smartphone can be as good as PC, because it won't. PCs will always have superior UIs and hardware, just as all separate dedicated devices do, even pocket calculators.
As soon as a smartphone can do the same as a PC for a given person, that smartphones is as good as the PC is for that given person. Everything extra just costs money.
Problem is, a PC can always do more. But that's more of a software issue than a hardware one.
krisse wrote:
The question is whether a smartphone can be good enough for the needs of the average PC user. The average PC user nowadays isn't anywhere near as technical as a user from 10 years ago, they probably never install their own applications, and just stick with whatever was bundled with the machine. They use a limited range of applications, and very rarely change the settings on these apps. In other words, their minimum requirements are very similar to the abilities of a typical smartphone UI.If a smartphone interface is good enough, then it can start to replace PCs, just as cameraphones started to replace cameras when they became good enough for the average user. Cameraphones were never ever as good as the cheapest cameras, but they didn't have to be.
The problem with PC's is not the hardware capabilities, but it's software capabilities. Even though the modern smartphone has enough oomph to run 90% of current PC apps, are people going to write all these apps for the smartphone too?
Take for instance MS Word. Even though there are a number of apps that do a good job of editing MS Word documents, these apps do not behave as MS Word does, they have different shortcuts, a different look-and-feel, they cannot access word docs from the network, alls kinds of inconveniences that makes most people just not considering using a smartphone to do the editing.
Technically, all solvable, but nobody is going to do it. It costs too much and there's no revenue to make it worthwhile. And as soon as it becomes worthwhile you have Microsoft trying to kill you.
krisse wrote:
If a user just uses five or six PC applications (browser, word, IM, email, media player, media editor) then you only really need a simple interface to access those.
No you don't because nobody uses the same 6 apps. Anyway, as soon as you want to see two apps onscreen at the same time, things become as complicated as having a lot of apps on screen at the same time.
krisse wrote:
On top of all this, more and more commonly used applications are becoming web-based, so the smartphone or PC's only task is to display a browser. In those circumstances, the UI of the PC or phone is mostly irrelevant, all you really want it for is rendering websites.
At this moment it is absolutely not clear whether commonly used apps are goin to be webbased for the mayority of users. Because it is possible doesn't mean it is going to happen. Most technical possibilities fail to happen.
krisse wrote:
"So, if a smartphone is to be used as a PC replacement, then it should be able to take advantage of a big screen and a full keyboard transparently. This is apparently not easy, witness the E90."I found using the keyboard absolutely fine. It took some getting used to the S60 keys because they're not on most PC keyboards, but it didn't take long. As I said before, I did severely miss having a pointing device though, and I think this is something required by smartphones with TV Out abilities.
The main problems on the E90 come either from advanced users trying to do something complicated, or else people who just don't like using tiny keyboards.
Neither of those would be the case in the scenario that I'm proposing: average PC users accessing a smartphone through a full-size bluetooth keyboard.
The E90 doesn't support shortcuts properly, and that isn't going to change when a BT keyboard is used instead of it's buildin one. If you think this is complicated...
The E90 has a big screen but having the calculator visible next to the word processor is impossible. If you think this is complicated...
Let's put it in another way. The first people who are going to use their smartphone as a PC replacement are the early adopters. These people have the technical knowledge and determination to make such things work.
Further, in the early adopter theory, if early adopters adopt a technology there is no guarantuee that the mayority will adopt the technology. Worse, if the early adopters do *not* adopt the technology, the majority will not adopt it either.
But, to get the majority to adopt a technology, it must be adopted by the early adopters first.
So, for a smartphone to be a viable PC replacement, this means that it must first cater for the early adopters, doing something for them that the PC doesn't, or doesn't as well or as conveniently or as cheaply. As long as that doesn't happen, the smartphone won't replace the PC for the early adopters, and therefore for nobody.
Being an early adopter myself, I would know what I want a smartphone to do as a pc replacement. Standalone it should behave as it does atm, but with a big screen and a proper keyboard, it should behave as a PC does, multiple apps onscreen at the same time, and proper keyboard use, among a number of other things. That will make it more convenient as a laptop, for instance.
Finally, I think the Wii with Opera is acurrently a much better candidate for replacing the PC for those people doing everything on the web. It's cheap, it's fun, it looks good, it's much easier to use than current smartphones.
Sander van der Wal
www.mBrainSoftware.com
Svdwal, can I first say you're writing some really good comments here, very intelligent replies. We might disagree on some things but hopefully this discussion enhances the whole article by including different points of view.
"Ok, imagine the S60 UI on a modern HDTV. Lots of resolution. Now imagine you want to write a letter in which you need to make some calculations. So you need a word processor and the calculator. Both things can be done on the smartphone, but you cannot see the calculator and the letter at the same time. Copy and paste the calculator answers to the letter?"
You can switch between them very easily, just hold down the S60 menu button. It's no more difficult than using the taskbar on Windows.
I totally agree that you will always be able to do far more with a PC, but I'm saying that most people simply don't need to do things like show a calculator and a document side-by-side. Being able to task switch is good enough.
"As soon as a smartphone can do the same as a PC for a given person, that smartphones is as good as the PC is for that given person."
No, this is the point I'm making: convergence does NOT require a converged device to be as good as the device it replaces.
No converged phone feature is EVER as good as the separate device it replaces, it's always worse and usually much more expensive. Yet convergence still happens because people don't need the converged feature to be as good, they just need it to be good enough.
"Even though the modern smartphone has enough oomph to run 90% of current PC apps, are people going to write all these apps for the smartphone too?"
The applications that are most commonly used are most definitely present on all smartphone platforms.
You're right that most PC apps will never get converted to smartphone, but the average user never even knows about most PC apps. As long as there's a browser, email app, document editor, IM, media player etc then the average user won't really need much more. And the hardware makers tend to include these basic apps on their smartphones anyway (for example Nokia themselves developed the S60 browser and bundle it with all S60 phones).
"No you don't because nobody uses the same 6 apps. Anyway, as soon as you want to see two apps onscreen at the same time, things become as complicated as having a lot of apps on screen at the same time."
Yes, lots of people use those same 6 apps almost all the time, sometimes even less. For example, my parents both have PCs which they use for work, and they only really use two applications: the browser and the word processor. Their email is handled by a web-based application, Gmail, and if they chose to use Google Documents then they'd be using just one PC-based application: the browser.
PCs are so cheap now, and so many people want to get online, a lot of people aren't buying PCs as computers, they're buying PCs as gateways onto the internet and/or as typewriters.
There was a phenomenon similar to this in the 1980s Europe: home computers became so cheap that people started buying them purely as games machines, mostly never their potential as serious devices. Games consoles gradually took over from home computers precisely because so many people were only using them for games. It didn't matter that consoles were far more limited, because they did what was required of them.
"So, for a smartphone to be a viable PC replacement, this means that it must first cater for the early adopters, doing something for them that the PC doesn't, or doesn't as well or as conveniently or as cheaply. As long as that doesn't happen, the smartphone won't replace the PC for the early adopters, and therefore for nobody."
Smartphones already do cater for early adopters: they're smartphones. People who are into technology will still buy them because they already offer something desirable, the ability to have a connected pocket-sized computer. It doesn't matter if TV Out is something they want, techies will still buy smartphones purely as smartphones.
S60 alone has sold 100 million units and models like the 6120 take it deep into the mainstream market, well past the early adopter stage.
If TV Out becomes a standard feature of smartphones, which seems very likely, and if smartphone sales increase, which is already happening year on year, then you'll end up in a situation where more people can access the web on a TV through their phone than on a monitor through a PC.
And that's when things start getting interesting...
"Finally, I think the Wii with Opera is acurrently a much better candidate for replacing the PC for those people doing everything on the web. It's cheap, it's fun, it looks good, it's much easier to use than current smartphones."
😊
The Wii is absolutely great, and I agree it's by far the easiest device to use, which is why I said in the article that TV Out smartphones desperately need compatibility with some sort of pointing device. Something like the Wii-mote would be just as good as a mouse or a touchscreen, indeed perhaps it would be more intuitive and therefore better.
But in the future, if smartphones can match or exceed the Wii's resolution, and if they have some sort of pointing device, then using a smartphone browser and using the Wii's browser will be pretty much the same. The differences will be that the smartphone is portable, and far far more people buy smartphones than games consoles, so a smartphone-based TV Out platform is more likely to take off than a console-based one.
Nice article. Ironically, this usage scenario (minus the Nokia keyboard) has been what I have been doing with the N95 for the past month. Its passable till the N95 quits apps for memory reasons.
The AV cable should be just a bit longer though for those non-BT keyboard times.
Good piece.
To krisse:
You don't need a pointing device, you just need an accelerometer chip inside your phone (like Nokia 5500 Sport has). This way, the whole phone becomes a 3D pointing device, simplistic but functional (see Gyration mouse).
"You don't need a pointing device, you just need an accelerometer chip inside your phone (like Nokia 5500 Sport has). This way, the whole phone becomes a 3D pointing device, simplistic but functional (see Gyration mouse)."
Interesting idea...would it be as easy to use as a normal mouse though? I've never actually used something like that to point on a screen.
Another way is to go with svdwal's Wii idea and use that sort of technology to build an actual Wii controller clone into the phone. The "sensor bar" is apparently just a pair of infrared lights, and there are numerous videos on ebay of people using all kinds of substitutes including candles(!).
"Ironically, this usage scenario (minus the Nokia keyboard) has been what I have been doing with the N95 for the past month. Its passable till the N95 quits apps for memory reasons."
The keyboard really helps to get that desktop computer feel, it's ridiculously easy to write emails with the keyboard for example.
But more about that in a future article... 😉
"The AV cable should be just a bit longer though for those non-BT keyboard times."
Yeah, it is a bit short. Even better would be for the AV adaptor to be wireless somehow. Not sure if bluetooth can cope with that kind of thing, but if it can't then the adaptor could include wireless components for both ends of the connection.
krisse wrote:Interesting idea...would it be as easy to use as a normal mouse though? I've never actually used something like that to point on a screen.
I've plugged my N95 into a hidef projector before, and the res is definitely a lot higher when viewing pictures than the 320*240 on the device. I had a picture where the text on screen was not readable, but clearly readable on the tv output. that said, the VAST VAST majority of apps (in fact, i think only the nokia picture viewer has the high resoloution) show at the standard 320*240. Anyone know what the tv out resoloution is? It certainly would be nice to see games supporting it..
think of india: +1bilion ppl, pc penetration still marginal, broadband even less... For a lot of people the first phone is a mobile.I believe for a lot of teenagers the first pc with broadband will be a smartphone with 3G/wifi...
Krisse, you already have the mouse - it's the phone! Just use a grid-marked mousemat and use the phone camera to determine how the phone is moved over it. This would be ideal with something like the N95 with the camera on the back.
Anyone fancy writing the software for it and hacking Nokia's mouse-supporting browser?
No need to write software, Psiloc have done it already:-
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/software/item/Psiloc_Mobile_Mouse_for_Series60.php
Krisse, how about trying this and appending your review?
I'm about to find out how well the N95 can act as a laptop replacement - we're going to "house-sit" for some friends for a week in Cornwall, and to keep up with e-mail and the like, I'm just taking my N95, Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard and the TV-out cable.
Hope it works out OK - unfortunately, the area we're going to isn't covered by T-Mobile's 3G service, so it'll be plain vanilla GSM Net access for a week (unless the WiFi hotspot in the town centre is a possibility for the bigger downloads).
If this thread's still going when I come back, I'll let you know how it went 😊
PintOfAle, you're a genius! Thank you so much for pointing that out!
Oh no, wait... that application only lets you use it as a mouse on Windows, which isn't quite what I had in mind. I wanted a mouse that worked in S60, on the television screen that you've plugged the phone into.
But the idea is a very very interesting one, real lateral thinking there. You wouldn't even need to add any extra hardware, just write an application.
"If this thread's still going when I come back, I'll let you know how it went"
Please do let us know, it would be a very interesting to hear how it goes. The lack of 3G shouldn't be too bad for email etc, but not so great for web browsing and streaming.
"Anyone know what the tv out resoloution is? It certainly would be nice to see games supporting it.."
I believe the TV Out can show video and stills at VGA resolution, but I'm not sure how applications can access this ability.
I'm just writing the second part of this TV Out series which is about games. The graphics in the game System Rush Evolution seems MUCH higher quality than other games I tested, far far less jagged and you can barely see the pixels. I wonder if its developers have somehow managed to access the VGA resolution? It's a first party game published by Nokia themselves, so I suppose the dev team would have better access to all the secrets of the platform.
"think of india: +1bilion ppl, pc penetration still marginal, broadband even less... For a lot of people the first phone is a mobile.I believe for a lot of teenagers the first pc with broadband will be a smartphone with 3G/wifi..."
Yes, I agree, there's a lot of potential there, especially if the TV Out feature starts to be included on cheaper and cheaper phones. And of course smartphone prices are dropping rapidly anyway, perhaps one day all phones will be smartphones with TV Out.
Using a TV Out-capable phone might well become the cheapest and easiest way to get an internet-connected computer, although at the moment TV Out models (N95, N93) are still quite expensive.
Hi folks - I'm back from that week in Cornwall now 😊
So, how did the N95 fare as a laptop replacement for me? In short, I'd say "well enough for what I needed" - that is, for low-bandwidth Web browsing, e-mail and SSH access to our home server (the latter with the S60 port of PuTTY). The Stowaway keyboard came in very useful, and if you can get hold of one of these - especially the "Ultra-Slim" model - it will really help if you seriously want to try using the N95 as a "tiny computer".
I did end up stuck with T-Mobile's GSM access, as I wasn't able to get online via our friends' home WiFi (I think the router was to blame, as I connected to the router with no trouble, but couldn't get on the Net from there). This meant I didn't do my usual podcast retrievals for the week - I use my home WiFi for that - but as my N95's Video Centre app seems to have developed a fault (a separate post there) I had to go without that feature.
The TV output also helped, particularly for when I used SSH. To avoid the terminal's lines wrapping, I usually have to use the smallest font size in PuTTY, which on the N95's display is borderline illegible, so at least a TV screen makes the characters a little more usable.
Following the article's advice, I definitely recommend carrying a component video-SCART adapter in your "gadget bag". You can't guarantee that TVs will always have the three component sockets (yellow, white, red), but most of them will have at least one SCART. Ironically, I have one of these adapters, but didn't take it with me - this meant I couldn't use the kitchen TV, but there was another set in the spare bedroom, which had the three sockets 😊 )
So, in summary: the N95 can make a useful laptop supplement for basic Internet use, but it helps if you have access to WiFi, and carry all the requisite cables, adapters and so on.
I'd do it again, and probably will...
The N95 would be great if it had real VGA out with support up to 1024x768 and bluetooth keyboard+ mouse capability. Symbian already supports ICA so you can connect to a virtual desktop that runs any standard app.
Nokia is close to building the Nirvana Smartphone ,,, just a few features away.
http://www.nirvanasmartphone.com