Jan 8, 2009 03:45 PM
31,245
Enter your username and password.
We've all heard about the prospects of Android in the mobile-phone market, but the NIMble is an Android phone meant for actual desktops.
By Touch Revolution, the NIMble features a 7-inch multitouch screen (800x400)—that's roughly 4x the screen area you'd see in the G1 loaded with 2.5x the pixels. In person, that's sharp enough to my eyes.
Other features include a 624MHz Marvel processor, SD expansion (to supplement unspecified internal storage), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
As for Android itself, that's fully functional. But Touch Revolution has built their own software on top of the platform for entertainment and home networking stuff.
Operating the NIMble was speedy enough, though I had some responsiveness issues from the glass touchscreen. I'm pretty sure these issues will be fixed by the device's September release, since Mark Hamblin, Product Design Lead on the original iPhone's touchscreen, is busy ironing out the kinks. He explained that the touch gestures within Android need to be scaled to a larger screen.
So what about multi-touch? Hopefully the NIMble will have that capability at launch as well. But right now, Touch Revolution is busy building multi-touch architecture into Android itself. They're also pretty eager for others to jump on the bandwagon.
The photos here aren't of the final NIMble unit, but the finished product will look very similar...though we're fairly certain that we'll see a handset attached at launch. Coming this September, the NIMble will run $300, or free with a $10-$20/month phone home service contact.
Send an email to Mark Wilson, the author of this post, at mark@gizmodo.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion