Tizen will be the main competitor to Android. Other companies tried to compete but lacked the hardware necessary to do so. Samsung has what it takes to make it successful. Android's success is not from Android itself but from the hardware it runs. Samsung has the hardware volume and market share to make Tizen successful and be adopted by other manufactures. Windows Phone, Blackberry and Webos lacked the hardware to properly compete. Apple will soon struggle to compete due a lack of volume.
The future is Tizen!

I have to disagree with you there even though I myself am of the mind that HW is paramount...

If it really was so then Nokia's Lumia line would have beaten competitors to dust yeats ago... and even before that N9 would have demolished 'em
(Not to even mention what NIT's would have done even before that happend...)

As things stand I just have to admit to my horror that quality HW means nothing at all!

I concur with railroadmaster.
"If you want something done..."
The best (and only) option for now and the future is not to ****ing count on a single solitary soul other than yourself...to build a linux device.
To date the nxx0 line is the best there is.
As antiquated (in terms of modern devices) as they are...they are still the best alternative to a diy option.
It is possible Nokia may jump back in the game...
Sure the aim with the nxx0 line was more experimental in the target audience and the outcome...
But the data they garnered from the grand experiment does lead me to believe if any corp can make linux viable not just to us...but the masses as well...it is prolly Nokia.
Other upstarts since...tizen, sailfish , etc...are fine and all....
but they don't and haven't been geared for a larger mass market.
To survive ..an os / device truly needs a large base population to not "just" survive ....but thrive...
It is how the world is...
So I think that such narrow perspectives and end goals....especially ... toward the end user makes ...for a doomed situation from the get go.

And frankly ...
After bloody years ...
I am not holding my breath any longer...
.believing that upstarts, Nokia, Kickstarters, indiegogo , (whatever) , or "White Paper Dragons" will accomplish much.... if anything.

Nor will I invest any more of my time or effort in unrealized / unattainable alternatives which aren't "on the shelf" yet.

Until something "real" actually happens along ...
Shy of our nxx0 ...
DIY is the best alternative there is.

I have this debate about where Maemo/Meego could of gone next. Was Qt switch something planned or pushed on the Devs when Nokia bought it? Did they want to stick with GTK? We're they happy with Meego/ Qt switch and N9 route as a successor? The Hildon future can be guessed from the deprecated functions, the GTK3/ Gnome development. Qt route, we have Sailfish, maybe not 100% the Devs original vision at Nokia due to patents/copyright etc. but shares some concepts.

These questions are what started my GTK3 port. If Nokia/someone else wants to get back into Hildon, they have a head start. As Nokia have the history, I'd like to hope that one day they'll experiment with a new environment and turn to the community for ideas. If they'd opened up some source code before Microsoft took over I think we'd be much closer to a full replacement distribution by now.

Also, though i haven't checked their balance sheet, shouldn't Nokia also have the MSFT buyout money hanging around? If they truly wanted to make that kind of differential splash again, they might have better financial footing to do it now, in addition to the old maemo/meego artifacts (do they still own those?).

Of course, if the BOD is the same since the Elop days, i laugh at our ideas coming to fruition.

That's it, juice, you've nailed it!

I realized a long time ago from following this thread that what we want is basically... a netbook. Perhaps a smaller one so it can be called handheld to fit the subject but that is a detail.

The netbook era has come and gone. It lasted all of what? A year? It left such a lasting legacy that most of you will possibly not even know what a netbook is.

Most netbooks that I know of came with some sort of Linux preinstalled, to push down the cost. They were designed to run Linux. They failed to make a hole in the world. Manufacturers then woke up and started offering the same models with Windows. That took off slightly better but still not good enough. When first iPad and then Android copycats emerged, that was the end of the netbook era.

I am still trying to figure out why. As far as I am concerned, something of a laptop form factor, with a general computer capabilities, but smaller is far superior to a flat slab with a glass front and no buttons. It seems that the masses disagree. Not only general masses: just look at our own community. The overall feeling that yet another iPhone wannabe is the bees knees is almost palpable. The fact that it runs something that could just about pass for Linux is often used as an argument although to me it sounds more like an excuse.

In short, no one wants a hanheld computer any more. You and I may want one but we are small individual islands surrounded by a sea of apathy. We need to wake up and realize what the manufacturers have realized a long time ago: trying to bring a handheld general computer to the market is an economic suicide. If anyone would even consider doing that, it would be only a big manufacturer like Sony, doing it on the side and subsidizing it heavily from their other businesses.

In even shorter, it ain't gonna happen. DIY or nothing.

What do you mean came and went? Most of my stuff, except GTK3 is built on an Eee 1000

That, my dear friend, makes you officially a living fossil

I honestly think that this tinkerer mentality is somewhat adorable; however it has yet to deliver a product that fulfills any of these criteria of mobile device with decent battery life and processing power that's pocketable. I love the Raspberry Pi devices with screens (almost all are lower resolution than I'd rather purchase).

Glad the tinkering spirit exists, I'd rather have something that does what I need with less fault points.

Funny thing that I keep circling back to - why a phone when most of you guys here (myself included) would love to have an always connected to the Internet device instead. The people that make phone calls is lesser than those that want access to our servers, our code, and our messaging platforms of choice.

Last I checked the Nokia Internet Tablet gave us that.

It's a gamble, most of us nerds will find fault in something trivial and make it into Mt. Everest but in the end, it's a better option than going full-blown Android or trusting some garbage ODM that uses off-the-shelf parts that are generations behind, a mismatch or worse.

I guess I'm of the same mind where hardware is a necessary evil to be done correctly first. The OS needs to be extensible enough to make the tinkerers happy. And putting it together, not even on my list. For a computer that makes sense. For my servers, that makes sense. For a pocketable device; that's never made sense. Not yet at least.

And I used it the last 1 (1 1/2) years as only keyboard equipped computer. Ofc besides my N900!
Running Ubuntu12 with 2GB (but browsing experience comes close to N900 more and more )

I take this as a compliment!