Nokia N900 Review my review about Nokia N900 smart phone

[Quatrux 4]

Nokia N900 review

 

I've got this great device from Nokia almost a year ago. I'll try to present my experience with it throughout the year.

 

I didn't look into smart phones despite all the buzz around them, especially iPhone and Android craze that swept our country (and it still continues). That is until my old trusty Nokia 6610i battery started to show its age.

 

I've started to hunt around for information about various phones and trying to decide what I need from such a device.

 

I've looked at friends Motorola Milestone and decided that I really want a proper hardware keyboard. Typing on it compared to touchscreen was awesome. Next was PDF reading capability. Going to work with public transportation wastes more than an hour a day. Device screen resolution played important factor. By looking at various specs, 800 x 480 seemed like an optimal resolution for this kind of device. GPS was included in all options and that's a good plus.

 

So why Nokia N900 won my internal contest ?

 

Hardware wise it included:

large internal 32GB storage with optional 16GB microSDHC card, I could carry everything I need with me, including music, movies, documents;

large screen with 800x480 resolution;

slide out qwerty hardware keyboard;

FM transmitter for those rides with tape/radio system in a car;

internal GPS device;

it even could be used to make calls

Software wise it was an interesting find - a hidden gem for me. I, as a long time Linux user, was pleasantly surprised, that there is an operating system called Maemo. It is a full Linux stack which includes Linux kernel, X Windows, GTK, QT at its core (unlike Android, which doesn't have a lot of things in common with typical Linux userland). And most importantly, the system is totally open - no need to root or unlock it if you want to install or modify something. It is quite common to hear stories about successful iOS and Android device rooting. Maemo is a familiar environment for Linux user. Last, but not least - Maemo5 is feature packed and in some areas is ahead even today compared to other mobile OS.

 

Useful software included:

proper browser based on Mozilla Firefox, which renders websites the same way your desktop PC does;

flash plugin is included, no need to have special YouTube app, although that one is available if you need it;

awesome Skype, gtalk integration with one contact list together with all avatars and additional information about friends pulled from various online services you use;

working video chat, voip through Skype and Gtalk, everything is beautifully integrated - you talk with friends from Skype just like with other GSM contacts, there is no difference;

integrated Ovi Maps, although with limitations - routing needs active data connection, but it is enough if you just want to see where you are and where to go;

python - you can easily create missing bits or other custom/useful programs just as you do on your desktop/laptop PC

large selection of software in community maemo.org repositories;

fully multitasking.

Unfortunately Maemo OS that is made by Nokia is dead. It was mostly known when I bought N900, but all the features, possibilities to customize it the way I want and open source community support made me buy it anyway. And I don't regret it.

 

Maemo has simple interface that has three screen levels:

 

Desktop with widgets and launchers or active application.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Launched application selector with full app preview (remember that Maemo is fully multitasking OS).

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Home screen with installed applications.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

In first few months I've played with various screen widgets, but later found that some of them were waking CPU too often and decreased battery life. Right now I have only icon launchers for most used programs, birthday widget and 2G/3G data usage monitor. With little bit PDF reading, few browsing sessions and some GSM calls it can live without power source 3 or 4 days. With heavier online usage and music listening I need to charge it every or every second day. Sadly no difference to other smart phones.

 

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Maemo Media player is nice application and with additional codecs it can play all media files you throw at it and additionally it supports H.264 hardware assisted decoding, audio file information scrobbling to Last.fm service. But because audio files are sorted by albums and if you have some custom compilations and other broken ID3 tags, it becomes inconvenient to listen to music. It was one of the first applications that I wanted to replace. Sadly most replacement programs work in the same album style or they do not support scrobbling to Last.fm. But have no fear, Rockbox is here! There is a native Rockbox port for N900. It has its flaws - touchscreen accuracy is bad, so you need to use keyboard for navigation, but at least it allows you to play audio files by directories and supports scrobbling.

 

Media Player home screen:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Media Player Artists list:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Rockbox on N900:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Another disappointment was PDF reader. Don't get me wrong, it works, but doesn't have features I consider vital for such an application - it doesn't remember zoom level and page number when I open PDF second time. Community has done it again and created a port of Linux desktop PDF reader Evince. Although it has some glitches when scrolling in-page by using touch screen, but again it works OK while using keyboard. On top of that, Evince is faster.

 

PDF reader Evince:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Standard PDF reader:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

There exists numerous of free GPS software - Marble Touch, Modrana, Mappero, GPS Logger, but commercial application Sygic Mobile Maps 10 seems to be the only sane solution for turn by turn car navigation. It works offline, has quite good maps, thought out interface, awesome voice features. N900 lacks magnetometer, therefore sometimes it is hard to judge final destination on some complex locations where GPS standard accuracy is too low.

 

 

Sygic Mobile Maps in unusual for N900 portrait mode:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

modRana GPS application:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

The camera on N900 is nothing to get excited about, although it packs 5MP Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and has LED backlight, photos taken inside or on lower light look kinda blue. I didn't expect anything from smartphone camera, sometimes it is handy, but it doesn't replace old Canon PowerShot A530 which has same number of MP (5MP camera).

 

Photo taken on a sunny day:

 

There are few games for Maemo platform. This does not only include Angry Birds, but 3D platformer Kroll, usual suspects as Chess, Mahjong, Solitaire, Snake and open source Tux games, Frozen Bubble, Doom, Quake and full range of emulators (NES, Spectrum, Amiga, Gameboy, etc). Most emulator games are not really touchscreen friendly and N900 keyboard is not made to play games comfortably, so they are mostly used to show off. Although you can connect PS3 joypad with Bluetooth and play games this way connected to TV through TV output..

 

Angry Birds:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

Kroll:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

If you're eager to try more touch based games, some Palm Pre games work. You just need to foul them by running predefined script and launch those games with that. Many users report success and there is even dedicated wiki pages on http://maemo.org/. I haven't tried it myself though.

 

All in all, N900 is great mini computer with phone features. It has dedicated community that updates abandoned Nokia open source components by creating OS updates, others made working Android port, Meego port and even Ubuntu. Yes, you can boot into any OS you desire by using boot menu. Crazy, but true.

 

Phone application in Landscape mode, call type can be Cellular, Skype, GTalk, etc.:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/404.png

 

 

I haven't mentioned all the features that N900 together with Maemo5 provide, but I hope this late review will raise more interest to Maemo (and now Meego) platform.

 

You can find more information about N900 on Maemo dot org

Official specs are available on Wikipedia about Nokia N900

Meego for N900 http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Android for N900 http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and http://wiki.maemo.org/NITDroid_Port

 

It's really quite hard and takes some time to put all the pictures to the topic, but I think it's worth it, just hope that the image host won't disappear soon

[cbhattarai 0]

N 900 was really great, but there is no competition for Lumia 900..

[Quatrux 4]

I disagree. Although Lumia 900 looks nice, but it lacks ability to customize your environment (Windows Phone is such a pain in the *bottom*), hardware keyboard, storage not extendable, no mass storage mode, hard to get media files into Lumia 900, etc. It doesn't even stand up to very old by todays standard Nokia N900. The screen is bigger, yes, but resolution is the same and touch accuracy is worse (capacitive on Lumia and excellent resistive touch screen on N900).I have now second phone - developer Nokia N950. Although it runs Maemo 6 (or Meego Harmattan, if you prefer) and can tell you that capacitive screen is not useful for touching small objects on web pages. You have to constantly zoom in and out.I might write review of N950, if I can get around to it, as it has superior hardware keyboard, camera to N900, but still, N900 is my main workhorse phone and I hope it doesn't break anytime soon ;]