A lot has been said about what step the N900 represents in Nokia's vision of what a mobile computer with cell phone connectivity is in the market. Whatever step it is, the consensus seems to have been that the N900 or its firmware/OS version is not the final step.
With that^ said I believe anyone who is happy with what the iPhone gives them, and accepts the iPhones single task limitations, will be disappointed with the N900 if they switch to it from the iPhone.
Out of the box the N900 will have less software available, more bug related software updates, and a much steeper learning curve...
However.... 3 months later, the N900 owner will be happier with his purchase and their satisfaction will continue to grow as they realize that:
More and more free applications have become available for the N900 and that they had a say in the development of some of those applications or can configure them more to their specific needs then ones available for sale on the iPhone.
Each firmware update that they did receive over the air for their N900 actually improved its functionality and didn't cripple its connectivity even further.
The learning process for the N900 was not painful at all and that they now feel a part of a vibrant, growing community that shares their enthusiasm for the device and its OS and is less concerned with how much time or money they spend in the App Store.
...and as always, imho.
The above^ also applies to anyone who is considering purchasing an N900 because they think it is the best cell phone in Nokia's line-up.
It may offer more features than any other phone but it is a mobile computer with support for HSPDA and HSUPA DATA connections that also happens to be a GSM cell phone.
Comparing the N900 to devices that are cell phones first and that also happen to run applications and can browse the Internet would not be fair to either device.
I found another one on that site published the next day called "trailer"
Nokia N900: The trailer
The Nokia N900, which runs the Linux-based Maemo operating system, offers a powerhouse performance that could leave Apple's iPhone in the shade.
On just about every cell phone forum on HoFo the number one request is "How do I change the Carrier branding string so that my phone doesn't say "BRANDX" on the screen every time I look at it."
Hell, there are active threads on the Nextel and Boost forums for the past 5 years still trying to do just that.
Dig on this:
Originally Posted by qwerty12
Wanted to be able to display something of my own choice on the desktop, instead of seeing my operator's name so I wrote a replacement for the applet responsible.
Custom Operator Name Applet, simply put, allows you to display a label of your own choice in lieu of your network operator's name. You can also choose the text and shadow colours of the label. You can have different labels and colours that are dependent upon the state of the N900 phone connectivity (Connected, connecting, not connected).
Due to hildon-desktop limitations, the N900 must be restarted before the applet is loaded. After that, the applet can be configured from the Control Panel.
Uninstalling the applet - and restarting - will cause the original one to be restored.
Planned:
* Allow you to show the operator's name.
* Allow you to have a (small) image in place of the logo.
* Allow you to see what song is playing in any MAFW-utilising Media Player.
* Show the name of the current profile.
* Show the current volume.
GLOBAL – The Nokia N900 is going to be the star of the show for the next month as we bring you 30 videos dedicated to the device. Recently we asked you what you’d like to see us do with the Nokia N900 and the response was absolutely amazing. So good, the Conversations bosses let us run riot with our camcorder and shoot the N900 doing all sorts of cool stuff...
I am told Mighty Mouse is using a production unit for this review. If this is true a few concerned members should take note of the thing she points to at 1:41 and her comments at 2:31 & 3:10... Enjoy!
For those following sr1329's Premininary thoughts on N900 member Paul22000 posted an excellent summary. I have quoted this summary and sr1329's follow up post below...
Originally Posted by Paul22000
I'll give it a shot
I decided to compile a list of all of SR's comments regarding the Maemo OS over the past 25 or so pages into a single list of 100% objective and useful feedback.
I split it up into five categories: Great, Good, Bad, Ugly, and Downright Horrible.
Afterward is a conclusion with Strengths/Weaknesses/Bottom Line.
(Text in italics is comments from me or questions about issues that are unclear)
Strong browser and a touch interface that is reasonable. -- (Also, Flash!)
- The browser is nice and it's exciting to have the Ad-Block plugin.
- "The browser has been the best mobile browser to use the forums. Also zoom is done in 3 ways."
Tethering is a breeze to set up and use. Connected instantly.
"The first time I played the N900 video that it comes with I realized how sharp the screen is."
The screen is fully ED (?) and probably one of the best features of the device -- (What is ED?)
When you go to File Browser and click shared media it shows all media on connected homeserver, cool feature. File access/download is great, better than iPhone.
- "Damn DLNA on this thing is unbelievable. It plays the files in the media player and it even has both my mediaservers (Windows Media Connect shows but files don't show) and PS3 Server. You can choose either, browse and gracefully add to a playlist. This thing is pretty crazy."
Good
Device is fast on Wi-Fi
Address bar as a search bar is nice
Hulu works, which is technically exciting (But it is slow)
Voice speaker quality is much better than iPhone
Cool/fun customizable widgets
Repository is nice
Stability is decent, no random reboots yet. Apps do freeze but an acceptable cost to multi-tasking
Media player can do OGG and play FLAC files
Speakers are better than iPhone speakerphone
The UI is jazzier than iPhone
Pop-up notifications are done well and very useful. Great feature
Setting up SMTP with POP/IMAP is done well/clever
Camera: Is "fine enough" for a phone video camera -- (However, this is "amateur opinion", SR no interest in camera really)
Camera: Can crop/rotate
Camera: Has a good interface, great for geotagging/liveblogging
Sending mail does sync that mail to exchange, unlike the S60 which was very frustrating.
Bad
Extremely difficult / secretive to find out if a firmware update is available. Information should be in About Phone. -- (However: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At9tJHmgnrE -- Is this not valid?)
Contacts -> Select someone -> "Communication History" is nice. However, can not do this from desktop shortcut or phone app (Inconsistency)
Haptic feedback is only on or off. It should have different strengths
There is too much difference in brightness between level 4 (pretty dark) and level 5 (really bright)
Onscreen keyboard: Covers way too much of the screen
Onscreen keyboard: Catches two of every six letters typed
Onscreen keyboard: Is hideous
Very limited portrait mode functionality
PC Suite has many sync issues
PC Suite while charging eats battery rather than charging
Need more themes. Two is not enough, and ugly to SR
Battery dies quickly -> Widgets should only really pull data when the device is unlocked?
Typing in text boxes should zoom in and scroll as you type like the iPhone
Ugly
Menu/Exit buttons should REALLY be configurable to be at the bottom of the screen -- (Though Ctrl + Backspace achieves the same result?)
Browser mouse gestures could be improved. Hover mode is extremely difficult to activate
Word documents can't display tables
"About 20 feet from my Wi-Fi access point it is switching between EDGE and Wi-Fi every 10-15 seconds" -- (Was it just the one time, or is this always happening?)
Text input: Doesn't suggest apostrophes
Text input: Doesn't automatically put periods on double spacing
Text input: No auto-capitalization -- though "it does in some apps" -- (Some debate on this one? Feature listed in Manual, page 24)
No turn by turn navigation
Downright Horrible
Mail for Exchange:
Doesn't show any emails except for Inbox. This excludes custom folders and Sent, etc
Can only store 1 month of emails. This should be at least a year, and preferably unlimited.
Can't search any emails!!!
Can't add contacts from sent emails -- (Is this only from emails you send to multiple people? Or all emails you send?)
No copy and paste from email client
Maps:
Takes ridiculously long (20-30 seconds or more) to load
Doesn't respond well to touching
Is missing a lot of stores / points of interest, nowhere near comparable to Google
Overall experience is abysmal
Miscellaneous: T-Mobile contract was painless. No contract and no credit fee.
Linux! (However SR admits "Not really into Linux, but I see the possibilities.")
Weaknesses:
Absolutely horrible for mail
Absolutely horrible for maps
UI in general could use tightening and smoothing out
Bottom Line:
Horrible, horrible device for people heavily reliant on email, mapping, or navigation. Otherwise, really cool, fun, and geeky Linux device.
Would you say this is an accurate summary? Anything else to add that I may have missed?
Sr1329, with a proper mail client, maps and navigation as good as iPhone or Android 2.0, and a more pleasant overall user interface, would you recommend the N900 as a worthy iPhone contender?
Followed by:
Originally Posted by sr1329
ED is Enhanced definition. It is what progressive scan DVD would be. It is MUCH better than NTSC, but worse than 720p or 1080p. Technically the screen is WVGA, and ED is 852x480, but it's close enough. The Nintendo Wii outputs ED via component.
Hulu is not usable but it was cool to see it try. Maybe flash 10.1 will get it to work? Maybe it will pull in the power of the GPU to render the content.
Updates are not so bad, it that it just puts an icon in the status area. I guess I just have to trust it is checking.
For the multiple recipients, basically for example on iPhone and probably BB from what I've seen if you were sent an e-mail that was also sent to other people (colleagues) you will see all their names. On N900 if you go into menu and click "details" you will see the first 4 or 5. With iPhone the names are "live" - you can click each one and have the option to send an e-mail to or to add to your contacts. It's a great way to add colleagues to your contacts who working on a project with you. With N900 this is not possible.
When I look at it more closely, I see this as a N-series device. Just like S60 N-series devices. Great media functions and poor e-mail/work functions. Apple does not have this N/E differentiation since they have one device targeting casual and business users. So I was hoping the N900 could be in that vein, but they seem to be doing the N vs. E kind of thing again.
The device is more geared toward casual users and not business/work users so it's good for media creation and playback. You won't get anything more than you got from a S60 N-series from a basic functional perspective, but finally the UI is proper and the touch interface is proper. But still I really miss the capacitive screen type. It is just better to use. However the interface is fine for what it is. It responds pretty fast and you can actually switch from menu to task switcher to application very fast. Capacitive screen would make the UI really shine, and apparently Maemo 6 is going to use that screen - for good reason IMHO.
If they added in device/mail search and Google Maps (no other mapping comes close: nobody else has the tower data to make for fast location fixes and nobody else has the same quality of POI - nobody) and changed to capacitive screen it would be a contender. Also multitouch is needed for a decent on screen keyboard. I also think the aspect ratio is not conducive to having a good on screen keyboard in either orientation nor is it very good for a physical keyboard IMHO. As it stands I find the keyboard to be very narrow vertically and too wide horizontally. I'd prefer a more reasonable 800x600 or something like that.
This device is far better than any S60 touch I've used. It is stable and if it does have a problem it will maybe freeze for 3-4 seconds and recover. I have not yet had a reboot, shut down or anything like that. In fact the OS is sensitive to apps not responding and will pop up a screen asking "this application is not responding - would you like to close it?" Often times if you hit "no" the app will actually work just fine. You can tell from the outset that this OS is better than S60. S60 just seemed to be struggling to handle anything it's just based on far too old a OS philosophy that wasn't really designed for the things we need today. This OS has potential and I can't deny that.
First Look: By James Pikover, published on December 8, 2009
Originally Posted by Tom's Guide US
Nokia proves that there is a middle ground between smart phones and netbooks, one that we may someday consider mainstream. The N900 is the closest we’ve ever seen to that vision, and because we were simultaneously testing netbooks while testing the N900, we found ourselves using the N900 more and the netbooks less because portability trumped functionality.
That’s not to say phones like the Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS, Motorola Droid, or others don’t compete at this level, because they most certainly do. The iPhone won’t replace laptops and netbooks because it lacks a physical keyboard, and other devices simply don’t have the available applications or functions that the N900 has. And right now, very few phones support Flash and Java.
Then again, not everyone needs a netbook replacement. Heck, not many of us need netbooks at all, and we enjoy our smart phones just fine. The N900 is not for them. It’s meant for power users who want built-in functionality, the ability to do everything from a browser. These people want a do-anything device that fits in the pocket.
And that’s what it is. The N900 is the do-anything device—it is a handset that lets you surf the Web as easily as you do on your laptop. It makes phone calls over your cell provider or through Skype. It’s open source, so there are no enforced limitations to the applications that are available. It both plays and streams all types of media, and plugs into your TV. It’s a powerful piece of machinery. It’s the best compromise between laptop and phone we’ve seen.
But the public demands simplicity, which is partly why the iPhone is so popular. The other reason the iPhone has gained market share is because it easily syncs email, contacts, calendars, and media. The N900 is old-school in this fashion. You can sync media with your PC, but everything else has to be done manually.
Because of the limited number of available applications, the N900 isn’t recommended for an average consumer. The device is elegantly designed, but it doesn’t have that Apple finesse, or Android’s connectivity. What it does have is potential, which is largely untapped because the phone and OS are both so new. It needs a team of power users to make that potential turn into a go-to platform.
The first maintenance release is out. What you can see as the biggest news items is that application manager looks quite a bit different, and Ovi store is out. These two things go hand in hand. The work on application manager is on improving the user experience for installing applications from Ovi store. In addition to that, it's on improving the user experience of installing content from the community and nokia applications catalogues. Application manager is now fast enough to use - if only maemo.org would be updated soon, then so would the community catalogues.
Ovi store content is not visible in the application manager installable applications. This is intentional, as we want the official Ovi store front-end to be the only place to browse for the great applications, backgrounds, ringtones and wallpapers. For this reason, the red pill mode was removed as well.
Here's a look at the application manager categories list (In finnish - it's time you all learned it ).
Great work from Vilja on the icons. Kudos! And for Gabriel for turning it to reality.
What you don't see immediately on the outside, is the work on preparation for the next big update. We have been working hard in making sure the OS update really works cleanly over the air and that it can be done with as little free space avaiable as possible. The end result is something to be proud of. I would like to thank especially Lokesh, Victor, Mario and David for the hard work, long days and tiresome weekends that resulted in the flawless update experience you guys are about to embark on. Without these guys raising to occasion when the going got tough, we would probably be pretty shaky about how the big updates will work. Now I'm content it will work great for all of you out there.
So, this is the step 1 only, you should be able to enjoy it and the Ovi store applications while waiting for the big update coming your way soon.
Hildon icon cache has been removed and update-icon-cache is now a no-op. Reason is that it was consuming vast amounts of space on rootfs and it was too slow to use on opt. Dropping has no human detectable differences in anything, so I'm sure it won't be missed by anyone. Computer measurable startup difference was within some percents give or take for most of the apps, but media player is 30 % faster without the cache, while maps is about 20% slower. Anyway, a good trade off.
Another thing that was removed is the red pill mode, as we didn't see any particular need for it anymore.
A word of warning: The next big update will require 45 megs of free space on the rootfs. This is pretty difficult for an end user to understand, so I'm calling all you developers who might have wasted end users rootfs space: please do what you can to optfy end users devices for every byte you can spare.
This is apparently an incremental update required by the next full firmware update which should be called PR1.1
PR1.0.1 (44-1) is a small updated that sets things up so PR1.1 can be pushed through the Application Manager. This update is only intended to allow the PR1.1 to be received OTA.
It runs well and when you're finished all icons, desktops and user data should remain intact. There is no need for NSU or the Firmware Flasher. It's all done OTA. Follow the instructions presented and perform a backup first but in my experience with it, backup was not used by the upgrade and everything went along smoothly.
When you're done it may appear as if app manager "hangs" while checking for updates. Let it go. Have a cup of coffee or suttin' and it will complete its task and you will have shiny new icons for the software categories.
After the iPhone dropped Google began configuring mobile sites for its services that return a formatted page specific to the phone. This was based on what user agent string the phones browser presented. Since that time we started using these addresses with first the Maemo tablets and now the N900. Since Google has yet to configure its servers to recognize the MicroB browser used by Maemo, when you visit these addy's with the N900, the pages returned are generic for use by all mobile devices.
These generic pages lack some of the navigation elements that are available on pages viewed with the iPhone and now the Nexus One. Through some hackery I was able to change the User Agent string on my N900 to that of the Nexus One to see what, if any, we may be missing...
The following sets of images are lay-ed out to show a screen shot of the page first using the N900's stock browser string then along side it, a screeny of the page using the Nexus One string...
The N900 is larger and responds to MicroB UserContent.css. My view settings are set to font size large. The Nexus one page has additional navigation elements at the top and displays the "Near me now" option. Even with the geolocation plug-in installed the generic N900 does not have "Near me now". From what I saw of it though, it's not a big loss as "near me now" searches only seem to produce 4 or 5 of the most popular hits. When I search for "Pizza" in a strange land I do not want to be presented with only Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, and Little Caesars anyway. Those I can get at home.
The Nexus One page wins here because of tabbed browsing and supported modules. Both page display the information you wish sent from your desktop iGoogle page once you log-in. Like the rest of Googles offerings, the N900 can handle all the options presented by the Nexus One page. However, Google doesn't know that yet and instead provides the generic page that can be used by everyone else.
Not much different but the N900 can use the geolocation plug-in on the Nexus One page.
Next are the results returned by each page. The nexus One page shows more detail because it has a link to the map instead of a thumbnail.
However, the thumbnail on the generic page responds to a double tap zoom from the N900 that takes you to the heart of the matter. The Nexus One link brings you to a page that has Zoom controls on it as well as page and direction elements. Tap out of the generic map to get the same elements on the generic page.
You can see the iPhone's DNA on this generic page. The Nexus One page makes use of better resolution screens.
Minor changes in the documents view
The same with spreadsheets. Minor site navigation elements can be found on the Nexus One page.
And finally the latitude page without the zoom frame from my previous post. >> http://www.google.com/maps/m
Both will use the geolocation plug-in but the addition site navigation elements on the Nexus One page results in a smaller map.
I didn't include screenies from Google Mobile calendar >> http://www.google.com/calendar/gp
and Google Mobile mail >> http://www.google.com/mail/x because they are pretty much the same with the exception of the additional site control elements found on the Nexus One pages. As I said earlier, I have been using these generic sites since the days of the OG Nokia Internet Tablet and have tweaked my UserContent.css for mail so that it displays the way I want it to. An accurate comparison would have meant breaking my existing set up.
What does this all mean?
Well for one thing, Google's user experience is different for people with the iPhone and now the Nexus One. However the differences are minor, IMHO. Soon, a couple of programs will be available for you to change your Browser's User Agent on the N900 so you can try this yourself.
However, right now I can change this string fairly easily but I'm still using the stock one.
Why?
1. The added features found on the Nexus One page sound good in their ad copy but in practice, don't really add much. In some cases they take away from the usefulness of their generic counterparts.
2. A few of the Google pages like mail will actually redirect what they think are Nexus One browsers to another site. Because of this, these new pages do not respond to any custom CSS that you may have developed.
3. The best case scenario would be if Google configured their servers to recognize the capabilities of the N900. This wont happen if we all go a changing our User Agent strings to that of a Nexus One.
In fact, the best thing we could do to facilitate this is not to petition Google or bombard the forums hoping that they are watching. Instead, the best thing to do IMHO is to use the above pages and the "search the map" feature found in the previous post with your N900's stock browser string. Do it early, and update often. Google is a business that adapts quickly.
Search Google often with your N900 and visit pages that these searches link to and Google is more likely to accommodate.
It would be nice if these searches were for big ticket items like cars and appliances too.
Originally Posted by YoDude
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Google is a business that adapts quickly. 
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