Wise Rhetoric

It’s simple. I love this phone. Now a day I’m not easily excited or impressed by a phone. Couple of years back, you had a game changing new model every four to six months. But now, I bought the Xperia X1 last Dec and I don’t find any drastic improvements in the last year or so.

And to start with N900 wasn’t even on my radar a couple of months back. I was too busy drooling over the HD2 and X10. Since both are about 6 months away (at least states side). I turned my attention to N900 and I’m so impressed. I feel how I did 4-5 years back having a smartphone which could browse web and check mails.

One word of advice though, actually a couple. Don’t approach this phone as a phone. Think of it as an internet tablet with phone capability. Next, don’t think it would replace your iPhone or an Android mobile feature for feature.

Put it this way,
1. You are never going to get 10,000 or so apps on this.
2. You don’t get the eye candy or the capacitive touch screen
3. Nothing is laid out to you. No entering your gmail id and see the phone set it itself
4. It’s no iPod. Not a multimedia device per say

But,
1. The resistive touch screen is not bad. In fact its one of the best I have used. Take my word for it, this wont be a deal breaker. Just don’t expect iPhoneish response
2. I love the display. One of the few with 16M colors and it shows. It has a 480×800 display and it has 4 ‘desktops’. Love making the 480×3200 wallpaper.
3. Love the Skype and IM integration. First time the phone rang, it took me 5 mins to realize it’s through Skype.
4. The browser and the legendary flash support. It’s good, it’s amazing. But be aware its not v10, its still v9
5. The keyboard is good and feels good too. But need time to get used to the right aligned space bar
6. Its not iPhone. Thank God for it.
7. Phone looks solid and built quality is top notch.
8. Has 32GB and a micro sd slot.

Few other things to know,
1. Cam is not all that impressive
2. BT is almost unusable. The phone shuts off the speakers (this incl calls and alarm) while connected to the headset. You have to wear the head set all the time or expect to miss calls and meetings.
2a. The phone frequently disconnects the headset after a call and need to restart the headset to connect again.
3. Setting up the exchange server is pain in all the wrong places
3a. Google exchange is not supported
3b. Works fine with Nuevasync but wont sync mail more than 2 weeks. Get an server not responding message if you set to anything more than 2 weeks.
4. Full fledge Skype app is still not ready
5. Ovi store for N900 is not ready
6. N900 is not added to the Ovi services (like contacts, calendar and others)
7. Not very impressed by the Ovi map
8. Nokia messaging is nice but I would prefer a native idle IMAP support (to get push mail from IMAP servers)
8a. Nokia messaging is very slow. When you open it only the local folder show up. Even the already downloaded mail don’t show up instantly. It take a about 5 secs to get everything going.
9. Do not use the facebook widget, it drains the battery like there is no tomorrow. Actually like there in no today evening
10. Though the app list would grow; its still has only about 50 or so apps.
11. No native google voice support
11. Phone can’t be used in portrait mode. Except for the dialer. For me this is no issue. In fact I love it can work only in landscape.

Conclusion:
This phone has great potential, but a lot of quirks. These are both software and hardware. Example, why no capacitive screen? why no bigger battery, why no IDLE support? Why can’t it sync mails through google’s exchange server? why is the Nokia messaging so slow? why can’t I sync more than 2 weeks of mails from nuevasync?

These might be answered in a software update and the next models (they have already announced that 2010 will see an upgrade) will be much more refined.

I have a feeling this phone is not for the masses but if you are a gadget junky and need a new fix now and again, you can’t do nothing wrong with this phone. Get it with eyes closed.

Folks looking for an iPhone replacement, please keep searching. This one is not for you.

I just received my phone today from Dell, and all I have to say is I’m amazed how beautiful this phone is. My N97 will be going on Ebay tonight for sure:)

Here is my review about this phone so far:

It is the first of its kind internet tablet offered by the biggest name in the Mobile industry, Nokia. This phone runs on the powerful Linux based operating system, Nokia’s Maemo version 5.0. This significant alteration in the operating system makes it different from the rest of Nokia’s phones based on Symbian OS. This handset comes with the complete package of Maemo internet browser. You can easily access Mozilla browser engine at any time and any place. The Nokia N900 also features Adobe Flash 9.4. The striking advantage of this cell phone is its provision to drag and drop numerous desktop widgets. You can further build multiple desktop set up templates with the help of this cell phone.

This cell phone is equipped with one of the most exciting features. TAP! Yes, if you tap for a longer period, you can gain access to windows, documents, call logs and other tab based functions. It is loaded with an animated menu interface. This makes your navigation task joyful. Further, its intuitive interface allows you to multi-task within a brim of few seconds. You would find most of the web based utilities pre-installed in this cell phone. Some of the utilities are Twitter, Facebook, OVI etc. It has an inbuilt Web 2.0 network, Webmail Inbox. Let’s just say, this phone is loaded with all the essential features required to make it a good replacement for your notepad.

What’s more? This cell phone has a sliding QWERTY keyboard which opens on the side. It offers you a resistive touch screen with a high resolution of 800X480 pixels. This device also features a camera of 5 megapixels. The camera is further upgraded with an add-on feature of F2.8 lens. These features allow you to click crystal clear and vibrant pictures. This cell phone comes with micro SD card slot. This slot has the storage capacity of 32 GB. The total memory space of this power packed cell phone is 64 GB.

This cell phone has an excellent display resolution of 800 X480 pixels. It features a wide screen of 3.5 inches to make your video and picture viewing experience par excellence. It is loaded with PowerVR SGX in a combination with OpenGL ES 2.0 3D accelerator engine. This feature works wonder at rendering high end graphics and graphical presentations. This cell phone is loaded with a plethora of features to enhance its connectivity. Some of these features include High speed 3G, WLAN, HSDPA and Wi-Fi. In addition it is loaded with varied features to enable a prompt internet connection. Features like Regular WCDMA, GPRS, EDGE and WAP ensure powerful internet connection in this cell phone. The inbuilt GPS system is integrated with OVI Maps technology. Further, it also offers you Geo tagging features that help you enable a better understanding of near and remote areas. It sports a wide range of entertainment features like Stereo based FM, stereo loudspeaker, music player, video player, Mp4 player etc. This handset supports the majority of media files like Flash, Mp3, MPEG, Mp4, FLV, RM, etc.

Anyways, If you are not sure about this phone yet. I will say buy it, you will not be disappointed!

I pre-ordered my N900 the moment I found out about it, back in September. And I patiently waited, and waited, while watching every demo, preview, and review I could find. With each passing day, I knew I was closer to mobile bliss. And one day, my N900 arrived.

Sadly, it didn’t really deliver.

Having (briefly) owned an N97, I was incredibly disappointed to discover that Nokia has tried their hardest to port elements of Symbian phones to the Maemo platform. Once you’re past the (admittedly awesome) desktop effects, the N900 feels disturbingly similar to the N97 in terms of use. Perhaps the most disturbing element is the instability of the included applications.

“Mail Not Responding. Quit?”
If you use e-mail, you’re going to see this message. Using the included Mail application for Exchange and an IMAP account is painful, to say the least. If you’re coming from another Symbian phone, you’ll discover that the Mail application is every bit as slow and constrained as your old phone, but does a (marginally) better job of rendering HTML messages. If you’re coming from something like an iPhone or BlackBerry, forget about it. Having an iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Bold as well, the messaging on the N900 is infuriating.

The screen is gorgeous, in terms of resolution. It’s trash in terms of accuracy, if you aren’t using the included stylus. I don’t have huge fingers, and yet, nearly every tap is either interpreted wrong, or not registered at all. Using kinetic scrolling will inevitably open something you didn’t intend to open, or do nothing at all. You’ll find yourself asking “Did I tap once or twice?”, only to find that the poor phone is choking on itself to render a visual effect until… is that the Nokia logo? Yep. Phone crashed again.

Web browsing? Brilliant. Seriously. The included web browser is every bit as good as everyone says. Pages render properly, Flash works, zooming in and out is excellent. If you just wanted a handheld web browser and nothing else, I’d recommend this ten times out of ten.

“But it runs Linux! Linux, Linux, Linux!”
Sure. I consider myself to be fairly platform agnostic when it comes to phones, and frankly, the “open” nature of Maemo is something of a red herring. Yes, getting applications on the N900 that aren’t blessed by Nokia is relatively easy. Yes, you can compile OpenOffice to work on the N900. The question really is: “Will you?”. In a lot of ways, I can see how the N900 would be an excellent tool if I was a Unix / Linux admin who wanted the flexibility to work anywhere without a laptop or netbook. And, there’s a certain geek credibility that comes with doing something for the sake of doing it, especially when you have such a portable platform. The N900 is great for those things. And keep in mind, that’s largely the audience that Nokia is targeting with the N900.

For well over a decade, Nokia’s been known for rock-solid performance on signal and voice quality. With the N900, again, they’ve come short. 3G call quality is decent. If you’re outside of a 3G area (which is likely, if you use this with T-Mobile, and a certainty if you’re on AT&T), the N900 has a very difficult time maintaining a decent GPRS/EDGE signal, and dropped calls are frequent. Admittedly, the phone functionality is something of an afterthought from Nokia on this specific model — but it really shows.

As for carrying it around, the N900 isn’t quite the “brick” some have claimed it to be. It’s definitely substantial, compared to other phones available, though not unreasonable to carry in a pocket. The multimedia functionality is above average, capable of playing just about every type of music and movie format I could throw at it. The camera, while decent, is not substantially better than what you’d find in most midrange to high-end phones in terms of picture quality.

Overall, the N900 is a huge series of tradeoffs. For many “it doesn’t do…” there are workarounds, or will be workarounds, or might be workarounds. And that’s really the crux of my rating. The hardware, in and of itself, is not very special for a phone that costs this much. And the shortcomings may well be addressed, but you have to question how much time and effort you’re willing to put in to this device just to bring it at par with similarly priced alternatives. At the same time, there’s a lot of wishful thinking, if you aren’t prepared to roll up your sleeves and do some development work. “Maybe Nokia will address this in a firmware update…” or “Maybe someone will write a script or program that does this…” will be your mantras if you don’t do the work yourself.

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Design & Hardware
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[OVERVIEW]: The surface of the device is a smooth black matte material. The build quality feels solid. It is smaller than the N810 and easily slips in a pocket. It’s the same size as an iPhone but thicker. There are four components on the front: the LED status light, the proximity sensor, the ambient light sensor, and the VGA camera. There is a consumer infrared port (universal remote), wrist strap option, stylus and kickstand. The back is removable and houses the main camera. Removal requires some strength but it’s reassuring knowing it won’t fall off.

[KEYBOARD]: The keyboard is of the side-slider form-factor. The sliding mechanism is springless and smooth with the right amount of heft to give it a solid feel. The keyboard is three-row, localized and backlit. The key surfaces are rubberized and easy enough to type on but extended use is tiring. There is no D-pad. It is possible connect a USB or Bluetooth keyboard, gamepad, mouse and even a Wii Remote.

[TV-OUT]: There is 480i resolution TV-out which uses an included 3.5mm jack with 4 rings. These are ground, audio left and right, and composite video. Useful for watching movies, playing games or doing work that requires a big screen.

[SCREEN]: The 16 million color, 800×480 pixel display is incredible. It is pressure-sensitive, 15:9 aspect and transflective, making the screen easier to see in direct light. It uses a surprisingly responsive resistive touch screen allowing use with gloves, fingernails or a stylus. The ambient light sensor adjusts the brightness automatically. Lack of multi-touch means cumbersome “swirling” gestures in some software but generally is not a huge issue.

[CAMERAS]: The main camera is a 5MP Carl Zeiss, the same as the Nokia N97. It comes with a sliding shutter to protect the recessed lens. There is also a front-facing 640×480 webcam. The camera interface is the same as the S60. The image quality is sharp, skin tones are vivid and there is very little, if any, chromatic abberation at the edges. The accelerometer is used to know the orientation when taking a photo, and the photo viewer uses the accelerometer to show the picture “up” whichever the N900 is held. Take a portrait picture and view it landscape and it’ll be small. Turn the device and it’ll fill the screen. There are the following modes: Automatic, Macro, Portrait, Landscape, Action, and Auto video. It can take a 848×480 resolution video at 25 fps. The video quality is crisp, recording at an impressive 3000 kb/s but the framerate usually drops to 20fps and the audio quality is metalic. The camera also works with Adobe Flash.

[BATTERY]: The N900 uses a Nokia BL-5J 1320mAh battery and uses more power than the N97. A full battery with unoptimized settings allows about 5-9 hours of continuous talk time, 5 hours of music or a few hours of 3G use. 3G/3.5G usage drains the battery faster than Wi-Fi. Charging is through microUSB which takes about 4-5 hours for an empty battery. The “complete cycle” method some people use is to calibrate the charging circuitry in multicell laptop batteries, the battery in the N900 only has a single cell so it’s pointless and marginally harmful to do complete discharge cycles as there’s nothing to calibrate. Disabling services and radios, like the Facebook widget drastically improves battery life.

[INTERNAL MEMORY]: The N900 has two memory chips. The first is a 32GB eMMC: 768MB of ‘virtual memory’ (swap), 2GB for settings and software (ext3 /home), the last ~26GB “MyDocs” is for your files only (software not allowed). The second chip is 256MB of NAND memory (RAM) used for bootloader, kernel and rootfs, twice that of the N810. Optionally, several gigabytes are used for the localized offline Ovi maps, useful for use in areas without data coverage.

[EXPANDABLE MEMORY]: The N900 has a hot-swappable microSDHC slot under the rear panel. It supports microSDHC cards up to 32GB of any class. The included data cable can connect the N900 to a computer for easy transfer of files by allowing the N900 to act as a hard drive, though only “MyDocs” is accessible.

[GPS & MAPS]: The GPS is a real GPS and has been improved over the N810 due to the addition of assisted GPS. The cold fix time with data is about 10-40 seconds with accuracy as good as the Nokia N97. Without data it can take very long, 15+ minutes. Pre-loaded Ovi Maps are available so a data connection is not required. Ovi Maps includes weather information and is updated using the current location to show local weather. Navigation and mapping with Ovi Maps is free but there is no turn-by-turn voice navigation. The low 1.0 version is due to it being the first Maemo release of Ovi maps explaining the lack of features it has compared to the 3.0 version available on Symbian.

[FM TRANSMITTER]: The builtin FM transmitter transmits the audio from the device into radio frequency so you can tune your car radio to that frequency and play N900 media wirelessly. It works as advertised but must be very close to the receiving radio.

[RADIOS]: The signal strength of the N900’s 3G radio is weak. It is possible to turn off the cellular radio without disabling Wi-Fi/Bluetooth by going into offline mode and then manually enabling either. Bluetooth DUN and PAN modes are supported via community software. Advanced WLAN security, like different kinds of EAP (EAP-PEAP, EAP-MSCHAPv2, etc.), different ciphers (RSA, 3DES, SHA, etc.) and “authority certificates” (algorithms like X.509, SHA1RSA) are all supported. With Bluetooth DUN, tethering is supported.

[AUDIO]: The built-in stereo speakers are loud but lacking in bass. They make an acceptable portable radio. The audio quality of the 3.5mm jack is loud and slightly more “forward” sounding than the more “laid back” or “polite” sound of other smartphones but without the response peaks, valleys or ripples that so often mar the critical 1,000 Hz. region. Audio sounds more “present” than with the vast majority of similar devices. The included earphones are adequate but if you are a bass junkie, you will find the bass lean. The earphone wires feel like they will probably become loose over time.

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I received my n900 just a few days ago from Nokia USA. For the purposes of this review, I will compare it to my previous phone, the HTC G1. My opinions are solely based on the user experiences in the past days with the n900, and since I’ve never owned an iphone, I will not compare it to such.

Physical layout:
*The N900 is a pretty beefy phone, and rightfully so. While having some heft to it, the n900 is solid and well-built. The black metal rim is a nice touch without being too gaudy. The slide is not spring-assisted but gives a nice click upon opening and closing. I have not noticed any creaks or wobbles from the screen. Few have complained about the back being hard to open. Although true, I rather have that with the peace of mind that the battery won’t pop out if I dropped it (God forbid)! the n900 is of comparable size to the G1, albeit being slightly thicker, and not a problem for me.
*I don’t really understand all the fuss about resistive and capacitive screens. The n900’s screen is gorgeous and is incredibly brilliant. There is a little ‘give’ to the screen, but I’ve yet to have problems with it. The screen is quite responsive and supports kinetic scrolling. I did have some difficulty clicking on small links in the browser, but that’s because your index finger isn’t exactly the most accurate pointing device. This was easily solved by zooming in (more on that later).
*The keyboard is pretty good. It is a different experience coming from the G1 (as you have to type with the ‘chin’ in the way on your right hand) so naturally, it felt better. The keys have a grippy rubberized texture feel to them, and although the buttons are smooshed next to each other, (like a real keyboard) they have good response. I do miss the 5-row keyboard on the G1, and I don’t understand why the n900’s screen doesn’t open up a bit more. For those with large hands, it might be a little uncomfortable. However, one plus for the n900 is that my thumbs don’t have to travel as far to type.
*I love that the placement of the speakers are on the sides of the phone, as opposed to the back on the G1. I do a lot of talking on speakerphone, and so I’m not forced to flip it upside down during a call. Sound quality is good and the speakers are decent.

Maemo 5/ Software
*This is the ultimate customization OS. When they meant open source, they really meant it. The 4 desktops make things a lot easier to navigate. For example, one page is devoted to my common phone contacts, another utility apps, the third has bookmarks to frequent sites (the homepages of those links are previewed on the desktop, fyi), and so forth.
*The way Maemo multitasks is ingenious. The “overview” page where you see all your actively running programs makes navigating between windows and programs very easy and efficient. One thing to note is that you have the ability to close out any of those windows upon your choosing, as opposed to the G1 where the 6 app limit neither allowed to you open more nor shut them down, making it very sluggish, especially during critical times (ie texting someone directions while running gps).
*SMS (called conversations in Maemo) is pretty similar to the G1, but has one added step – conversations either in text or IM by the same person are displayed in the same window. The ability to have the other person’s contact image in the text box (that is if you set one up for that person) is a nice touch. I personally don’t care about MMS, so no gripes there.
*The email client is pretty decent, I set up my gmail account with a few simple steps, but it isn’t nearly as accessible as the gmail app on the G1. For example, I haven’t found a way to delete an incoming email when it first comes in. I have to leave the letter, go into the inbox, back into the email, then delete it.
*Browsing experience is comparable to the pc, and is nothing short of awesome. Full flash means I can access full youtube pages, and among others. I think the “swirling zoom” gesture is pretty neat, and helps me to click on the smaller links. I figured out that using your index to swirl zoom produces the best results. Alternatively, you can double click the screen or use the volume rocker. Going to previous pages not only allows you to go to the last page, but scroll through the entire history of that window. Neat.
*Applications-wise, there are not many out there, but I’m certain many will be out soon. You can also access the Maemo repositories for more (google it) but be careful as many of them are still in development and are potentially dangerous to your phone. Noteworthy apps include Hermes (connects your social sites, like facebook to your contacts so you get contact phones, birthdates, etc) and Qik (live streaming recording).

Hardware:
*Fast, fast, fast. Need I say more?
*No hang ups yet, since I can close apps at my own will.
*The camera is good, that is for a 5mp phone camera. It will never compare to a dedicated camera, but is more than effective for quick shots to upload on facebook.
*The FM transmitter is a great add-on. Now I can share songs without having to look for an aux cable.
*Battery life seems to last a little over a day with some text and internet. Wifi is on all the time when I’m at home. My G1 would be down to around 70% by noon.

Of course, no phone/mobile device is perfect. Here are some things that came to my attention:
*The volume rocker is on the right side (in portrait), meaning it is nearly impossible to use as a zoom when the screen is up. Same goes for the lock switch, which is on the bottom (in landscape). Would have been much better on the sides, as it would be easier to lock after a phone call, for example.
*Copy and paste is kinda sporadic. While you can copy all you want on webpages, I couldn’t copy a phone number from one contact to another in the phonebook.
*The stand is nice, but it swings out way too deep and feels a bit too weak. I’m afraid I’ll break it someday.
*Little portrait support as of now, but I think it’ll be fixed soon.

So there you have it. My impressions of the n900. There is still a lot of exploration to be done, but I can honestly say this is the best phone/mobile device I’ve ever owned. In spite of a few shortcomings, its an amazing piece of technology. A lot of things I didn’t mention probably will be fixed within a firmware or two so that isn’t a problem. I hope this helps anyone who is on a fence on buying one, good luck!