Nokia N900 On The Way — What do You Want to Know?
After reading — and re-reading — that list of 24 things to like about the Nokia N900, I’m going to make my own list. Don’t worry I’ll probably share the list and some video with you. ;) If all goes well, an evaluation N900 should be arriving here on Monday, which gives me plenty of pre-CES time to take a look at this Maemo-powered device. Once I get in the “CES Zone,” all bets are off for anything to have my attention for more than five minutes.
While I’m waiting for the package to arrive, now’s your chance to drop questions in the comments. There have been plenty of great in-depth reviews of the N900, but I’m sure there are some remaining questions for people. And if you’re going to plunk down a decent chunk of change for an unlocked handset, you probably want to know the answers to those questions, right?
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Getting mine delivered on Tuesday! Although, I just found out that I’m having the HD2 delivered on Tuesday also…going to be hard to dedicate time to Nokia.
Jealousy is an ugly, ugly thing. Why is my screen tinted green?
Oh, I’m posting from my N900 right now, and have done a cursory hands on of the HD2. You won’t be able to put the N900 down. Believe me.
Hey Dude,
Just wanted to ask you, that would n900 unlocked u.s version would work with an Indian Sim.
Please Reply
How good is voice reception compared to similar phones? Any problems connecting to 3G on T-Mobile?
Does it use the same battery and charger as the N800 and N770?
How many apps in the store? Free? If not, at what price?
Does it include Python, or can you load Python easily? Which version (2.5, 2.6, …)? Which libraries are included (e.g., PyGame, PyGtk, PyQT, …)?
Any other indigenous programming capabilities?
You can already check out the apps at:
http://maemo.org/downloads/Maemo5/
and
http://maemo.nokia.com/maemo-select/
I would love to see how useable Google Docs is on the Mozilla browser.
I’m no developer, but basically, you can use any developer language to work on this thing, and code directly on the device. Think of Maemo as just Ubuntu Linux. If you know how to code for that environment, you can code for this puppy no problem. It doesn’t need any special skills, and supports Python, Ruby, C, C++, and Qt, just off the top of my head. If you need more info, just go to maemo.org and check out what they have to offer.
Thank you for opening this to us!
Would unlocked also mean that it will work with sim cards outside of the states such as asia?
google maps?
confused about OVI maps, it doesn’t include navigation? i know you use google as an exchange server and i read somewhere it had an issue with that. i hope that is how you are going to test it out, it’s one of the things holding me back.
thanx!
If it had a capacitive screen, I’d actually be VERY interested. Too bad.
What if it was resistive but you couldn’t tell the difference? That’s what many are saying. I love the touchscreen, and it is the most responsive resistive screen I’ve seen. No stylus needed, but they let you have one anyway.
You can always tell the difference if you have used a glass capacitive screen such as the iPhone or Moto Droid. Capacitive also rules out any multi-touch.
Correction – RESISTIVE – rules out multi-touch.
@ Joshua,
Rene Ritchie of TheiPhoneBlog had to ask if it was resistive or capacitive in their hands on video, so maybe new ground has been broken.
Multitouch would be nice, and is possible using Stantum’s new resistive tech, but missing multitouch is a small caveat. It doesn’t make the device less capable, with single touch gestures just as effective. There are plenty features the N900 boasts that most other devices lack.
http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/12/14/nokia-n900-n97mini-handson-video-smartphone-robin/iphone-nokia4-2/
Ahhh I can see the Pre is going to be replaced ;) with the N900. Kevin gives us your opinion on using the web browser on the N900. Whether it’s good on that size of screen and how well it does on a everyday web browsing for info on the road. I was hoping Nokia what had made a Internet Tablet, like the previous models with at least a 4.8″ screen. Yes it’s going to be that time of year that you and James will get to handle all these nice gadgets at the CES. We will be looking forward to seeing the videos of the CES on JkOnTheRun…
Two questions, will it work with Canada’s Bellmobility’s New GSM network? Also, can it to tethering? Through USB, bluetooth and maybe wifi?
I am always interested in battery life on new smartphones. I know that the Pre’s battery life is pretty much a joke as the DROID’s life seems very, very good, in my opinion. So, yeah, let’s here some honesty about the battery life.
I use it as a primary computer, and never put it down, with multiple windows open, multiple IM protocols connected, via wifi, and get a solid 4 hrs. A more typical use case should fare much better.
“Is it worth $600?”
It’s worth $900. It’s a pocketable Ubuntu-like device. Disruptively groundbreaking. You’ll see. Don’t think smartphone. Think PC.
Can you give us an idea at how well it works with synch options please. E.g. Dropbox or Ubuntu One. More to the point – any hiccups/pains in calendar synch over the cloud with the native email client??
I saw an app listed for viewing Office and other doc file types. Do you think there will be an app for editing Office files?
I too would like to know if you think it is worth $600.
Thanks!
There will be many Office viewers and editors. They are waiting on the DRM for the Ovi store implementation so they can sell licenses. Google Docs works, and Open Office works via Easy Debian, though its not as fast as other native apps.
I want to know how many second it will take from your pants pocket to getting a GPS lock on maeom mapper. Not the crappy Nokia map software.
Ovi Maps is just fine on the N900, just not fully developed yet. And without using AGPS, I get a fix in about 5 mins. Many using AGPS are getting fixes far faster.
Some folks have received theirs in Finland and according to finnish forum messages there’s been some major issues with it. A lot of users are reporting it crashes all the time and some users are reporting their devices have completely frozen and become unresponsive even if you remove and reinstall the battery.
this phone is absolutely brilliant. not one crash or slowdown. the software and features of this phone are in a completely different level than anything out there. no 3G in canada for the mean time but the websites are rendered soo efficiently that even edge is ok. multitasking is perfect, HUGE memory, and remember this thing has a gig of ram and it plays divx without a problem. camera is great too. its heavy but it feels like that “quality heavy”. I got rid of an iphone 3gs 32gb for this and it is just as fast as what iv been accustomed too with my iphone.
This is highly rare, and some were software issues on single units, not systemic issues. For instance, remember people are using apps from the testing and devel repositories, causing issues. The only issues I’ve seen are the dead mic issues, but that’s easy to check out of the box. It isn’t very common either. Some dead mics occured after testing a beta of an FM radio, but a reflash fixed the issues.
I got the N900 last week and so far I’m not impressed. One of its major flaws is it just crawls doing much of anything.. opening the phone app takes forever.. pulling up a contact I might as well fall asleep.
Now granted I have 4700 contacts in there but my Blackberry, Android, and IPhone had no problems chewing through that contact database.
This issue has always plagued Nokia phones and WinMo phones they just can’t handle large contact databases.
You should all go to talk.maemo.org and read all the topics reported by users of this N900 model. It appears that this device is going to be a major flop.
I mean the number of negative comments is astonishing. Users are reporting multiple flaws with this device.