Comments on: Nokia N900 Warrants a Close-Up Video Double Feature

By: noctilux

noctilux — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:33:19 +0000

There seems to be bad news on the USB host front – at least with the old tools used for the N810:
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=320585&postcount=88
As for the N900: I recently bought an N810, and am quite impressed with how well you can tinker with it. Thanks to the person in the link, I managed to install debian and use the N810 as something of a 200€-UMPC. To be honest, though, big programmes like OpenOffice and Firefox start very slowly. With the new processor in the N900, I’d be curious to see how well debian etc. run on it.

By: vancefry

vancefry — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:06:18 +0000

yeah, it was the N810 host mode pics that got me curious about this one.

Not too many phones offer USB host, unfortunately.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:51:45 +0000

Great question, Vance. I don’t know for certain at this early stage. There is a Micro-USB port and there was a way to enable USB Host mode in OS2008 on the N800/N810 Internet Tablets, so there’s hope. However, I doubt it’s there as out-of-the-box functionality. If it is, there’s no mention of it on the official N900 specifications page at this time. I’ll dig around, but I suspect it’s too early to say for sure.

By: Vance

Vance — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:24:25 +0000

Kevin, you have any idea if this thing has USB host, for a USB keyboard? If so, it’s my next phone.

(It’s a special needs keyboard, only USB available.)