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Nokia N900 is here (Linux phone) !

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J

jonnybryce

Member
So with the latest rumors that this is going to T-Mobile USA, along with the growing rumor that T-Mobile is going to introduce a $50 unlimited plan, this phone is looking pretty good. I hate that it's a resistive screen but I like how it's a landscape phone, and the look of the phone and OS. Hopefully its a really good resistive screen...but I really prefer capacitive. That weird spinning to zoom in the browser is just weird.

I'm excited to see some reviews.
 
C

CurlySaysX

Banned
DrFunk said:
Guy runs 12 different apps, N900 doesn't lag at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URsNHguzHoI

between this and the HD2, I have no idea what choice to make
Click to expand...

I could run 12 diferent apps on my SEK800. :lol
Nokia fans finally realising how crappy Nokia phones have been for the past 10 years.

Looks like a pretty solid OS. Will wait for SE to release or make available this OS on their phones.
 
B

besiktas1

Member
hmmm not much difference from my n97, so should be a great phone. My beef is that the apps for my phone are shit so guessing it'll only be worse for this OS.
 
P

Pachimari

Member
besiktas1 said:
hmmm not much difference from my n97, so should be a great phone. My beef is that the apps for my phone are shit so guessing it'll only be worse for this OS.
Click to expand...
what? it's two completely different OS.

Btw, i have heard the N900 comes to Finland next week and it might have been released here in Denmark this week or the next, i'm not sure - pretty expensive, same price as the Blackberry Bold here.
 
C

CiSTM

Banned
PSGames said:
The multitasking is pretty impressive. And this has a keyboard. But the HD2's UI is better IMO and it has a better processor. Ugh. Decisions, decisions. lol
Click to expand...

Well you don't get much out of that 1Ghz processor when the Windows Mobile OS is eating up all the resources ;)
 
hitsugi

hitsugi

Member
i was hyped on this until

resistive touch screen.
Click to expand...

stop pushing this on your phones, nokia. thanks.

it's also a shame that nokia can't figure out where the space bar goes.. sure as fuck isn't over there.
 
G

goomba

Banned
The real issue for Iphone competitors is trying to compete with the library of Apps that the Iphone has....as well as Itunes support.

It's Similar to how people only stick to Windows because it has the most software support.
 
C

CiSTM

Banned
goomba said:
The real issue for Iphone competitors is trying to compete with the library of Apps that the Iphone has....as well as Itunes support.

It's Similar to how people only stick to Windows because it has the most software support.
Click to expand...

Yup, nothing can beat App store in popularity but for example for me it is kinda useless. There only handful of interesting apps in app store and those interesting apps have their own versions on other phones. Games are other story, it is kinda bummer that other phones don't have the gaming support that Iphone has :(
 
Xdrive05

Xdrive05

Member
goomba said:
The real issue for Iphone competitors is trying to compete with the library of Apps that the Iphone has....as well as Itunes support.

It's Similar to how people only stick to Windows because it has the most software support.
Click to expand...

Yup. I just got a Droid which was a better fit for my needs (I don't use iTunes for example), and the Android OS is pretty awesome, but the app store has about 1/10th the content as the iPhone store currently. In time these things will level out more, but that's kind of the elephant in the room for all iPhone killers to overcome.

Different markets though. For many of us, having 400 different Facebook apps means less than having DOSbox support or integrated GPS navigation, etc. Competitors should focus on playing to these particular strengths.
 
A

aoi tsuki

Member
Totakeke said:
N900 going for 479.99 after rebate at Amazon without service plan.

That's the cheapest you can get for a phone of this caliber, plus that and it has 32GB internal storage included which costs probably like 80 bucks of microsd worth? Hell of a deal I'd say if you're interested.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002OB49SW/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Click to expand...
i was so close to pulling the trigger when i saw this. Problem is, i'll be running it on AT&T EDGE. i'm used to using EDGE on my Windows Mobile device, but i have Opera Mobile to compress web pages and make EDGE bearable (still sucks for video). When Opera 10 gets released for Maemo 5, or they release a Java VM so that i can run Opera Mini 5 or Toonel, i'll probably jump onboard.

i am still a little disappointed at the lack of portrait support, as well as MMS support (i know, it's coming), and i'd rather the form factor be closer to the slim N97 than the brick that it is, but overall this looks like an excellent device. Not that the default clients will be the best, but it supports every type of communication i need, has a ton of storage built in, an excellent camera, and really, i could just go on. Only thing i'm not sure about is the quality of GPS apps. i haven't heard good things about the latest Ovi Maps.

hitsugi said:
it's also a shame that nokia can't figure out where the space bar goes.. sure as fuck isn't over there.
Click to expand...
Having used devices with it in the center and on the right, i will say that the center looks better, but it actually feels better on the right.
 
V

volmer

Member
Nice gadget, but what's up with the false Super Mario Bros. 3 advertisement?

vyv6n8.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t9Qw2sU-WE#t=0m23s
 
C

Cruceh

Banned
Intersting, but I just bought an n97 yesterday. For $350 after MIR, why not? :D Hope the lack of ram and CPU won't be too much a detriment
 
D

Dibbz

Member
Can someone tell me how the flash player on this is? In particular would BBC iPlayer work like it does on a PC or PS3?

I've seen a review video showing youtube playback on the N900 and it was rubbish, so laggy but written articles say it's works fine :| Any care to shed some light on it for me?
 
D

Dineren

Banned
I've had my n900 for a few days now and so far I'm very impressed. Having a full linux environment in the palm of your hand is simply amazing. Coming from an iPhone 3gs I was interested in how the interface would compare and I have to say the 3gs beats it pretty easily. I've read from some how much more accurate resistive screens are when compared to capacative, but I never had any accuracy issues on the iPhone and touchscreen on the n900 definitely isn't as smooth. That said I'm still impressed by the touchscreen it is very responsive and I haven't needed the stylus to navigate at all, scrolling is the biggest issue with it and even that isn't too bad.

The lack of multitouch hurts the browser experience a bit, the swirl gesture is easy, but not nearly as quick as pinching to zoom on the iPhone. I'm liking the browser though, the iphone's browser is great, but this feels even better. The resolution increase definitely helps it feel like a desktop class browser, not to mention the ability to install various extensions to it.

The lack of an app store hurts. The app store for the n900 isn't even available yet, but if you go to maemo.org they show you how to get an early look at what is going to be available and it's pretty pathetic. That said, there is a ton of linux software that is available and more is coming every day. Duke3d runs great on it and dos box performance is decent.

I'm really liking it so far, but it's definitely got some issues. There is no Exchange 2003 support, only 2007 which means I can't currently use it for work. Luckily that has already been patched and is coming in the next firmware update. The battery life seems pretty bad even under light use, hopefully it can be improved with firmware updates. Flash in the browser is overrated, performance is pretty poor on most sites. It works fine for youtube, but most other sites are pretty choppy, especially for live video. I'd rather just have a youtube app rather than navigate to it in the browser and I have downloaded the one I found available. I was a bit worried about switching to TMobile, but so far at least here in Topeka their coverage seems as good as AT&T and they've got HSDPA access rolled out here so the internet is incredibly fast.

Here are some images I took while I was playing around with it:

screenshot14.png


screenshot03.png


screenshot02.png


screenshot10.png


screenshot12.png
 
N

Nemo

Will Eat Your Children
Oh goddamn sweet heaven, I was waiting for this phone. I bought an N79 so can't go ditching mine just yet but my friend is getting this soon. Can't wait to try it all out.

Anyone who wants to get this or has it, is it better than the Motorola Milestone? It's the same price range but I'm tech illiterate when it comes to phones.
 
N

nib95

Banned
PSGames said:
The multitasking is pretty impressive. And this has a keyboard. But the HD2's UI is better IMO and it has a better processor. Ugh. Decisions, decisions. lol
Click to expand...

My dad has the HD2 and I've been using it for a few days. Imo the UI is actually quite poor. It doesn't let me do the simplest of things. Might just be my lack of knowledge of the phone, but small things, like rotating the screen whilst internet browsing, or rotating pictures in media viewer, among many other small things that I just can't remember now. I remember thinking the UI was just incredibly simplistic and bare. Waiting for the Nexus myself, but between the HD2 and N900 I'd go N900 for sure.
 
D

Dineren

Banned
The milestone is the gsm equivilant of the droid right? I can't claim to be an expert on it, but I did play around with my cousin's droid quite a bit. I'd say the milestone is the better phone while the n900 is the better mobile computer if that makes any sense. If google integration is important to you, I'd go with the droid. Google sync doesn't currently work well (it apparently randomly works) on the n900 and they don't plan to further develop the functionality at this time. The milestone will also have a far superior app store. Oh and Ovi maps on the n900 sucks compared to google maps (though google maps works pretty well in the n900 browser. They're both linux based and once you root the milestone you can probably get most of the additional functionality of the n900, but the n900 is open by default and that is a big plus in my book. Out of the box you could install asterisk and run a pbx or install a custom kernel. You can run applications written in c/c++, python, perl, java.

It really just depends what you expect from it. I'd say most people would probably prefer the milestone, but if you're a technology geek the n900 is a beast.
 
D

Dibbz

Member
Flash 10.1 was demonstrated on the N900 and flash was working amazingly well. Anyone know when it's due to hit mobiles?

Dineren could you expand on what you said about the battery life? What do you mainly use on it? How is it in comparison to the iPhone? Lasts more than a few hours of heavy usage right?
 
T

tino

Banned
As a Nokia n800 owner, I think Nokia is losing the touch. Maemo the Linux platform is at its 5th version and there are still many basic software missing.

You know how the PSP could have easily become a personal music player, but because Sony didn't even put a decent playlist manager and desktop manager on it, the music functions were left to rot? This is what Nokia is doing with some of the Maemo/n900's software. For example, PIM software. Address book/notepad/todo list/calendar, things that are so basic in other system, are so poor in Maemo. When the PalmOS emulator was released for Maemo, people were happy because they could use Palm PIM on Maemo, via emulation!

Oh, they said, but you can use the real Linux word processor (Abiword I think) on it. Dude, I don't want a freaking PC word processor. I want something very easy to use with one hand, and preferably sync with desktop/online. There are other things missing, oh for example, basic native eastern language support. iPhone has had it since version 2. What the hell Nokia, how euro-centric can you get?

That's the story of Nokia's hacked up Linux platform. I lost my n800. At $100 used price, it's still the best 4.3" video player/editable GPS/web browser/tiny computer eve at this day. I can say the same thing with n810, which is about $150-180 on ebay. But with n900's smaller screen and worse keyboard, this new incarnation does nothing to me.
 
D

Dineren

Banned
The next firmware update is supposed to come out very soon, I don't know if flash 10.1 is supposed to be included, but I'm hoping to see some decent performance boosts in general in addition to exchange 2003 support. I've played around with a few more flash sites and it might just be live video that struggles on it, I watched some flash videos on various sites and it actually performed quite well. I'm not quite sure on the battery, it seemed like it was dropping very fast, but you're always going to drain the battery faster on a new device while your playing around with it. It seemed like it lasted around four to five hours under relatively heavy use. I'll have a much better idea on Monday when I've used it during a regular work day.

Edit: I can sort of see where Tino comes from, as a phone it lacks things you come to expect once you've used an android phone or an iPhone. That said the thing I like about it is that it can use software like Abiword (maybe not Abiword, but regular linux apps). There are still people working on software optimized for the n900's interface including ui improvements to existing linux apps, but being able to compile and run existing apps is a huge bonus to me. I love my iPhone 3gs and interface wise (aside from multitasking) the n900 isn't really even close, but the power and flexibility of the platform is fantastic and for me makes the shortcomings of the phone worth overlooking.
 
D

DrFunk

not licensed in your state
nib95 said:
My dad has the HD2 and I've been using it for a few days. Imo the UI is actually quite poor. It doesn't let me do the simplest of things. Might just be my lack of knowledge of the phone, but small things, like rotating the screen whilst internet browsing, or rotating pictures in media viewer, among many other small things that I just can't remember now. I remember thinking the UI was just incredibly simplistic and bare. Waiting for the Nexus myself, but between the HD2 and N900 I'd go N900 for sure.
Click to expand...

uh...rotate the phone itself?
 
N

Nemo

Will Eat Your Children
Dineren said:
The milestone is the gsm equivilant of the droid right? I can't claim to be an expert on it, but I did play around with my cousin's droid quite a bit. I'd say the milestone is the better phone while the n900 is the better mobile computer if that makes any sense. If google integration is important to you, I'd go with the droid. Google sync doesn't currently work well (it apparently randomly works) on the n900 and they don't plan to further develop the functionality at this time. The milestone will also have a far superior app store. Oh and Ovi maps on the n900 sucks compared to google maps (though google maps works pretty well in the n900 browser. They're both linux based and once you root the milestone you can probably get most of the additional functionality of the n900, but the n900 is open by default and that is a big plus in my book. Out of the box you could install asterisk and run a pbx or install a custom kernel. You can run applications written in c/c++, python, perl, java.

It really just depends what you expect from it. I'd say most people would probably prefer the milestone, but if you're a technology geek the n900 is a beast.
Click to expand...
Thanks alot man!
 
N

nib95

Banned
DrFunk said:
uh...rotate the phone itself?
Click to expand...

When you rotate the actual phone, the screen orientation does not rotate with it. Hence the problem. Most photo's (taken in landscape) look squished on the screen in vertical mode, and there seems to be no way to rotate them, nor a sensor that auto recognises the phone has been turned.
 
D

DrFunk

not licensed in your state
nib95 said:
When you rotate the actual phone, the screen orientation does not rotate with it. Hence the problem. Most photo's (taken in landscape) look squished on the screen in vertical mode, and there seems to be no way to rotate them, nor a sensor that auto recognises the phone has been turned.
Click to expand...

Uh...mine works perfectly. Using the browser, the screen goes from landscape to portrait and vice versa. In the image gallery, it does the exact same thing. Methinks your g-sensor needs to be calibrated.
 
J

Jacobi

Banned
nib95 said:
When you rotate the actual phone, the screen orientation does not rotate with it. Hence the problem. Most photo's (taken in landscape) look squished on the screen in vertical mode, and there seems to be no way to rotate them, nor a sensor that auto recognises the phone has been turned.
Click to expand...
uh yes it does work usually
 
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