Nokia N900 announced... another attempt at the "iPhone killer"?

[ymu]

Well, the boy has his N900. He's very excited. I've not been allowed to play with it much - and never without washing my hands first rolleyes. It is basically Linux on a phone. Great browser, completely customisable, 6 desktops and dual-bootable if you so desire, online support/documentation is excellent, lots of free apps coming out because it's proper open source with no barriers to developers (no paid apps spotted yet).

It's a geek's phone - not for the technophobic. It is fucking gorgeous.

 

[teuchter]

How is he finding battery life? I'm hoping to get my greasy mitts on one quite soon and bid an unemotional farewell to my N97.

 

[ymu]

He's actually confused as to why the battery life is getting bad reviews - he thinks it's quite good, given the amount he's doing with it. He thinks it might be less impressive used more as a normal phone because of some always-on features.

 

[teuchter]

Hmm... But it seems unlikely that most people getting an N900 would have moved from a 'normal phone' (unlike the iPhone which for many people is the first time they've used a phone for doing much other than phoning people on).

 

[ymu]

I mean when used as a normal phone, not a mini-computer. He's been impressed at getting 5 hours active use from it - but that might not translate to impressive stick it in yer pocket and wait for it to ring battery life.

 

[paolo]

Five hours is pretty healthy.

 

[Sunray]

Linux on a phone? Who really wants that on their phone. I find Linux a pain in the arse at the best of times.

Its something I'd keep quiet if I were Nokia.

 

[ymu]

It's the open source, and thus inevitably free, apps with zero barrier to developers that is the main attraction. As I said, it's a geeks phone.

 

[paolo]

Can you actually modify the OS out of interest? (Legitimately, I don't mean hack)

 

[ymu]

Can you actually modify the OS out of interest? (Legitimately, I don't mean hack)

You can dual boot it (most instructions out there are for dual-booting with Android), and Maemo is open-source, so you can do what the fuck you want with it. Nokia is positively encouraging this.

 

[zenie]

Shame it's on only on vodafone atm!!

 

[ymu]

Ours is unlocked. Credit rating faaaar too fucked to get a contract.

 

[zenie]

what was the damage?

 

[ymu]

Just under £400, with a lot of shopping around.

 

[zenie]

Not bad! I'm just waiting til my bonus comes or O2 to get it on board.

Might be something better out then I suppose

 

[teuchter]

Just under £400, with a lot of shopping around.

Was that new or S/H?

 

[ymu]

Was that new or S/H?

New. Off e-bay. The US models are identical, and come in a tad cheaper than UK sellers inc P&P.

 

[Mr Smin]

Very desirable, but the price would put me off taking it out of the house in case I lost it.

 

[teuchter]

Very desirable, but the price would put me off taking it out of the house in case I lost it.

Yes... still a good 20% cheaper than an iphone, though, and plenty of folk seem happy to carry them around with them.

 

[teuchter]

This looks quite fun

 

[RaverDrew]

I so want one of these now

Gonna have to start saving as my credit rating is fooked

 

[ymu]

Funnily enough, the boy is just transferring a film for that very purpose. Subtitles really don't work on the small screen.

 

[dweller]

this is quite a good video review of the phone,
gives you a good feel of the interface

I think it looks pretty cool,
I like the switching between apps better than the android version
as you have a proper preview of the screen.
It also seems more responsive.
Then again I am using an old g1.
It'll be interesting to see whether nokia spread this os to
their cheaper lines to get mass sales and maybe a better app market going.

 

[teuchter]

Apparently you can also run Android on it (or at least, some people have managed to). I don't know how smoothly it runs though.

 

[ymu]

You can dual boot with Android - and quite likely any other OS you can get your hands on once the geeks have cracked it. You can also virtualise - Palm have put their legacy software out there with virtualisation for Maemo. The boy's just been playing chess on the TV, and with a bluetooth keyboard he'd have a much better screen for surfing than his laptop.

This isn't an iPhone killer. It's a netbook killer.

 

[ymu]

You could have you entire media collection on memory cards and never need another device to access them apart from a book-reader. It's got a very decent camera too, with no need to download pics because they're already on your computer. Apps limited only by the imagination of geeks everywhere.

Wow.

 

[ymu]

We're surfing youtube on't telly.

 

[ymu]

It has Skype. And call waiting for Skype/GSM calls is seamless.

 

[ymu]

Now, finally, let's talk about this handset's real treat, its crown jewel: the glorious browser. The Internet Tablet line has used a fairly capable Mozilla-based browser for ages, but between the latest tweaked code and the N900's thoroughly freshened internals, it's gone to an entirely new level. Almost without fail, sites were rendered faithfully (just as you'd expect them to look in Firefox on your desktop) with fully-functional, usable Flash embeds -- and it's fast. Not only is the initial rendering fast, but scrolling around complex pages (Engadget's always a good example) was effortless; you see the typical grid pattern when you first scroll into a new area, of course, but it fills in with the correct content rapidly. To say we were blown away by the N900's raw browsing power would be an understatement -- in fact, we could realistically see carrying it in addition to another phone for browsing alone, because even in areas where it gives a little ground to the iPhone or Pre in usability, it smacks everyone down in raw power and compatibility. In our line of work where 24 / 7 access to the web is of paramount importance, having the N900 in our pocket when we were away from our laptop was a comforting insurance policy. As with Ovi Maps, the one complaint we'd lodge here is that capacitive multitouch would've been a huge win, but we adopted to the resistive setup without too much drama -- and the inclusion of a creative "swirl to zoom" gesture certainly mitigates the problem. Just don't lose the stylus!

I so want one, but then I'm thinking ... how much better will the next generation phone and Maemo 6 be if I just wait (and steal the boy's N900 whenever he isn't looking).

(Sorry. I'm not on commission, honest).

 

[paolo]

Nokia should really launch their weight behind this and stop with wallflower "Maemo is a hacker thing" stuff. Give up on Symbian - its dead. Get Maemo finished, do a capacitative screen. The idea is great, the display lush.