What do you do if you hate Apple and iPhone? When Windows Mobile 7 is not ready yet. If you use your phone for browsing and sms and almost never make a phonecall. If you liked Nokia in the past. Well, the new Nokia N900 is an option and I decided to buy one. Here's my good/bad list after owning it for a few weeks time. Initially I will give the N900 a 4/6 rating, but it certainly has higher potential if the software is being improved. It is not a phone for everybody, but I like a lot of it's features and I hope the things I don't like will get fixed over time via updates and/or apps.THE GOOD- open Maemo OS (Linux) makes it easy for developers to improve the phone with great apps
- browser state of the art for mobile. Built on Firefox and optimized. Displays about anything including flash. Facebook, youtube, huge newspapers, you name it. Not that intuitive and takes a bit of training, but works great
- stylus pen useful for some websites (facebook, newspapers), very handy for precision and to reduce the need for zooming. Sits inside the phone when not used
- good physical keyboard I seriously hate on-screen keyboards
- widescreen display great for movies and browsing
- resolution 800x480 great for movies and browsing
- email client excellent, shows mails like your pc. handles attachments and microsoft exchange as well. Love it. Userinterface can still be improved upon, but already great
- conversations (sms) excellent way of handling sms conversations
- musicplayer very easy and simple to use with great sound in my Sony headphones. No EQ, but not really missed
- movieplayer plays about any type of movie you can throw at it, looks awesome
- GPS ultra fast lock compared to my old N95
- memory 32gb in phone + 16gb card. That should be enough for a while
- photo viewer awesome due to the huge resolution
- youtube (zoutube) watch youtube videos either in browser or via the zoutube viewer (faster)
- camera 5mp (2584 × 1938 pixels) Carl Zeiss optics
- video 848 × 480 and 25fps
- responsiveness good processor+graphic chip, quite fast
- userinterface very intuitive and easy to use with 4 screens for widgets, bookmarks etc.
- online autoupdate you don't have to worry about updates for phone+apps, you'll get notified automatically
- 3G/wifi control switches automatically to your defined wifi when available, works fantastic
- movie stand great for watching movies
- stereo speakers sounds quite good for movies. Music is better via external bluetooth speakers
- phone yes the phone, call quality and contacts work well
THINGS TO IMPROVE- nokia maps nowhere as great as the maps I had on my N95. Missing maploader preload + no navigation + rather slow userinterface. Will probably be improved later, but at the moment it kinda sucks
- missing mms will probably get fixed soon
- horizontal/vertical view support for vertical view in gps, musicplayer and browser would be very welcome
- facebook app it desperately needs a (great) facebook app so you don't have to use the website everytime. Although the website is fully functional in the browser, an app is often better because of less data download and quicker use
- calendar needs more settings and more flexibility. It's not bad at all, but it could be improved a lot
- limited number of useful applications (and games) will probably be improved over time
THE BAD- size 110.9 × 59.8 × 18 mm is rather big
- weight approx 181g is rather heavy
- top buttons placement (volume/zoom, camera) could be better, there's plenty of room and I think they should have been nearer to the edges
- battery (BL-5J 1320mAh) with the phone being this big the battery should have been bigger and last longer
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Content Type: Tech Comment
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Updated: 2010-02-08 20:07
Created: 2010-02-08 19:10
