Post by trog @ 05:42pm 19/02/10 | 73 Comments
An official media event will be taking place on March 2nd at the Forum Nokia Developer Conference 2010 to showcase the phone to Australian media, so we'll see if we can wing our way along to that to get the skinny.
Australian pricing details have not yet been announced, but they'll be confirmed at the media event, so stay tuned for further details.
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Posted 05:56pm 19/2/10
Posted 06:05pm 19/2/10
Posted 07:03pm 19/2/10
Posted 07:21pm 19/2/10
Posted 07:43pm 19/2/10
Bring on the competition, looking forward to moving to a less restrictive platform than what Apple tends to offer.
Posted 09:09pm 19/2/10
I really really really hate the touchscreen. I dont own a iphone but all the iphones and ipod touches ive used had a way better touch screen then the n900.
Also the software runs pretty slow on the phone. I realise you can mutitask and stuff, which is great and the os is a nice step in the right direction. I was ssh'ing to it within seconds :) But i dont like phones that arnt really zippy when you need em to be like locking the phone and sending messages etc.
Posted 10:18pm 19/2/10
... I'm still getting a nexus tho.
Posted 11:24pm 19/2/10
Posted 12:35am 20/2/10
Posted 12:46am 20/2/10
Posted 01:25am 20/2/10
Posted 01:29am 20/2/10
Posted 01:38am 20/2/10
Posted 01:47am 20/2/10
With capacitive touch you can implement cool features like pinch to zoom. Resistive is completely outclassed.
Posted 02:41am 20/2/10
Nah, I got the Euro version. I didn't want NextG, because while it's fast and reliable, it's way over priced.
Pretty much what StopShootingMe said. It's just far far more accurate to use with your fingertips. Swiping movements don't generally work too well on resistive touch screens without a stylus. You need pretty much zero pressure, a nice, quick little tap will register just fine. Not usually the case with a resistive touch screen.
Posted 10:05am 20/2/10
Posted 10:51am 20/2/10
Posted 10:54am 20/2/10
As I covered in my review, if you are prepared for a little bit of work you can the Nexus One shipped here in a week for US$575 , which makes it much more competitive vs the 3GS.
Posted 11:38am 20/2/10
Posted 12:24pm 20/2/10
Posted 09:39am 21/2/10
Posted 08:06am 22/2/10
My previous phone was a TyTn II, windows mobile. And it blew, hard. It had a resistive touchscreen, yet the onscreen keyboard was useless to everyone involved. Phone was also very laggy.
The N900 has a resistive touch, yes, however I find it to be *the first* phone with a usable keyboard (INCLUDING the iphone). You want capactive so you can what, pinch and zoom? If you want gimmicky features, get an iphone. On the N900 you can screw in and screw out by moving your finger in a circular pattern. I find this much more inuitive than the iphone (as if you want to keep zooming you dont have to re-position your finger).
Another thing, the browser is magical. It is like having a desktop version of firefox on your phone. To what extent, you ask? If I browse to facebook, I get the *full* desktop experience. As in, the chat works, notification works, everything works. Yeah, I can use FB chat from my browser.
Multi-tasking is a dream also. No problems to be had there.
Someone up there commented about the phone being responsive when they want it to be. I've done quite a few sms's now and there is zero lag. There have been a few minor pauses when opening my hotmail (something like 6000 emails tho). All within specification.
It comes down to this. If you want to get a phone that you can show off to your friends and pinch and zoom on get an iphone. However, if for once in your life you want to take a leap of faith and be an early adopter for this phone, you won't be dissapointed.
I know I wasn't.
If any of you guys have any questions about the n900, comment here, I'll answer them.
Posted 10:32am 22/2/10
No, as stated, capacitive is preferable because it is much more accurate and requires zero pressure. Multi-touch also has more use past pinch and zoom. It helps make keyboards more usable, for example. Sure, the N900 is probably good as far as resistive screens go, but I have zero doubt in my mind that it would benefit from a capacitive screen. There's a reason why next to nobody uses resistive anymore.
That's not unique. I bet even the iPhone browser could do that if it changed the User Agent string. I know it works on my phone.
Posted 10:44am 22/2/10
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that capacative is unnecessary because pinch and zoom is a gimmick? Yet twirling your finger on a screen is more intuitive and not gimmicky? So you use zoom on your N900, and therefore we can assume zooming itself is not a gimmick, but that seems to defeat your own argument...
Posted 11:29am 22/2/10
Posted 11:32am 22/2/10
Posted 12:37pm 22/2/10
Posted 02:01pm 22/2/10
googog
Posted 02:54pm 22/2/10
Posted 10:06pm 22/2/10
Posted 10:28pm 22/2/10
The only real question I think is whether or not they've left it too late - they were in bed with telcos for so long that they might have just missed the boat creating phones that are actually useful for consumers first and foremost. Their history is churning out thousands of different devices; they need to stop that like yesterday and focus on their software platform and let that drive their hardware.
I'm not convinced Meego is a good idea - they've spent all this time building Maemo and the brand of Maemo, and then they ditch it. I guess they figured the alignment with Intel was worth it though, so I guess I have to trust their opinion there.
Posted 10:42pm 22/2/10
HAHAHAHAHA! Oh thats hilarious. Serious mate, your clueless if you beleive that. Nokia are doing fine and they have the right idea to combat the iphone and android markets by moving to an open source platform.
It's worth me saying that I wont a Sony Ericson so i dont have a ego based on the phone i own like most iphone/android/nokia owners here.
Trog makes a good point, nokia needs to stop spamming hardware and get into creating a market where users can pick the software they want on their phone or at least a little bit more independance from hardware sales with a good software platform so we can focus on inter-operability (hope i got that word right) and features and less about just creating the next shaped phone.
last edited by gamer at 22:42:47 22/Feb/10
Posted 11:06pm 22/2/10
Swirling sounded lame at first, until I realised a problem I have with pinch-and-zoom that this can resolve: when I'm driving (with iPhone in car-dock) I generally want Google maps to be keep me centred on the map. Problem is, hitting Centre will zoom in to a ridiculous fixed zoom level - which is useless for seeing how far ahead your next turn is especially when you're driving fast (freeway, etc).
So I pinch-zoom out 3-5 times. But it doesn't always work flawlessly - if it registers one finger pressed instead of two (often the case when you're reaching forward towards the dock and your finger tips make contact), it stops centering you on the map. Then you have to hit Centre again and it zooms you all the way back in. Try again.
In this case an alternate gesture like swirl would be helpful. But at the same time I'm not basing my phone choices on just one arbitrary feature like this :)
last edited by parabol at 23:06:32 22/Feb/10
Posted 12:15am 23/2/10
Posted 12:24am 23/2/10
Yeah I've got a couple of GPS apps, but sometimes Google Maps is way quicker to tap a rough address into, have google figure out the best match, then watch a centred satellite/street view. You know, rather than entering a typical GPS-app route by State, then SUBURB, then street name, then street number ... cause that's so intuitive and quick when you're in a hurry :)
last edited by parabol at 00:24:22 23/Feb/10
Posted 07:31am 23/2/10
Posted 02:16pm 28/2/10
Posted 05:13pm 28/2/10
Posted 05:20pm 28/2/10
I've never had a phone on plan and i'm getting sick of running out of credit so i'm keen on getting this bad boy, just not straight away.
I usually let the early adopters be the test subjects until product begins to mature.
Posted 05:29pm 07/4/10
Posted 05:40pm 07/4/10
Posted 12:11pm 09/4/10
Posted 12:24pm 09/4/10
Posted 12:57pm 09/4/10
Posted 01:02pm 09/4/10
Posted 01:55pm 09/4/10
Maemo uses C and GtkWidgets (code sample) if anyone else was going to look that up.
Posted 02:49pm 09/4/10
EDIT: I'll get a genuine Nokla from here in Thailand :P
Posted 02:51pm 09/4/10
Also cost? guessing you imported it from the states?
Posted 02:57pm 09/4/10
Posted 03:12pm 09/4/10
Posted 03:16pm 09/4/10
:P
Posted 03:45pm 09/4/10
Posted 08:02pm 09/4/10
Posted 08:24pm 09/4/10
Posted 08:45pm 09/4/10
Posted 10:08pm 09/4/10
But thats the point of the n900, its not running on their lame symbian s***, its running on Maemo (which I believe is) a flavour of unix. All powerful and open platform and s***.
Posted 02:25pm 10/4/10
yeap I was being a smartarse
Posted 02:34pm 10/4/10
Posted 03:40pm 10/4/10
Posted 03:46pm 10/4/10
While I love Android, you need to be corrected. This phone doesn't run Symbian, it's an open source Linux OS called Maemo. Very different.
Posted 04:01pm 10/4/10
Posted 04:36pm 10/4/10
That's right, multitasking alone wasn't enough, the N900 can run two OS's at once! Heaps of other vids on the utubes with cool s*** running on the N900, including Duke Nukem 3D.
Posted 07:42pm 10/4/10
So it's completely open source? Not Nokia trying to be Apple? It's fairly easy to modify your phone? No stupid region/branding restrictions for version updates?
Posted 06:32pm 11/4/10
First impressions: this is a phone for nerds and tech hobbyists. If you want a phone that "just works" (like the iPhone) or really just works (like the Nexus One) then you should probably be looking at either of those phones.
If you want a phone that you can click a terminal icon and instantly be connected to the raw OS and do all sorts of crazy s*** with it then this is a pretty neat looking phone.
If you've ever used capacitive touch screen you'll probably hate it. Its really hard to get used to having to apply pressure. In fact I would go so far as to say this is the device's Achilles heel.
Posted 06:36pm 11/4/10
Posted 06:54pm 11/4/10
What type of crazy s***? i'm just sick of old pieces of s*** phones and want a phone with good web capabilities when i'm out and about as well as the latest features such as touch screen, GPS, large memory. The physical qwerty keyboard appealed to me as well.
Haven't had a touch screen phone before so perhaps ignorance is bliss?
Didn't take much to influence me not to get it did it? still i'll be awaiting the full review.
Posted 07:13pm 11/4/10
This is the number one thing that turned me off the phone. I was really excited about it when I first read it, until I found out about the screen. Total downer.
Are you stoned? Capacitive screen are far easier to use than resistive.
Posted 07:15pm 11/4/10
I don't get what he is on about with pressure either, you barely have to touch the screen to get a response. That said, I've only had brief uses of an iPhone before and it's screen is certainly more sensitive so maybe if you are used to it then it would be a big difference.
I bought the phone because it can be used in just about any way you want. I'm not much of a tech head but I do love gadgets and didn't want to be locked into using iTunes and having to pay a premium for cheap flash memory. It was either this or the Droid for me and since the N900 comes with an IR port and you can download some universal remote software the N900 won out.
The only issue I have really had is that it is hard to find the right apps for it. There is an app store but the majority of apps are found elsewhere and you basically have to troll google to find information on a lot of stuff. I guess that is the compromise you make when choosing a democracy over a dictatorship. Democracy you have to think for yourself, a dictatorship creates a centralised app store and nukes all competition from orbit.
Posted 09:49pm 11/4/10
I was able to install Xchat in a single click and get on IRC (once i remembered the server password, heh). I was able to install OpenVPN in two clicks (after googling to find out why the first one didn't install the UI component, wtf) and was on the work network. I actually thought it was broken because it worked so fast and first time! which software? I tried Irreco but it wouldn't install for some reason. I want to see if I can make it control my XMBC/Xbox and/or TV!
Posted 11:43pm 11/4/10
Posted 01:14am 12/4/10
Yeah, I'm the same. I hardly use the keyboard on my Milestone anymore. I just find it so much faster to type on the screen. You just tap it so quickly and softly.
That IR port sounds like a pretty huge trade off if you ask me. App support is one of the biggest things in smart phones. I don't know what you think the Android Market is like, but it's nothing like the Apple App store. Google don't go through rejecting things like alternate browsers and mail clients. I'm typing this post from a 3rd party web browser which I bought from the Market, on a replacement keyboard that has more features than the default. While the handset manufacturers selling Android phones might try to lock their hardware down, the software itself is pretty open.
Posted 07:56am 12/4/10
Androids app store was never on my mind when comparing the apps on the nokia. As I understand it google even allow for other app stores to operate similar to nokia. It wasn't really a consideration when purchasing the phone as I had no idea what acquiring apps for either phone would be like at the time. The fact that there was a lot of people out there working on installing complete operating systems on the N900 kind of gave me a sense of security about the device as I've just assumed that eventually someone will get Android up and running on it if I ever needed to switch OS's. I'm pretty happy with Maemo as an OS though, it seems to be more the centralised external support that is lacking compared to Android. I liked the idea of having a phone where it wasn't constrained by the original OS it was installed with.
Also, it's great not having to pay for apps. There are some apps for sale on the Ovi store but there is just so much free s*** out there I haven't even looked at the paid stuff. And none of the apps require me to install aids on my phone.
Posted 02:25pm 12/4/10
I know they're noob questions but I'm just getting into programming.