My new phone arrived last week, it couldnt have arrived soon enough. I have been excited about getting my hands on a N900 for some time.
So it arrived, amongst much fanfair and signed for packages etc (I hated the snow so much as this made it a day late). I ripped all the packages open (the nice mobile company had given me a free Jawbone Prime blutooth headset)and started digging around for new sim card, chargers etc. After setting the phone up and plugging it in, I was away..
I have always loved Nokia's even from the days when I actually worked in telecommunications. I found them easy to use, easy to navigate and had one of the best receptions around. I followed them through the S60 operating system and after a bit got used to that as well. So now this phone, the N900 the first truly PC capable mobile has arrived on a new platform (maemo5) made by my favourite phone company and I had one! I ditched the instructions (after reading them to figure out how to get the back off) and started playing. I should point out here that I have had many 'new' phones with new operating platforms and I accept all of them are going to have bugs and glitches as well as a host of problems, most of which can be fixed with updates.
I enjoyed the feel of it, the way the keyboard worked (although there are better keyboards, the N97 having one!) and the touch screen seemed to work flawlessly (as long as your not wearing gloves in the cold weather). The operating system seemed to flow quite well and be quite intuative and was faster than I thought. It certainly beats the response speed of the iphone I had (not the 3gs model) and the HTC Hero. I want to keep comparing it to the N95 and N97, it is as fast and hasnt crashed on me yet unlike my N95.
Camera wise, the N95 takes brighter pictures, but other than that the N900 seems to perform as well as any phone camera I have ever had, and infact better than most. Nokia certainly would appear to have the edge on clarity and size of picture as well, certainly on the 'smart phone' side of things.
The internet is faster than any other phone I have had, and pages seem to laod a lot quicker. Its easy6 to navigate around as you have both the touch screen and keypad, and I now use my phone for loads more internet than ever before.
The Bad points.
There was always going to be a few wasnt there?
Firstly, and most significantly, battery life, lets not beat around the bush it is terrible! Now I read a lot of reports on this phone so was expecting it to be bad, but a mobile phone? bad would have to be, what 9 hours? Nope, its terrible, shortest I have killed the battery from fully charged is 2 and a bit hours, average messing around on it this week is about 5 hours before having to be plugged in (thats a mixture of calls and internet and texting) and the longest, by leaving it alone and not having anything switched on (internet, blutooth etc) was just over 9 hours (this was in offline mode so I didnt get any calls either). Nokia sort it out!
The phone can not do some simple 'phone' tasks like MMS and video calling. There is alot of forums and debates raging about this. None of which seem to have a clear answer. Some say it will be an update others say it cant be, so to get to an answer I have now emailed Nokia directly, and will publish the response as soon as it arrives.
WPA keys, another issue I am having with the phone is this, connecting to wireless networks with WPA is fine and easy and works. If the network has an older WEP key, you have to set it up as a WPA then go back in and edit it to change it to a WEP key. Even doing this, I have not yet succesfully been able to connect to a WEP network. Again this matter has been forwarded to Nokia.
The kick stand, one question, why? If it was to support the phone having it made out of plastuc and as small as it is, is stupid. Why does the phone not tilt like the N97? I expect better Nokia.
The OVI suite does not support N900 and the Nokia PC suite only supports certain applications of it. You can no longer send messages via your PC when connected to the N900 which I personally liked a lot, also you can not back up your messages or a lot of data really, it appears like it only backs up your Contacts, phone specific data and memory card. I am a little dissapointed in that if I am honest.
So as an all singing all dancing internet tablet and PC the N900 doesnt quite deliver. As a phone, the N900 doesnt quite deliver. As an internet tablet the N900 delivers wonderfully.
For a phone which has a brand new OS, and is doing things never before seen by phones or internet tablets, it is amazing. Its not 100% obviously, but it is a good 92% of the way there and with the updates etc coming out it should eventually get close. I still miss my N95 and N97, however that is a personal thing. It certainly beats HTC Hero, Iphone (not the 3Gs model as I havent tested that one yet) as an internet tablet it beats the N95 and the N97 (although the N97 keyboard 'feels' better).
I will update you more as I find out more....
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