Nokia n900

[x88x]

The Nokia n900; the result of a merging of Nokia's internet tablets and high-end smart phones, and possibly the most awesome phone you'll see this year. :D

Short spec breakdown:
Maemo 5 OS
600 MHz ARM Cortex A8
256MiB RAM
768MiB swap
32GiB on-board storage
microSD slot (so up to a current total of 48GiB possible storage)
quadband GSM with GPRS and EDGE
Wi-Fi
5 megapixel camera
GPS
slide-out physical keyboard
3.5" 800x480 resistive touchscreen
full flash/etc
OpenGL ES 2.0
many many more; follow the link to find out more

..oh, and unfortunately a non-carrier-subsidized cost of $650...hopefully that'll drop to about $200 with a carrier.

http://maemo.nokia.com/n900

Anyone else waiting for this to break into their respective markets?

I haven't seen any US carriers pick it up yet (and I can't quite justify..or afford.. the cost of it unsubsidized).

[Zephik]

I'm a bit cautious of that resistive touch-screen. The keyboard also looks a bit small and closely spaced together, not a good thing. It's also a tad bit on the thick side.

I do like just about everything else though, including that removable battery. It even has TV-Out right out of the box, which is a pretty nice feature. It looks like it even does it wirelessly as well? No more need to go out and buy billion dollar cables, although the price of the unit will probably make up for that, so... But it also uses Micro-USB, not some special cable, so that's another good thing. You already listed everything else that I like about it.

The entire unit is pretty impressive. Although those first few cons are big ones. The thickness I can deal with, it's not overly horrible, although at three quarters of an inch (iphone = half an inch) it's right on that line. I am pretty worried about the screen and the keyboard, though. If the reviews don't like them, then that's an irreversible deal breaker.

Edit: The 360 view raises a bit of suspicion for me. I found it fairly amusing that they don't want to show the back of the phone in an "open state". Just what are they hiding there? They also don't provide any pictures of that view of the phone as well. A bit fishy and worrisome to me...

[x88x]

There's a really good, in depth review of a prototype here (http://my-symbian.com/other/preview_n900.php). (I couldn't find the link before)

In the review, he talks a fair bit about the cell-assisted GPS; I think it's a pretty cool concept, it gets a quick, initial idea of its location from the nearby cell towers, and uses that to speed up the GPS lock process.

The keyboard does look a bit small, but from what reviews I've been able to find so far, it has really nice tactile feedback, plus a stellar onscreen keyboard if you really can't deal with the size of the physical keyboard.

As for the thickness, of course it's gonna be thicker than the iPhone; it has a slide-out physical keyboard. :P The review shows it in comparison to a bunch of other phones (all Nokia, I think, but some are pretty similar to the iPhone's dimensions). It's actually a bit narrower and shorter than the iPhone, and personally I'd rather have something that's a little thicker anyways if it's gonna have a physical keyboard; I feel like if it was too thin it would just be uncomfortable to use.

Nokia N900: 110.9mm × 59.8mm × 18mm
iPhone (3G/S): 115.5 mm x 62.1 mm x 12.3 mm

There's lots of pics in the review. As you can see here (http://my-symbian.com/other/grafika/n900_16.jpg), there's nothing wrong with the back of the screen, it's just kinda boring, which I'm sure is why Nokia didn't put it in the 360 view.

Nokia is notorious for making really solid stuff, so I'm not worried about it at all. As soon as I can find a carrier subsidizing one and I have the money (come on paychecks, work your magic :D ), I'm gonna be getting one, so if nobody has yet, I'll definitely do a review.

[x88x]

As it turns out, the reason nobody's carrying it yet is that it hasn't actually been released yet.

Unboxing of a pre-release one here:
http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-n900-video-unboxing-1259904/

[billygoat333]

nokia phones are tanks. if i had money I would get one of these. :)

[x88x]

Well, still no word on if T-Mobile is gonna be subsidizing it, but I decided to go ahead and get it anyways because:
1) Their new contractless/phoneless plans are $10/mo less than the equivalent subsidized phone plans
2) Newegg has it on sale for $100 off retail
3) Nokia is giving everyone who buys it before 12-31 a $50 Visa check card

So, to make it worth my while to get it subsidized with a (presumably) 2-year contract, it would have to be subsidized at least down to $260. Compare that to the subsidized prices of the iPhone 3GS at $300 and Droid at $300 ($200 if you buy it online), these being the closest phones spec-wise, and I can be pretty confident that T-Mo wouldn't subsidize the N900 down below $300. Plus, even if they did pull it down to $200, honestly the $60 is worth it to me to not be tied down to a service contract.

So, long story short, I almost got one last Friday but wasn't fast enough.. :dead: But I checked the Newegg product page tonight and they had it in stock! So, sometime either tomorrow or Thursday I'll be getting a shiny new Nokia N900 in the mail. :D :banana: :D :banana: :D :banana: :D

Pics to come in a review once I get it and have time to write it up.

[Kayin]

Go Go T-Mobile, I just activated a HTC Phoebus (T-Mobile Shadow II) for cheap cause I owned it. Wireless tethering for multiple computers FTW.

[Zephik]

You suck! haha

I'm surprised that this phone hasn't made a larger splash. It seems like it pretty much owns the competition. Hmm.

[Kayin]

There are a few really underrated phones out there. This is one.

[x88x]

I'm surprised that this phone hasn't made a larger splash. It seems like it pretty much owns the competition. Hmm.

Partly it's because no carrier has subsidized it yet, and not a whole lot of people are willing to spend $550 on it...I think the main reason, though, is because it's not really targeted towards you normal consumer. The two problems I've heard people harp on in reviews are: a) it's thicker than an iPhone (it's got a physical keyboard; deal with it!) and b) the Ovi store (app store) isn't very well populated yet.

If you look at Nokia's long-range product development with Maemo, it really makes a lot of sense. The first four version were made for their line of Internet Tablets (770, n800, n810), which were great products but every time got closer and closer to what I really wanted, never quite making it. In the mean time, they were building a loyal following of geeks who fell in love with those Internet Tablets. Now we have Maemo 5 running on something that is basically the love-child of the Internet Tablets and their n-series phones. It's a very powerful device that can do much, much more than be an awesome phone (in fact, I've even heard a couple reviews mention that the phone app feels like a bit of an afterthought :P ). Now, this device is by it's very nature, very appealing to people who will want to develop serious apps for Maemo (thus addressing that Ovi store problem some people seem to have), so throughout the lifetime of the n900 I expect to see a lot of app development. Next comes Maemo 6 at some point in the next couple years, which Nokia execs have said will be the first version of Maemo that they consider to be a complete product. By then there should be a good app library available, and I believe the plans are to replace Symbian on all the n-series phones with Maemo. Either way, the n900 is an awesome device and I'm really excited to finally get to see one in person :D

[x88x]

w00tz! Posting from my N900!
No SIM card yet, but I'll be taking care of that today. Review to come once I've tried the 3G mode.

BTW, the web browser on here is freakin AWESOME!

[billygoat333]

lol sweet. can't wait for your review!

[jonelee]

I like this phone because 5 megapixel camera (2584 × 1938 pixels).Dual LED flash,Maemo browser powered by Mozilla technology,Adobe Flash™ 9.4 support. This phone have many new feature.