Nokia Maemo N900 Review – ‘Touch To Die For’
Posted by: dani2xll in Maemo, Nokia, Reviews
Once upon a time… Thursday 26 November 2009, at the crack of dawn a shiny new package arrived. The Nokia N900 comes out of Nokia’s newborn Maemo an adaption from their linux-tablets range. Maemo is to be host to Nokia’s new top-end devices. On removing the N900 from its box the first thing that comes to mind is ‘wow, it is a heavy beast of burden, well equipped in size and weight to to carry out its duties.’
Switch on the N900 and you are presented with the Nokia hand-shake followed by the start-up screen. This screen allows you to set-up your language, region, time and date. It is at this point that you realise ’Nokia-Touch has come of age’. First of all do not waste time looking for a physical menu button as there is none. Throw away pre-suppositions. A simple ‘Touch’ is all you need to select or make changes to the choices shown. No old-style punching buttons, no repetitive touch, no use of your stylus or being inventive with your finger-nails to inform your phone that you have in-fact touched the screen. The N900 recognises your touch immediately with no hesitation or inaccuracy. Nokia have incorporated a few fun features into the N900’s UI. For example, to set the clock, you can move the hands on the clock-face directly and to change the date you are presented with the rotary dial to spin with a flick of a touch. Once you have made your preferences you are presented with your Stand-by Screen which is actually a blank-format with only the menu icon on the top far left, the date, battery icon and your network operator. See my populated screens and preferences below. N80 owners mourn no more. The spectacular icons, imagery and screen resolution have returned.
Touching the menu option presents you with the default main menu screen.
This can be a little confusing as dependent on what other processes or tasks you have running in the background the menu key will change its cycle. It sometimes requires two or three cycles through the different menus available to get to the one you require. In addition touching the menu key also takes you back to the standby-screen (again dependent on what other applications you have running). At the end of two weeks I am still unfamiliar with which menu will appear when I cycle through the screens.
As I am familiar with the symbian system, I was happy to see the default menu populated with icons to fit the screen, meaning there was no scrolling involved. By default the menu consisted of the apps as shown above. Touching the ‘more’ icon produced an additional sub-menu.
The web icon presents the new browser. It is Fast!!! Nokia please put this in your symbian handsets. I assume this is due to a combination of not only the processor but also the browser speed and the fact that we are not limited by ram. It is a Fantastic browser. Opening the browser, the screen is populated with your bookmarks and a mini-screenshot of each of your bookmarked pages. Opera Mobile nor Opera Mini crossed my mind during the two weeks of my trial. A miracle I would have you know as I have used Opera in preference to the Nokia browser in every s60 phone I have owned and I have owned plenty.
Touching a bookmark opens it up. I have my screen options set on ‘very large’ text as I like to see the page in ‘readable’ form without having to zoom-in on each page individually, as is the case if you leave the screen set at its ‘normal’ default option. However using options over and above ‘normal’ can produce some web inaccuracies which I hope is fixed in future software versions.
‘Normal’
‘Very large’
It is easy to recognise the main actions of the browser through its on-screen icons which I like to see as its an intuitive walk-through to a new user. Bookmarks, + to add a bookmark, the address line, an arrow backwards to go back to a previous page and the full-screen web-page option.
I should mention here that Nokia have ‘hidden’ menu’s in nearly every application that gives you a range of options and choices. I say ‘hidden’ in the lightest of terms as it is obviously based here so as not to create clutter and excess information to be on view for users happy to use the N900 in its default format. However, it is a good feature and placed correctly as it enables additional facilities for users who wish to delve deeper into the N900’s functionality. A ‘touch’ at the top of the screen in an application will produce a drop-down options menu. The functions and choices are too numerous to list. But if you think an option is missing, do remember to check the drop-down menu as it is usually within.
On receipt of a new text message or email, a notification will arrive in whatever application you happen to be in at the time.
Unless you have super-lightening speed to touch the notification before it disappears, it will remove itself to the background shown below. Touching the icon will open it within its own application, Conversations (Messaging as it was previously called) or the Email application where you can take action on it.
Conversations
Contacts and Phone are the only applications that are viewable and enabled to work in both portrait and landscape mode. Hopefully Nokia will think about bringing portrait mode to all the applications so as to enable the end user to use the phone to his/her own preferences.
Calendar give you a month view at a glance. Selecting the drop-down menu gives additional views such as week or agenda, previous month, next month, jump to a specific date and even more extensive settings are available under the relevant option.
With the huge amount of available ram and fast processor your able to multi-task to your hearts delight and below is a screenshot of the open task-list.
Media Player on initial opening takes a few minutes to populate the content, dependent on the size of your library.
Music Player has numerous sorting options for you to view or choose your music playlist. The screens are self-explanatory so I will suffice to say only this. Thank you Nokia, well-done. In particular I like the easy view-options and on screen dialogue and icons which keep you informed.
Photo
As a previous Nokia 5800 owner and present owner of the N97 and iPhone, I may see things from a different perspective to those of you coming from a non-touch phone. For example, Nokia’s s60v3 users may be more ‘wowed’ with the concept of the new touch facilities. In finalisation I did not get to test the camera. We all know the capability of Nokia’s 5 megapixel day-time images so I wanted to capture images at low-light and in night-time conditions. Unnfortunately the battery in my unit kept dying in the middle of the day before I could do so. Others I have spoken to have not had this problem so I can only assume it is a fault within my particular handset.
Oops… I had forgotten to mention the qwerty keyboard and the phone format. (The N900 also has an on-screen landscape qwerty, we want this too in the N97 Nokia!). I much prefer the N97 tilt as the phone is raised in an appropriate position though I can see the arguments Nokia have for a non-exposed hinge as on the N900. The qwerty keys are much more tactile than those of the N97 and due to this it makes typing faster and easier to use. However I find the top keys too close to the bottom ridge of the screen when it is in the open position and I also find the keys too close together. The latter two problem do not exist in the N97. The cursor keys were difficult to use and operate. This could be put down to the fact that I am left-handed so find (in two thumbs use) that the cursor keypad of the N97 suited me more as it sits on the same side as would a computer mouse. I do, prefer the fact that on the N900 they are individual keys on a par with a computer. On the new hinged display, I found there was a slight left-click when you tapped the left side of the screen whilst it was open but not on the right side. This problem also occurs on the N97 (on the right side, where there is only one supporting hinge). But on returning my N97 for repair, I was told, it was within acceptable limits. Users of the N95, N80, N96, N85 with long memories such as mine will understand where I am coming from with the hinge wobble. It does not seem a problem that Nokia has remedied to everyone’s satisfaction, least of all mine.
In conclusion, the N900 is an innnovative product from Nokia with huge improvements in the ‘Touch’ UI. However being brought-up with symbian handsets I would prefer to have the applications I already use, available for the N900. I understand it is new and that developers are signing-up to create new applications as we speak. Ovi store is not available at present and neither is overall portrait mode which frustrated me further. If your a heavy user of symbian or another operating system and your main occupational use of your mobile is to browse, blog, text and make calls then this is the handset for you. If you live for the applications that make your life easier such as Gravity, Opera Mobile, language or reference dictionaries and other utilities then I would suggest you stick with your present operating system until the N900 applications store is propogated.
Thank you to WomWorld and Phattrance for allowing me the opprtunity to review the N900.
For those of you still awake, I enclose additional screenshots of the other applications within the N900 for you to take a quick glance through.
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Awesome review bro
Cheers buddy.
great review!
I wonder if you mean that you miss portait mode? Because there is landscape mode throughout the phone.
Hello, this is a good review
but i’d like to know what’s the little cable in the box with a big rectangular “head” ????
@Peter Many thanks, yes I did mean portrait mode. I have corrected this in the post. @Thibaud that is the charging cable adapter which allows you to charge the phone via the old nokia chargers.
Nokia charger adaptor CA-146C
http://tinyurl.com/yaotbw7
“Hello, this is a good review but i’d like to know what’s the little cable in the box with a big rectangular “head” ????”
thanks ^^
nice review..i feel like i almost used the phone.
hey dani as always awesome rewiev and now ill have a brand new dream every nyt as i have dreamt of n97 for the past 6months lol!!!!