Are you one of those who were disappointed by Nokia N97 & decided never to buy a Nokia smartphone again? We suggest you may want to take a peek at Nokia N900 before you take the jump. The N900 is the first smartphone from Nokia running on Maemo, a much more contemporary OS than the aging Symbian^1. We review Maemo OS which really makes the difference & take a brief look at the N900 hardware.
Email:
Nokia Messaging does not install itself as a separate client on the N900 but integrates itself into the built-in client of the phone. We like this because it avoids the mess of having two separate Nokia email clients. Needless to say, the email client has a much better UI than the Symbian email client. It has superb support for attachments & we are really impressed while viewing a powerpoint presentation on the gorgeous screen of the N900!
Instant Messaging:
If you are a heavy user of Google Talk or Facebook Chat, then the N900 is nothing short of an IM heaven. Both these chat services are deeply integrated in the OS and work seamlessly without the need to install any additional application. Moreover, voice calling through Google Talk & Skype is brilliantly integrated. This is by far the best IM experience on a mobile. And if you need to use any other service such as Yahoo Messenger & MSN Messenger then you can always install Pidgin from the Application Manager.
Social Networking Integration:
Out of the box, the N900 comes with the lack lustre Facebook for Nokia application found on most other Nokia phones. The real fun starts on installing a third party application called Hermes from the Application Manager. Hermes syncs phone contacts with contacts from Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn. It also imports Facebook birthdays into the phone calendar!
Twitter however is a different story on the N900. The available options such as Witter, Mauku & Tweego are no comparison for Symbian’s popular Gravity app. We only found the browser based tweetgo.net the best of the lot but that speaks volumes of how bad the native Twitter clients are.
Browsing:
The MicroB internet browser on the N900 gives you the best “desktop like” browsing experience on a mobile. Period. Browsing on a mobile phone just cannot get better than this. If your desktop browser can load it, so can the N900 browser. The MicroB browser is so good that we found the mobile version of Firefox, which is available in the Application Manager, quite pale in comparison.
Calendar:
Syncing multiple calendars with the N900 is a breeze. We are quite pleased with how it created a separate Facebook Birthdays calendar on our phone.
Contacts:
The Contacts UI on the N900 has a much polished feel to it than the Contacts UI found on your typical Symbian^1 phone. It has fields for saving a contact’s Google Talk & Facebook identities besides many more. It can also import contacts from a CSV file stored on your phone’s storage! Brilliant!
Messaging:
The N900 supports threaded messages but there is no setting to turn it off in case you don’t like it. We didn’t like the fact that SMS messages are displayed in the same view as IM conversations. We would have preferred to view them separately.
Multi-tasking:
The multi-tasking interface on the N900 is the best ever we have seen on a mobile. The multitasking interface coupled with the zooming transition effects makes it very pleasant to run multiple apps in the background with no lag whatsoever. This is true multi-tasking that one can dream of.
Notifications:
We loved the way the N900 notifies us of an incoming mail, message or chat. The notification slides in across the top section of the display and after staying there for a while disappears into the top left corner as a blinking light. This way you can read the notification without interrupting your flow of work. And in case you miss any notifications, you can always click the blinking light to see pending notifications.
Application Manager & Apps Ecosystem:
The N900 will be the only Nokia running on Maemo OS. Developers normally wouldn’t queue up to develop apps for just one phone. But Nokia has blessed the N900 with the Qt framework via firmware update PR 1.2 which means all apps developed in the future on the Qt platform will be compatible with the N900! Nokia’s upcoming OSes such as MeeGo, Symbian^3 & Symbian^4 will all support the same Qt platform which is now included in the N900.
There also exists the Maemo Community which has developed plenty of apps for the N900. Many popular programs found on desktops such as Firefox, VLC Player, KMPlayer, Pidgin are also available for the N900.
The Ovi Store on the N900 is very small & largely irrelevant. The Application Manager is where all the apps are. Unlike the Ovi Store, the Application Manager also informs you of updates available for apps installed on your phone & you can choose to upgrade them by a single click. You can also install apps by adding various app repositories in the Application Manager.
Multiple Homescreens:
Most OSes today with the exception of Symbian^1 have multiple homescreens. With Maemo on the N900 though you can have 4 homescreens. A bit less compared to other OSes but sufficient nevertheless.
Forced Landscape Mode:
Only the phone dialer & the internet browser can work in portrait mode. Everything else only runs in landscape mode. Its very evident that the phone is designed for landscape mode as the phone unlock key is also placed in a position where it can be unlocked easily only while holding it in landscape mode.
Hardware:
The N900 is built like a tank. While that means its solid as far as build quality is concerned, it also means it is very bulky for a phone, especially by today’s standards. Its also very difficult to use the phone with one hand.
- The Display is of a very high resolution, second only to iPhone 4’s Retina display in terms of dpi.
- The Touchscreen is resistive, but while we would have preferred a capacitative one, it was definitely one of the best resistive touchscreens we have used.
- The Camera excels with its 5MP Carl Zeiss lens & has features such as touch to focus which are not found in Nokia’s flagship Symbian devices.
- The Music Player would please the audiophiles; Video Playback was excellent & we particularly liked that the device supports DivX videos through third party apps. FM Player hardware is present on the device but needs the FM Player software to be installed from the Application Manager.
- The GPS performance does not disappoint with Nokia’s wonderful Ovi Maps powering it.
- The QWERTY keypad is soft & gives you a wonderful feeling while typing. We will go as far as to say its the best hardware QWERTY keypad ever on a mobile.
- The Battery was a little disappointing; we would have preferred a little more juice from the N900’s battery.
Final Words:
The best part of Nokia N900 is that it doesn’t seem like a Nokia. Not sure whether this is a compliment to Nokia overall, but it definitely is a huge compliment for the Nokia N900. The N900 has its origins in a tablet & that shows. We were amused that we could press Ctrl+A to select all items & could take screenshots using a combination of keys such as Ctrl+Shift+P. We also got a flavour of its Linux base when we opened the X-Terminal & used commands to do various tasks.
We are surprised that Nokia decided to abandon Maemo in favour of MeeGo. Further, we are pained that Nokia decided not to provide the official MeeGo upgrade to Nokia N900. Nokia will however continue to support the N900 through future firmware updates.
To conclude, have you noticed how many times we have used the words “the best ever on a mobile”? The internet browser, the integrated instant messaging, the multi-tasking, the keypad are indeed the best ever on a mobile. We are highly impressed with the first non-Symbian smartphone from Nokia. Our only disappointments are the huge & bulky form factor, forced landscape mode & the lack of a good twitter client!
We thank Nokia WOMWorld for sending us a Nokia N900 for our review. And we leave you with some more screenshots from the N900′s Maemo OS for your viewing pleasure
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