So, I finally got my N900 a few weeks ago. Not being the cheapest gadget around I was forced to wait a while, but seeing Verkkokauppa.com's 6 month interest free payment offer was a little too much. So I placed my order, waited some weeks and got my own little piece of future technology. Since there are already lots of reviews out there, I'm not going to write a full review of the device. Instead I will be listing some of the points that I have liked about the device, and also some that could be better or I don't like at all. Yes, there are some, read on..

Stuff I like

1. It's Linux

Well, this is kinda obvious but it is the main reason I bought the whole device, so I guess it needs to be mentioned first. There is currently only one mobile phone compatible OS that resembles a full blown linux system the best - and that OS is Maemo. Apart from some pieces of propriety code it's open source and has deep roots in Debian. Software is not restricted to what certain people approve for you, or even to software written for the device itself - lots of other Linux based applications can be run on the device, even some proper stuff like Open Office if you feel adventurous enough. I'm a big fan of open source and community driven development. Maemo has that love for open source and the community.


2. The future is MeeGo

Today we heard some huge news concerning Nokia and Intel. Maemo and Intel's Moblin linux platform are to be merged into a platform called MeeGo. If you haven't heard of Moblin, it's an excellent little distribution that is optimized for MID's, netbooks and embedded systems. I'm actually writing this now on my trusty Acer Aspire One running Moblin 2.1. It's sleek, fast and pretty.

The deal with Maemo and why I like this future is that MeeGo will be 100% open source (which Maemo isn't quite) and infact it will be driven under the wing of the Linux Foundation. Nokia and Intel will ensure from their part the supply of compatible devices like the N900. Personally, I cannot think of a better future for Maemo even though some of the Maemo community is understandably scared of the move.


3. The user interface of Maemo 5

Nokia really did do an excellent work in redesigning the Maemo user interface. Not that it was awful on the N8x0 devices, but let's face it - touchscreen devices need to be optimized for finger usage. If anything, the criticism for Symbian S60v5 devices and the success of iPhone have proved this (btw check out the Symbian^3 preview here for what Symbian will soon be). Maemo 5 really is finger optimized and does it well. The icons are big and lists items are big enough to be easily chosen and for the most part kinetic scrolling works as well as it could on a resistive screen. Clicking through menu's is fast and snappy, and still visually pleasing.

In true Linux style, the N900 has not one but up to four home screens which can be scrolled through with some easy finger swipes. Each home screen can hold as many widgets, shortcuts and bookmarks as you can fit in. Of course the more you load up the more it will eat up system memory so some common sense needs to be excercised.

Open programs can be accessed either via the icon in the top-left corner, ctrl-backspace or by pressing the camera key half way if you install the excellent 'camkeyd' addon.


4. Applications

OK, the amount of available applications doesn't match the app store of Apple, but nothing beats a good old Linux application repository system. The N900 comes with a really nicely working frontend for installing applications from whatever repositories you decide to add. Installing an app is just a few clicks and yes they are all free. Should you choose of course apps can be installed via other methods, if not available from a repository. So far I've found all the apps I've needed to accomplish whatever I have needed to do, from ftp clients to car fuel usage calculators.

Word of warning though, take REAL care when going into the extras-devel repository. It is NOT meant for normal users and all applications there are still in alpha or beta stages, and could mess up your system without a warning. For the adventurous, it does however bring a steady flow of new experimental apps and ports to the N900 (I'm one of the adventurous).


5. FM Transmitter

Yes, the N900 has an FM transmitter! Most people most likely will not see this as a useful feature, but those of us that need an FM transmitter to listen to anything else than radio or CD's in their car (ie. mp3's) it just perfect! No need to plug in the N900 anywhere in the car, just fire up the FM transmitter (with a nice home screen button) and all audio will be redirected to the airwaves. It's smart enough to pause the transmitting during a phone call so no need to separately turn it off when the phone rings and you're doing 100km/h on the motorway.


6. The keyboard

When I first read some reviews about the N900 after it came out, one of the features that some reviewers criticized was the keyboard. For me it is perfect, the buttons are nice and firm and typing is easy and snappy with little mistyping. It's a beautiful keyboard truly. At first I missed a TAB button but then I cannot imagine which key I would give up for that. The terminal has an on screen tab easily accessible for some fast terminal work.


7. Conversations and IM

Usually phones have a messaging application, or it could even be called SMS. Then they have instant messaging applications. The N900 has merged these two into a really well working Conversations app. Text messages are actually written out like any other chat which is super neat and fast. Google Talk, MSN, Facebook, Skype and AIM (plus others but I only use these) are supported right from the same app and are a breeze to add. Contacts are loaded from the services and there's also a really good merge function to merge contacts from different services into one object. What this means in practice is that I can fire up the Contacts app, select a person and see all their information on one screen, whether I want to chat to the person, sms or call.


8. MicroB

The first thing I usually do when getting a new device is to get a decent browser. Here it isn't needed due to the most excellent MicroB browser that the device comes with. Browsing is a breeze and zooming in/out works really well. Pages are rendered as they should be which is uncommon in mobile devices. So far there hasn't been a site that hasn't rendered perfectly on this browser. It's so good that I decided not to switch to Firefox Mobile when it came out for Maemo.

1. The main applications menu

It's not that it's hard to use, stupid or doesn't work. But it just seems like a half baked way to be done. To get to the main apps menu, if you have other programs running you need to go through the task manager. And to get to the programs list you need to go through the main apps menu. I'm pretty sure there will be shortcuts for the home screens to directly access these areas and there are some good features like going back a step when clicking on an empty area, but as said, just seems a bit half baked.


2. Ovi Maps

The Ovi Maps is some kind of customized version, not the newest version with free navigation. Hopefully it will be updated for the N900 soon. It's not that the N900 version is bad, it's not just the newest version.


3. Portrait mode not fully supported

Portraid mode is only supported in the phone application, the MicroB browser and some third party apps. The phone portrait mode is actually more annoying than useful since instead of using the accelometer, it is triggered by whether the keyboard is open or not. I guess it is a choice of preferance, I just would like the option of landscape even with the keyboard closed.

Otherwise the missing portraid mode isn't a big issue since this device really is best in landscape due to the excellent keyboard.


4. The future is RPM

Well I guess some bad things need to come from the Nokia / Intel merge. It looks like with the move to MeeGo, Maemo's future will be rpm based instead of debian. I think however that this is a small loss compared to the gains. And hey Moblin is all good with RPM.

[ nokia // maemo // smart phones // linux // open source // n900 // meego ]