Nokia N900 - Maemo 5 powered mobile computing

My big concern is the software catalog. Being a Maemo users since the 770 and a current N810 owner, I find that the software catalog for the S60 divices is far larger and more relavent (usable) to my daily life.

Ej

I've not seen the accelerometer in the technical list....

The headline for the article about the N900 on Gizmodo is:

"Nokia N900 Maemo Is a Phone, Makes the N97 Look Silly"

Which quite nicely sums it up for most people. And how silly do I feel having bought an N97..?

celios wrote:The headline for the article about the N900 on Gizmodo is:

"Nokia N900 Maemo Is a Phone, Makes the N97 Look Silly"

Which quite nicely sums it up for most people. And how silly do I feel having bought an N97..?

yep I feel silly for buying an N97 too, my head told me to buy an iPhone 3GS, my heart told me to buy the N97.

I followed by heart, but after four weeks of low ram and device memory sold it on ebay and bought an iPhone.

I shall wait for the reviews on the N900, Nokia will never get me to purchase a phone at launch again, no matter how hyped.

Ratkat wrote:yep I feel silly for buying an N97 too, my head told me to buy an iPhone 3GS, my heart told me to buy the N97.

I followed by heart, but after four weeks of low ram and device memory sold it on ebay and bought an iPhone.

I shall wait for the reviews on the N900, Nokia will never get me to purchase a phone at launch again, no matter how hyped.

Indeed, and in fact that could be a little problem for the N900: Most of the people who would have bought an N900 at launch already own (or used to own) an N97.

@tzer2,

Your argument of "all phones having problems" is getting a bit old. The N97 was completely flawed out of the box and no amount of being a Nokia apologist will make this fact go away. The lens scratches, the broken firmware, the lack of sync compatibility with other platforms, build and quality issues, etc.... For once admit what is known and man up and agree that the N97 should not have been released. How about taking a stroll over to the Nokia forums and seeing the 100 plus pages from people who paid quite a bit of money for a defective device out of the box. Celios is 100% correct. I would recommend waiting on this device as Nokia has proven its ability to get your money and to fall short on delivering quality products.

My first reaction is just wow - the screenshots did not really do maemo 5 justice, in action it looks really fresh, modern and market leading. Looking closer, I am also seeing a lot of problems of S60 finally being solved: Multiple Calendars, an addressbook in sync with other parts of the OS like maps etc, lots of eye candy and an even better widget implementation.

As a N97 owner, there are of course mixed feelings. Software wise this just looks so much better, and finally there is enough RAM and processorpower behind it. However, as a normal phone sizewise the N97 is already at the limit for me, so I don't think I switch right away (if I can resist that is)

Btw, also much better is the close launch date - just about 6 weeks between announcement and start of sales, making it on time for the holiday season. That is way better than the 6-8 month people had to wait for the N97...

Unregistered wrote:Not in a Helsink winter thank you.

Man, would i be pissed if i had bought an N97 lol

I'm really impressed by this device which hasn't happened since N95 😊

But as the difference between N810 and N900 is so large, I can't help to wonder how their next Nxxx device will be! 😃 N900 offer a lot of new stuff, but at the same time is noticeably smaller and lighter than the N810.

So next Nxxx would be something like multi-core ARM Cortex CPU, multi-touch (if N900 doesn't have it), 8mp camera, HDMI-out, microSDXC yet smaller and lighter? That would be sweet 😃 But I guess we will know in 2011 :tongue:

Hi,

Does anyone know what about the contact & calendar software build?, I mean could I sync Symbian device with this Maemo OS ?

But, the question remains, who will buy the N97 in it's current state when the N900 could be had for only a few euros more.

Nobody.

The N97 is dead in the water.

I've been royally rolled over here!

As a current N97 owner I can't help but feel duped by the company. They had this in the bag when they launched the bug ridden, RAM constrained N97 just to catch the summer market - how that sucks!

The only saving grace is that I won't have to buy at launch and maybe they'll still put some love into the N97 before they kill it dead.

I had an N810 for a while. My main reason for selling it, as much as i liked it, was simply 3rd party software. There isn't any.

Ok, maybe that's a bit of a broad brush stroke, but i found there was nothing i couldn't do on Maemo that my E90 could already do, better. If i'd had the i8910 already, the fight would been over even quicker.

Unless there is some frantic software porting going on in the background you can expect the software catalogue to be about the same as the early Android software catalogue. There ARE some homebrew apps out there for Maemo (http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008), but they (with all respect to the people who have spend so much time creating the apps in their living rooms) are not anywhere near the polished, finished apps available for S60 from proper vendors.

Take for instance Maemo Mapper. It's the closest thing to a 'sat nav' application that Maemo has (unless, as i said, someones been busy recently). However its a colossal amount of work to get it to work. You, the user, have to find, download and install the correct raster maps. Manually create, download and then install any routes you might be using (god forbid you wish to change your route 1/2 way up to Keswick...). And generally put WAY more time into getting it work than the avarage or even power user would want to spend.

Or you just install Garmin, tomtom, Sygic, Nokia maps, Orange maps, (yes it DOES work!), Viewranger onto your S60 and just go. Because they work. No faffing about. I didn't mention Google maps for Maemo because well, it doesn't exist (and neither do any of the apps i listed above).

And the browser? Spent an hour with Maemo's default browser or the homebrew (there's that word again) webkits. You will NEVER whinge about the S60 browser again.

Email support was er, sketchy when i had the N810. NO Exchange support of any kind. There was a basic word app (anyone remember wordpad?).

Some apps are really nice. The Canola 2 Media player with all its plug ins is really a pleasure to use, as is Media Box. Also, Fring makes a version for Maemo, came in very useful on holiday in March.

But i wanted more than just a PMP, and at least at the time (sold it in April), Maemo just didn't have the software to support the OS. I hope that's changed and Nokia have got apps lined up to back up what looks like a nice piece of kit

What are you drivveling on a bout lack maps for? It clearly has Ovi Maps:

http://maemo.nokia.com/features/ovi-maps/

It'll have Ovi Store and applications are entirely over-rated anyway.

no umts 850/1900 version? hope nokia makes that an option. otherwise they will miss a certain segment of the US market.

That hasn't hurt the iPhone.

If you want a particular phone you'll just go with the network that supports it.

I'm lucky that N97 didn't released with 600MHz processor. I was kind of angry with nokia releasing Nokia N72 with 600MHz and N97 with 434MHz, and smaller memory than E72. that I decide to wait until there will be a variant of N97 with 600MHz.

and now... there is... with 600MHz processor of better CPU... the cortex A8.... with better memory 256MB / 1GB (virtual)

Thanks nokia for making my wait worth

Unregistered wrote:My big concern is the software catalog. Being a Maemo users since the 770 and a current N810 owner, I find that the software catalog for the S60 divices is far larger and more relavent (usable) to my daily life.

Ej

with nokia making symbian S60 v3 FP2 & S60v5 API compatible with Maemo if you develop them with QT, you should not worry so much about this.

Lots of Nokia developer have already start to change the SDK to the new QT, so that they could capture both Maemo market & S60 market with a single development.

Is there a fm radio in this device?

Dynite wrote:What are you drivveling on a bout lack maps for? It clearly has Ovi Maps:

http://maemo.nokia.com/features/ovi-maps/

It'll have Ovi Store and applications are entirely over-rated anyway.

maemo 5 has not been released on the N810 - one of the problems with the old nokia tablet line is that versions of maemo were not compatible.

The only commercial mapping program that i know of for the N810 is Wayfinder.

Hum I wonder what all the N97 bashers will say when it's the first divice to run Symbian ^2.

I am an early N97 adopter and have had 0-zero-no problems with the phone.

Unregistered wrote:The only commercial mapping program that i know of for the N810 is Wayfinder.

Forgot about that, thanks.

Asi said, i'm just speaking from my experience with the N810. I'm sure Nokia has better support ready for the N900.

Unregistered wrote:with nokia making symbian S60 v3 FP2 & S60v5 API compatible with Maemo if you develop them with QT, you should not worry so much about this.

Lots of Nokia developer have already start to change the SDK to the new QT, so that they could capture both Maemo market & S60 market with a single development.

maemo 5 is stll based on GTK

Unregistered wrote:maemo 5 is stll based on GTK

also peep ofono.org for an insight into the next version on the intel platform

UKJeeper wrote:I had an N810 for a while. My main reason for selling it, as much as i liked it, was simply 3rd party software. There isn't any.

Ok, maybe that's a bit of a broad brush stroke, but i found there was nothing i couldn't do on Maemo that my E90 could already do, better. If i'd had the i8910 already, the fight would been over even quicker.

Unless there is some frantic software porting going on in the background you can expect the software catalogue to be about the same as the early Android software catalogue.

Nokia did not position the earlier Maemo devices as smartphones, so the expectation was that they wouldn't sell in any kind of volume. Which they didn't.

The N900 is different to earlier model because you can make phone calls with it (witness the well-known Nokia incoming call jingle at the end of the video) and it is going to be subsidized. Both these things make it a phone, and because of the computing power it is a smartphone.

Therefore the N900 sits right in the middle of the high-end smartphone spot, competing with the iPhone, Nokia's high-end Symbian smartphones, other high-end Symbian smartphones, Android phones, the Palm Pre, WinMo, the lot. Nokia is probably the only one not saying this in public.

This will probably result in developers going to target Maemo 5, as there is a good change this will become a popular platform.

First problem is of course it is yet another platform, and changes are it will harm Nokia's Symbian business and other device manufacturers Symbian businesses most, as it will be seen as an abandonement of Symbian. Nokia not wanting to see the N900 as a smartphone has it's reasons, unfortunately nobody is going to fall for it.

Second problem, there is no C++ Qt user interface, but the C-based GTK/Hildon interface. Qt being Nokias' future ui framework, this means that developers will have to rewrite their apps in two years time if Qt will be put on Maemo around the time the first Symbian ^4 devices with Orbit become available. That's a lot of porting to be done.

Unregistered wrote:maemo 5 has not been released on the N810 - one of the problems with the old nokia tablet line is that versions of maemo were not compatible.

The only commercial mapping program that i know of for the N810 is Wayfinder.

Hum I wonder what all the N97 bashers will say when it's the first divice to run Symbian ^2.

I am an early N97 adopter and have had 0-zero-no problems with the phone.

The N97 bashers will say:

"My God, they've managed to make Symbian ^2 run even SLOWER than s60 on the n97"

It takes serious talent, commitment and time to make NEWER software run faster on older hardware as new flashy features require more CPU. By the time Symbian ^2 is released, we could be up to double the CPU of n97 for all new handsets. Why would Symbian ^2 take the extra time,effort and resources to make it run faster on ONE PHONE nokia made a huge mistake on.

Nokia wake up!! There are already hundreds of second hand N97s on the market which means plenty of disillusioned customers and a sure sign that this form factor is a non starter. Why inflict it on your iphone basher?.....

I'll wait for the clamshell version E900 instead 😉

Brighthand reports, after a conversation with a Nokia representative, that the N900 does not have phone capabilities.

Can someone confirm this?

hduty wrote:Brighthand reports, after a conversation with a Nokia representative, that the N900 does not have phone capabilities.

Can someone confirm this?

That's a plain lie.

With Linux software, Mozilla-based browser technology and now also with cellular connectivity, the Nokia N900 delivers a powerful mobile experience," says Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Markets, Nokia.

-sc