Over a month behind schedule but finally shipping!
Slashgear are due to receive one in the UK so i’ll be interested to see news about app. enhancements and any progress on battery life that could turn this into a true all-day MID.
P.S. Those with test N900s should get firmware updates soon. My N900 is still in the smartphone hospital with a broken screen.
Update: Here’s a video from Slashgear that shows the enhancements.
I want to update you all on the devices I’ve been testing recently. It’s a super range of advanced devices that represent the best in the smartphone, MID and UMPC market. All four are advanced, fun and productive mobile devices.
Possibly the most advanced device of the four is the N900. It runs one of the newest and most powerful ARM-based platforms out there with one of the newest mobile operating systems. From what I’ve seen, the Maemo teams have done a great job in preparing an operating system for today’s web-focused user. Nokia have also done a a great job in tying it together with some amazing hardware. Camera, keyboard, screen, GPS, accelerometer, FM TX/RX, consumer IR, keyboard, speakers, Wifi, BT, 3G, voice along with strong quality materials and an attractive, if slightly understand, design.
Users considering the N900 need to consider the following important points.
Unfortunately the backlight has stopped working on my test device now but I’ve managed to get together enough material and make enough notes that I can answer most of your questions on it now. Don’t forget to check out my previous articles and videos on it before you fire-away with queries though.
The global roll-out of the Omnia Pro B7610, a WVGA slider smartphone running on Windows Mobile 6.1 with an 800Mhz ARM11 CPU has been a very staggered, uncoordinated affair, typical of the way Samsung works independently in its different regions. The only reason I’ve got it is because it was one of the best sliders available when I decided it was time to start watching the high-end smartphone sector very closely. The HTC Touch Pro2 was available but as the Omnia Pro was new in the market (I’m still one of the only people to have written detailed English-language posts on it) so I went for it. Despite talk of the Droid, the HD2 and the N900, It’s still one of the best WVGA sliders available right now and with a recent price drop, represents excellent value but it’s disappointing that the Windows Phone upgrade has delayed the launch in most areas. I’m actually waiting for the Windows Phone upgrade before I do my full review on it but I can tell you that the screen is stunning, the keyboards (hard and soft) are great, the camera and camera software is amazing (i’ve tested it in detail against my current camera favorite, the Nokia N82) and Samsung have done a great job with the Touch-Wiz software. It extends wide and deep into Windows Mobile and is not just a user interface, it’s a subsystem and front-end application suite too. As a day-to-day phone (rather than MID) the Omnia Pro is actually better than the N900. It has longer battery life, is cheaper, has nearly all the end-user features of the N900, has more software and the correct focus on voice calling for most people. It is much slower all round and the browser quality is a big step down from the class-leading one you’ll find on the N900 but for 390 Euros (lowest current price in Europe) it is better value than the N900 for most people.
I’ve been focusing heavily on the Omnia Pro in a side project called ‘MyOmniaPro‘ If the B7610 slider interests you, there’s no better resource than the one I’ve created over there!
The Viliv S7 has been an extremely hard device to review. My wife is simply in love with it and has even nicknamed it ‘Willy’ (That’s Villy in her German accent!) The result is that I can’t prise it out of her hands for long enough to be able to write about it. Fortunately, Ben, the co-editor here at UMPCPortal, did an excellent full review for our friends at Pocketables.net and has covered everything I could have ever said about it. I will be writing up an article which focuses on the unique features of the S7 (power/weight/battery life ratio, 3G, convertible touchscreen) but for the time being, take it from me that the Viliv is a solid device, has amazing battery life, great return-from-standby speeds, reaches the usual build-quality standard that we’ve come to expect from Viliv and is a lot of fun to use. Out of the box it’s a much faster device than the U820 and I’d argue that it’s more productive than the Sony Vaio P-Series. Viliv needs to know that the white finish isn’t getting many fans from the male-sector of our readership and as that makes up the most of our readership, maybe they should think about toughening up the looks a bit. The white-leather case just makes the matter worse!
One last note on the S7: Speaker quality and volume…WOW!
If there’s one device that’s proven to me recently that there IS a market out there for dedicated MIDs and that my 3.5 year-old Carrypad idea still has legs, it’s the Archos 5 IT. It also highlights something else that I believe and that’s that ARM-based devices will have the upper-hand in the MID market during 2009. That will carry through until Moorestown finds its feet in late 2010.
Combining a great browsing experience, high-quality YouTube experience, one of my favorite mobile Twitter applications (Twidroid,) good media playback, 32GB storage, WiFi and Bluetooth on an interesting mobile operating system with some interesting applications it shows how the ARM platform has really come of age in the ‘full web experience’ market.
I wouldn’t recommend this as a pro or business-level product to anyone but for those looking for social and entertainment activities at home, in the car, on holiday and in the coffee-shop, I don’t think there’s a better device out there. Only gaming is missing from the line-up of web, music, video, navigation (could do better) and social internet capabilities. At 230 Euros for the 8GB version with Wifi and Bluetooth it sets a new pricing level for MIDs and I’m excited to see what follows. The Dell Streak certainly looks like it could be a better device (keyboard, camera) but the price is still unknown.
When you read about the Motorola Droid/Milestone and the great web experience on that, remember that the Archos is faster and more comfortable due to its bigger screen. It also plays YouTube videos like no other device in the smartphone, MID, netbook or even low-end laptop category. I haven’t bought the TV docking station for this but I’m very close. The DVB-T adaptor is on my list too.
Not a converged, voice-capable or 100% stable device but if you’re into mobile gadgets, this is probably the best Christmas present you could give yourself this year. Go for a low-end SSD version and drop a 16GB Micro-SDHC card in for the best value.
Coming up soon.
We’re looking at the Eking S515 (review unit secured. arrival in the next week), the Viliv S10 (review unit probable. Timescale unknown), Wits A81 (we’re 50:50 on this one as we need to buy it to review it), UMID M2 (need to chase a few people about that one) and Evi Group Pad (contact made. Review unit likely at end of November) and praying for the Dell Streak to just turn up at the door here! We’re also working on the HTC HD2, Motorola Milestone and KAX-15 and as always, waiting for a iPod Plus.
Finally, after years of waiting and wishing, I can finally say that there are smartphones on the market that offer fast, high quality internet experiences and offer the web-focused user a converged product on which they can do tasks that, until now, required a true mobile computer. In this article I take a look at 6 of the best.
I’ll be back to work on Wednesday but until then I’m taking a break with my family over in sunny (really!) England. Thanks to Three UK I’ve got 3G connectivity both on the smartphone and via my Mifi and it has given me the ability to really test the Nokia N900 [info] and Archos 5 Internet Tablet [info] in real-world mobile and home scenarios that have ranged from a night out with the lads to car-navigation, photography, Skype, sofa and bed-surfing, presence and day-to-day email and website management duties.
The Unwired View have just published Part 2 of their ongoing N900 coverage which covers 6 ‘things I hate’ about the N900. I agree with most of those points and want to re-iterate the issues of portrait mode and navigation again here in my own list of the 6 things I don’t like about the N900.
Portrait Mode
Thank goodness this is just a software issue because I’m quickly starting to struggle with the two-handed nature of the device. The phone and image viewer applications are working in portrait mode but the feature is missing from every other part of the software. A 2-handed phone restricts mobility and I won’t be able to use this as my one-and-only if it’s not fixed soon. [Solution expect in December firmware release]
Navigation
Again, a software issue that should be fixed soon. There’s no true turn-by-turn navigation software on the N900. The map application is good, provides a moving map and routing. It also searches quickly but it needs an internet connection. With no Google Maps application available for Maemo yet, mapping and navigation on the N900 is currently a step down from other phone-based solutions I’ve tried.
Battery Life
Battery life on the N900 is good…if you use the N900 like a smartphone. The problem is that the N900 is so quick, so feature-rich and so good at multitasking that the usage model changes. It’s a portable computer with a smartphone battery and this could become an issue for many. If you are a power-user, buy a spare battery or, better still, a portable USB charger.
APN configuration. (3G-based Internet Access)
The network configuration tool only permits one APN to be configured. On my home network I use 4 different access points for different situations. It’s annoying to have to tweak the configuration each time. In addition, I’m finding that the proxy settings aren’t picked up by some applications and that there is no way to allocate an APN on a per-applications basis. Series 60 can get very awkward but the per-application network configuration is one aspect I’ve grown to appreciate.
Milky, plastic, shiny, dirty resistive touchscreen.
I’m reaching the end of my patience with resistive touchscreens now. Sitting at a bus-stop today I was checking emails through a shiny, milky, finger-printed mess of an experience. Dropping the N900 into my pocket makes me worry about scratches too. A glass-covered capacitive screen is the only way forward for a 24/7 device. Especially an expensive one.
No reflow on web-page zoom. *FIXED*
A 3.5” WVGA screen is not an optimal combination for web browsing. I understand that it’s an important design consideration for a pocketable device but it means you have to zoom in a couple of points before you can read the text. Fortunately the N900 zooms quickly via one of three methods. The problem is that if you zoom into a line of text, that text doesn’t wrap into the screen size. Opera 9.5 and the Android browser do this very well and it means you don’t have to worry about side-to-side scrolling when reading text. On the N900 you are left scrolling left and right to read text. Awkward and annoying. Hopefully this problem will be solved with the introductions of Fennec. Per-page zoom-level memory would be a nice feature to add too.
Great news on this issue. Pete comments below that by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-i you can turn on page reflow. I’ve tested it and it works for any zoom level. Thanks Pete!
The battery life and plastic touchscreen issues are the only two issues that worry me about the N900 and given the huge number of advantages and knowing how difficult is to design powerful technology around a small battery I’m happy to accept the battery life issues but when on-the-go that resistive touchscreen is a reminder that not everything is perfect on the N900.
Anyone else worried about the touchscreen or is it just me?
Thanks to the 850 people that dropped in to the session last night. We ran for about 4 hours and in that time you racked up 940 hours of viewing. That’s a lot of attention so clearly we’re getting something right with the live reviews.
The first thing to note from last nigh’ts N900 session is that there we didn’t find any show stoppers. Sizing is clearly an issue for some but within the bounds of the size of the device, Nokia have done an incredible job and married it with a software stack that is fit for the next-generation of ‘computing-first’ handhelds for both the geek and consumer community. Pricing appears to be acceptable to our target audience too. Over 85% of those voting in a poll during the session said it was value for money based on street prices we’re seeing of 500-550 Euros. In Germany the N900 is already free from some third-party resellers with high-end contracts.
Is it the most powerful, advanced and open smartphone on the market or is it just a geek toy? Is it the best in convergence or does it cut corners and try to be too many things at once? Is it a device for you, the ultra mobile computing enthusiast?
As the Meamo summit continues this weekend it’s becoming clear that the N900 is part of a research and marketing program that is carefully targeting itself towards a landing-point for the next generation of high-end Nokia phones, operating system, applications and services. The N900 is not really targeted at the consumer and in terms of software, is a long way from being complete. The hardware contained inside is leading-edge and expensive and won’t allow Nokia to compete at the right price level either. Nokia freely admit that software isn’t complete too. An application is needed for the FM radio and consumer infra red ports, there’s no system-wide portrait-mode support and that it needs apps. Lots of them.
The N900 is a technology showcase designed to stimulate a wide range of development activity that can be used to refine the products that will appear with the next, final, phase of Maemo. The real consumer-focused products.
It’s a brave plan that requires considerable investment by Nokia. It risks damaging the N-series brand and even the reputation of Maemo. The feedback and statistics may be from the wrong demographic and being an open project it allows others to watch and learn too.
Nokia appears to believe in this open concept though and by bringing such an advanced device to the market are offering developers a huge opportunity to get involved at a very early stage with the platform that could be driving a large percentage of the next-generation of converged pocketable devices.
Nokia understands what is happening to the market and how apps and services are quickly changing the economics. It needs to create products that are point-of-sale devices for Ovi and carrier services and by carefully monitoring what’s hot and what’s not in the Maemo and N900 program Nokia can refine the way Ovi is developed and marketed. Will users be asking for live user-user chat on the Ovi Maps application or will they just be asking for Pizza? How many apps reach the N900 from the three available channels and which channels (free on-device, web-promoted or the controlled and monetised Ovi store) are more popular with certain user types? Will anyone even bother to write that FM radio application? What percentage of downloads are for ebook reading software? Is gaming popular? Is the phone used 24/7? etc. etc. All these statistics, and thousands more, will help to refine the product range, the user interface, the services and products offered by Nokia, the carriers and their partners and of course, Ovi.
The N900 is a catalyst and it just so happens that it’s good, is going to get better and is available to all of us who enjoy the ultra mobile computing experience. It’s another great option and as a converged, pocketable, voice-capable device, the best I’ve ever used. It’s a great catalyst!
Announcement: N900 LIVE videocast with JKK and myself is planned for Monday evening at about 2000hrs CEST (central europe.) We’ll be going over the N900 on video, demonstrating some features and answering questions in the accompanying chat channel. Join us at UMPCPortal.com/live on Monday. Check back to UMPCPortal for the final timings.
The N900 is a real power-house. An open power-house. Not only is the browsing speed improved greatly over the previous generation of devices (to bring it up to class-leading speeds) the video payback performance is great too. I see missing support for H.264 at the moment but as this is not a final production build, those codecs may not be included yet. I tested a 720×400 4Mbps DivX video today though and it worked perfectly. The quality is the playback on the screen and through the analogue TV-out (PAL, composite) was really impressive. This little baby needs a digital output. My VGA-quality video doesn’t help either!
NOTE: The Live session on Monday evening (approx 2000hrs Central Europe Time) will go more deeply into video playback. Join us for live video with overview, comparison and Q&A.
I’ve just posted 71 images of the Nokia N900 in the Gallery here. They include comparison shots with the N810, N82, Archos Internet Tablet, Viliv S5, Omnia Pro and other mobile devices.
This is amazing. 300 developers have just been given a Nokia N900 (pre-final production version) for a 6 months loan. I’ve never seen so many happy kids!
I recorded my unboxing for fun and it’s embedded below but the most important announcement is that I’ll be running another live session on Monday. Hopefully JKK will join and we can talk about the N900 and it’s competitors.
Stay tuned for final information about the live session.
The Maemo Summit starts tomorrow but I was lucky enough to get an early look at the N900 this evening, to watch a presentation from Nokia and to ask some questions about the N900 and Maemo.
The 3-day event is all about inspiring and helping developers to build applications for Maemo 5 and preparing them for the transition to Maemo 6 in 2010. The N900 is the hardware stimulus in this plan and it will be used to tease-out and test the best of creative software ideas. It’s a carrier that will take Nokia into the final stage of their plan for a consumer-focused high-end mobile operating system. If Nokia can build the community and the software now, it helps them in the final stage of their project.
I’ll write more about Maemo during and after the event but for now I want to give you my thoughts on this powerhouse of a smartphone. I had about an hour to play around with the OS, browser the web, take pictures, videos and explore the UI. An hour is a very short amount of time but I certainly have a few things to say about it.
Personally I have reservations about the convergent nature of this device. Not only is it introducing compromises like a screen that needs to be zoomed when in the web browser but it’s a chunky little fella too. Almost exactly the same weight and size as my Omnia Pro that I still have problems to carry around in my pocket on a 24/7 basis. There’s also the confusion that it brings. This is a Nokia smartphone. It looks like a smartphone and acts like one but the average consumer (and even a few tech journalists) can’t understand what it’s bringing to the party. Why is it so expensive and why Maemo on a smartphone? If this is stage 4 of Nokia’s 5-stage project then why introduce that risk and confusion? The answer probably lies in the fact that this phone will be the template for future converged devices from Nokia and developers need to start thinking in terms of a 24/7 high-end smartphone and not a tablet that is carried as a second device.
The build quality of the N900 was typical Nokia. Good materials and construction all round but the all-black finish doesn’t leave much room for any styling. It’s a huge fingerprint magnet too! Keyboard mechanics are fine and although the keys are very small, they have a nice raised top to them. Back-lit too. It feels slightly different to the Omnia Pro I have but like the Omnia Pro, won’t disappoint anyone to the point where it becomes a show-stopper. The keyboard is not in the same class as the HTC Touch Pro2 in my opinion. The three-row layout does slow down the use of some characters but not as much as I thought it would.
Omnia Pro B7610 and Nokia N900
As for the UI, it’s swift and smooth all the way through. The Maemo teams have done an excellent job here. Not only is the UI smooth but it’s intuitive. At least for me. Browsing speeds were excellent over the local Wi-Fi with flash and JavaScript-heavy pages being handled well. Google Reader, one my personal benchmarks, was slower to display than on the Archos 5 though and this is probably due to not having the latest JavaScript engine. I noted that the browser wasn’t Fennec.
I saw a few video playback demos and some embedded YouTube but right now I’m probably not the right person to comment on them. I’ve had the luxury of 720p and HD YouTube on the Archos Tablet over the last 5 days so I wasn’t that impressed. I’ve seen similar local video playback quality on my Omnia Pro too so perhaps Nokia need to get some better demo videos together. As for video recording I saw a huge improvement over my VGA Nokia N82. At 800×480 the aspect is wide and the content is smooth. I can’t really comment on the images I took in the restaurant. They seemed to be on par with the Omnia Pro (dual-LED) but of course, in that scenario, the Xenon flash of the N82 always wins. At least it has a good lens cover. More image testing is needed to see how it matches up to the N82 but I did find out that the camera is not the same as the one you’ll find on the excellent and highly light-sensitive N86.
A quick audio test revealed the speakers to be sharper than my Nokia N82. If you like to hear a lot of treble and no bass, this is perfect for you! Actually, the built-in EQ will probably be able to fix that (I’m assuming it has one) and it will be fine for YouTube, podcasts, radio etc. Oh, on the radio front, the N900 does have an FM radio as well as the transmitter. The only reason it’s not advertised is because no-one has written the software for it yet!
There were no 3rd party apps on the N900 that I tested this evening so that’s pretty much where I finished and where the Maemo Summit starts. The platform is great, will interest developers and creative mobile types but without that software there just won’t be enough to get excited about for the average iPhone-aware consumer. Nokia needs to work hard this weekend to seed a burst of development, to keep that momentum going for 6 months and then to work on the task of moving developers, both private and commercial, over to Maemo 6 where again, there needs to be a new device to start the cycle again. Which makes me think about other Maemo devices for 2009 and 2010. I don’t think it will happen. The community needs to be focused onto the N900 and Nokia needs to work on hardware for Maemo 6.
I’ll be reporting from the Maemo summit over the weekend. Stay tuned here and keep an eye on that middle column for pics and videos that might not get posted as articles until later.
Nokia are leading into the Maemo Summit with a fresh marketing push this week. I’ve already heard that there’s a press event tommorow evening and at the same time I see that they have released a very impressive video showing details on the browsing performance of the Nokia N900.
10 seconds to load (almost – note the page is still loading on the video) hothardware.com with all script and flash content isn’t bad at all. In fact an average 10 second load time is what I would regard as acceptable not only for consumers but for mobile proffesionals too. But what about the 3.5″ screen? You’ll need to zoom in a step to start reading the content and thus lose screen the screen real estate Nokia talks about in the video. On the other hand, the built in keyboard saves a lot of screen space when typing charachters. It’s a very tough design choice that i’ll be talking with Nokia about over the next four days.
Anyway, on to the video. Enjoy.
Via Engadget. Source: Nokia Conversations.
It looks like review samples of the N900 aren’t going to be sent out in the next few days so I guess my first hands-on will be at the Maemo Summit with 400 other Maemo fan this weekend. I travel up on Thursday and will be attending the three days to learn as much as I can about the developer ecosystem and what drives the developers. I’ll be live-blogging the opening keynote, getting some videos done of the N900, interviewing guests, trying to find out what apps we can expect and bringing you anything else interesting that I can find. Here are a couple of extracts from sessions being held:
Follow me here on the UMPCPortal front page in the articles and the middle column (for tweets, news items, photos and videos as they are posted.)
Early indications were that the Nokia N900 would be in peoples hands at the beginning of October but according to Nokia.de and Amazon.co.uk, the availability date has slipped out to the end of October with Nokia.de predicting the 30th and Amazon.co.uk the 26th.
Regarding prices, in Germany the street prices are settling at a low of about 520 Euro. In the UK, where sales tax is less, the prices are closing in on the 500 Euro mark.
Regardless of consumer availability, it’s likely that we’ll get a full hands-on at the Maemo summit which kicks off in just over a week. Any readers here heading up to Amsterdam? If so, drop a note in the comments.
Michal Jerz is clearly happy with the Nokia N900 he’s testing and yet I still remain somewhat unconvinced as I read through this detailed article. Maybe the N900 really is this good with web page zooming – “No reloading, refreshing, waiting for the new part to render” and a “BEAUTIFUL user interface.” but maybe, coming from the Smartphone world, Michal hasn’t got the benefit of experience on a 4.8” screen running a fast SSD, Atom 1.3ghz and Firefox.
Clearly the N900 is going to be a fast and smooth web-focused device and I dare say it will blow away my own Omnia Pro smartphone which is quite limited in the ARM11-powered, Opera 9.5 browsing department but there are still questions. Despite what Michal says, its a fat smartphone and, exactly like my Omnia Pro, is neither the perfect size for 24/7 pocket use or the perfect size for mobile web activity. Just like the N810, you’ll find yourself having to zoom in on full page web just to read the text. Michal doesn’t mention battery life either.
At 600 Euros for a new platform it seems a little expensive and a slightly risky investment for the average user, especially with the 32GB Archos Android Internet Tablet out there on the same Ti OMAP 3 platform (wifi only) for half the price, but for mobile web-focused and convergence fans it remains a top choice.
My-Symbian. Full N900 Preview. (Via Maemo Talk)
Nokia N900 information and links.
UMPCPortal will be at the Maemo summit on the 9th-11th of October.
Update: Great marketing trick from Amazon.de The price is back up to 599 Euros today. (18.09.09)
Somewhat earlier than expected, the price of the Nokia N900 has dropped. At Amazon.de (Germany) you can now pre-order the device for 558 Euros.
It’s still expensive but I think the price drop indicates that we could be looking at 499 or maybe even 450 Euros by the end of the year, especially if Archos and friends keep turning the screws.
Nokia N900 specifications and information
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What a stroke of luck. JKK was checking out the Nokia N900 information page in his homeland yesterday and spotted that it would be available to view in the flagship store from today. He’s now got a hands-on video (shown below) and we’ve rounded up his thoughts in a podcast, also embedded below.
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