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.

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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?

Tnkgrl got see see the Nokia Booklet 3G [Portal page] up close and personal today at a preview in San Francisco. A hands on video and a nice set of images are yours to consume if you are interested in the Nokia Booklet 3G.

Head over to the original post at tnkgrl.com to see what she does and doesn’t like about the NB3G.

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.

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One of the key focal-points of the N900, and one it does better than any other smartphone I’ve seen to date, is the browsing experience. Fast, reliable and supporting a full flash plugin on an 800×480 screen with finger-focused controls it tries to do what desktops do, in a fraction of the size.

Like other small-screen browsers it has the same screen real-estate issues where pixels don’t help. Fingers cover large areas of the screen when browsing. Top and bottom toolbars hide 30% of the content area and standard web fonts require a zoom to read and reduce the size of the effective window even further. Until we get to the stage where expandable screens become thin, cheap and reliable enough to design into a pocketable device, the issue will remain.

Given the constraints, Nokia, the Maemo teams and partners have done a good job. It will get better too as Fennec becomes available next year and includes features like slide-in/out toolbars, synchronization features and plugin support and then, in 2010, better again when Flash 10.1 is introduced and enables 3D and video playback improvements.

Here’s the situation today though. In the video you’ll see standard web sites, flash, javascript and embedded video working well.

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.

FULL GALLERY HERE

I’m a big fan of Weave, Mozilla’s sync technology and i”m interested in Firefox too. Putting the two together in a mobile device is just mobile web heaven!

Mozilla are here at the Maemo summit and are presenting information on Fennec, the weave, plugin and awesome bar-enabled mobile browser. Click the images for larger versions.

The awesome bar helps reduce typing once it’s populated with history and search results. Weave adds instant-history to that.

Pull-in side-bars keep screen space used for the web page.

tabbed browsing and memory management along with image icons help use multiple pages simultaneously.

One of the biggest features of Firefox – add-ons. Add-ons will be supported and Mozilla are working on improved memory management and security in this area.

Weave. Ties together configuration and history from desktop and mobile PCs

Beta 4 is out already (and will be in the Maemo ‘Extras’ area on the N900 very soon.

Full version will be available before the end of the year for Maemo 5.

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.

Following on from the Maemo 5 is the first consumer-ready version of the OS. Maemo 6. Nokia have, for the first time, given some details about the capabilities of the devices and the core software.  Timescales also given.

Many core elements remain the same.

Multitouch support on capacitive displays

DRM-ready OS.

Developers will be supported (of course!)

Timescales are developer focused

Nokia believes in the canvas principle. The screen is a window on the whole desktop. Panning!

Support for portrait and landscape will be there. Currently there is no portrait mode support in Maemo 5

No other details released at this stage.

I’m in and seated at the opening session of Maemo Summit 2009. There are 400 people behind me just desperate to get hands on with the N900 and to find out more about Maemo. What a great buzz!

0945:

Peter Schneider. Head of Maemo Marketing will open in a few mins and then introduce Ari Jaaksi, VP of Maemo Devices for the opening keynote at about 10:30 (+30 mins) I don’t plan to live blog everything but you’ll get the  important announcements here. (While you’re waiting you can read yesterday’s post about the N900 and Maemo)

It’s go! Video intro. Happy devs clapping!

Wow. At least 30% of the audience here have N900’s in a show of hands. That’s a lot of devices!

All presentations are being video recorded.

10:10 Ari Jaaksi now on stage

Ari going through a little history. ‘I’ve been working with Maemo before it was cool.’

10:15

Maemo since spring 2005. Since 770 was launched. ‘A goofy project internally’ Ari references the Archos tablet I showed him yesterday and said that the expression ‘Internet Tablet’ is not used anymore! [Cry!]

N900 project name was ‘Rover’ – ‘A Crappy British Car’  (Any Rover V8 fans out there?)

Ari shows a white 770 that didn’t reach the market.

‘Geeky’ he sais.

Ari: Size becoming a more important issue, especially when 3G is involved. Maemo 5 UI evolution slide…

10:25 ‘The calendar UI looks like the engine of an Alfa Romeo.’

Does he mean beautiful but troublesome?

Ari: ‘The best email device I’ve ever used’

On power management:

No longer an OS-level issue. It’s an app issue too.

10:35:

Getting devices out is a ‘staggeringly difficult job’ Community, Maemo.org and Internal teams working in synchronization. 80% of code comes from open source communities. Ari says that it would not be possible without that.

Nokia were surprised at the response to the N900 from the wider community.

Ari accepts that there are things to do…

Portrait Browsing will be an upgrade before end of year.

Multitouch – ‘We need to work on that. ‘ In this hardware they can’t do it.

Ari invites everyone to ‘be opinionated’ on Maemo.org

Annouced: Pre-production version is reserved for each person here today. 6 months loan. BIG claps! Looks like we won’t get the devices until after the event.

Ari finished. Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation now on stage.

Jim’s’ favorite Linux use case:  (Slide of the SNES emulator on N900)

Talking about the economy. Says it’s good for Linux.

Second trend: Helping: Convergence.

Slide set about convergence…

‘Its all coming together’

My opinion: Physical issues won’t go away. (Most) people will buy multiple devices, not totally converged devices.

Jim is talking about the economic model which starts with MIDs, Netbooks and Nettops.

Jim: App stores will change the way the PC industry works and that is why Linux is going to win. Why…people can create their own app store. No licensing needed. More flexibility. [I totally agree with this]

Trend Three: We’re moving to making money from services and not software sales or hardware sales.

My opinion: There’s going to be a psychological problem with multiple (tens of) recurring payments to service providers. Carriers need to wrap these up in nice packages to hide the worry from end-users.

Jim: We need to prevent Linux fragmentation. Devs need to send code back upstream.

Jim also talks about the LSB (Linux Standard Base) and the need for standardization.

Challenge: Legal Issues. Jim encourages people to check the resources available:

Testing needed. Test, test, test! Jim highlights again the need to pass code upstream.

Finally: “We can be free and fabulous. Lets teach Steve Jobs a lesson….”

Jim wrapping up now and that concludes this post. More later and lots more when I get my N900. Live session will be set up as soon as I have the device. See you on umpcportal.com/live soon!

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.

More Nokia N900 information here.

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:

Maemo 5 and the Nokia N900

• Presenter: Ari Jaaksi, VP Maemo Devices, Nokia

• Abstract: Maemo 5 is a major milestone of the evolution of Maemo. Maemo 5 delivers computer experiences to pocket-sized devices. It is about six weeks ago that the Nokia N900 was launched and it is time to take a look where we are now with the N900. For newcomers in the community, Ari will summarize the evolution of Maemo. He will tell how we built the N900, together with the community, giving insight to what happened behind the scenes in the last 18 months. Ari will outline on what we focused on when we redesigned the user experience from Maemo 4 to Maemo 5.

Changing PC & Mobile Landscape; Why Linux will play a Critical Role

• Presenter: Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation

• Abstract: Jim Zemlin will discuss how the PC and mobile market are merging and how Linux is ideally suited for the new range of devices that are coming to a converged world.

In addition he will speak about how the PC and mobile device industry is switching towards a service economy and how utilizing open source allows organizations to reap profits in a range of services. Finally, he will address the kind of user experiences that Linux is ideal for enabling. He will cover the need for social networking API’s to be mapped out by the community on a region by region basis in order to enable a better web experience on Linux devices and how the web can be integrated into a native UI with Linux and provide an entirely new take on how we define the PC.

Nokia Nseries Devices on Maemo

• Presenter: Jose-Luis Martinez Merino, VP, Marketing, Nokia

• Abstract: Jose-Luis will explain which role Maemo-based Nseries devices play in Nokia’s portfolio.

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.

More Nokia N900 information here.

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.