Nokia N900

Christo · 9 Jan 2010 at 16:56

Kitchster_uk said:
Battery and MMS I agree with but as discussed through this thread, phones like this eat battery so unlikely that will improve massively. MMS support would be nice I admit.

Not had any real speed issues, occsional lag at typing of a few words that catches up in a second or two. Portrait mode - meh, suppose it would be nice. Camera is fine for me but night shots could improve. Overall, you could wait forever for Nokia to pull their fingers out but it is the most rounded device they offer and the best competition for the iphone and nexus.

Sorry the N900 as it is just isnt a competitor to the iphone. Its a geeks phone, yes its great but simply isnt the finished product yet. It does suffer from slowdowns, crashed browser little bugs, the camera on the iphone is actually better due to the software issues (video frame dropouts) etc. This phone has real potential, but it simply isnt a mass market phone yet. Portrait is a massive issue for the average phone user would be so handy for sms/surfing in the move.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 10 Jan 2010 at 05:55

sweet

Bevysters · 10 Jan 2010 at 11:38

VortexA1 · 10 Jan 2010 at 14:26

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
sweet

Did you find it straight-forward to run Doom on the N900? Once you save the files on the phone is it a simple process after that and also how many levels do you get? It is sweet it's on there.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 11 Jan 2010 at 00:16

VortexA1 said:
Did you find it straight-forward to run Doom on the N900? Once you gave the files on the phone is it a simple process after that? Also how many levels do you get? It is sweet it's on there.

dunno how many levels there is, its a bit of a fiddle to get the keys setup, most are done, but there's some that you'll want to switch. There's an ingame menu for it though, so its not that bad.

As far as I can see it just uses the WAD files your used to so I'd imagine that there's no porting of the levels required.

VortexA1 · 11 Jan 2010 at 05:02

ok thank you for the info.
So what do you - and others think of your n900 then? loving it so far????

arctine · 11 Jan 2010 at 10:19

VortexA1 said:
ok thank you for the info.
So what do you - and others think of your n900 then? loving it so far????

I was a bit wary at first but then after getting used to the phone and understanding how everything works, it is simply remarkable. I've gone from an N95 to this phone and can't believe how good it is. The only fault i could pick with the phone washe lack of official apps at this moment, such as MSN and BBC iPlayer, etc. Since though, i've found it doesn't matter. There are tons of apps available through the phone's integrated catalogue, all accessed through the click of a button. Anyone interested in using the phone for MSN:
http://nokia-n900.com/the-popular-amsn-comes-to-nokia-n900/

This is the best mobile MSN i've seen.

Kitchster_uk · 11 Jan 2010 at 11:17

Love the device, it does an awesome amount of stuff and really isn't limited by apps as there are a large amount out in repositories and it can also do most stuff through the browser - facebook for example doesn't do mobile or touch or whatever, it is the full site. Games are good, the general usability is also excellent but, as with most powerful mobile devices, the battery lets it down.

rsatd · 11 Jan 2010 at 11:46

Kitchster_uk said:
the battery lets it down.

The question you got to ask is, how much better it would have been if it did not have a phone chip in it?

arctine · 11 Jan 2010 at 11:46

The battery isn't even bad though, it'll last me a full day, which for me is 6am - 11pm most nights. I charge it at night and still haven't had any warnings saying the battery is low. I suppose it depends how much you use the web, etc.

Christo · 11 Jan 2010 at 14:36

V minor firmware update guys..

rsatd said:
The question you got to ask is, how much better it would have been if it did not have a phone chip in it?

Just disable the GSM if you dont like that functionality, how can extra functionality be a bad thing?

arctine said:
Anyone interested in using the phone for MSN:
http://nokia-n900.com/the-popular-amsn-comes-to-nokia-n900/

This is the best mobile MSN i've seen.

Install Haze or butterfly, it integrated MSN, AIM, yahoo etc directly into the existing chat/conversation function (like Skype/gchat is at the moment). You shouldnt even need aMSN then.

rsatd · 11 Jan 2010 at 15:14

Christo said:
Just disable the GSM if you dont like that functionality, how can extra functionality be a bad thing?

Because it adds weight, draws power, another component that can go wrong and potentially kill something else. But really I was just pointing towards battery life rather then the whole device.

Christo · 11 Jan 2010 at 15:22

rsatd said:
Because it adds weight, draws power, another component that can go wrong and potentially kill something else. But really I was just pointing towards battery life rather then the whole device.

weight!? 0.1g

Yeah I understand but this is now a phone and battery life is important..

----

firmware update is v minor but has improved things. The browser is snappier, smoother - its even better now.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 11 Jan 2010 at 15:26

fMMS app is available in Extras-Devel now for anyone that wants to test it.

rsatd said:
Because it adds weight, draws power, another component that can go wrong and potentially kill something else. But really I was just pointing towards battery life rather then the whole device.

Why would you want to remove the phone capabilities? A lot of people wouldn't have bought it if it was only a small internet tablet like device.

arctine · 11 Jan 2010 at 15:32

Christo said:
V minor firmware update guys..

Just disable the GSM if you dont like that functionality, how can extra functionality be a bad thing?

Install Haze or butterfly, it integrated MSN, AIM, yahoo etc directly into the existing chat/conversation function (like Skype/gchat is at the moment). You shouldnt even need aMSN then.

I did yeah, it's nice enough that way but personally i prefer aMSN with its fancy UI and features.

Just waiting for the N64 emu too!

rsatd · 11 Jan 2010 at 15:37

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Why would you want to remove the phone capabilities? A lot of people wouldn't have bought it if it was only a small internet tablet like device.

It would have been cheaper and I would have bought one

.

Honestly I am not even that keen on the thing any more, only place where you "need" gsm/3g connection to "be connected", is UK and when I am in UK, I am home. Other "less well off" countries have managed to grasp how to provide a decent, working and free public wifi in remote mountain villages and not like you are going to use data while roaming abroad with their £10 per mb.

Christo · 11 Jan 2010 at 15:54

rsatd said:
It would have been cheaper and I would have bought one .

Honestly I am not even that keen on the thing any more, only place where you "need" gsm/3g connection to "be connected", is UK and when I am in UK, I am home. Other "less well off" countries have managed to grasp how to provide a decent, working and free public wifi in remote mountain villages and not like you are going to use data while roaming abroad with their £10 per mb.

If you are going to stay abroad for a bit just buy a local sim card.. So you dont listen to music, surf the internet, check emails on your commute/out and about? If you dont, then yes I agree this isnt useful for you, stick with the N810, yo are missing out on the better OS/speedier device though.

rsatd · 11 Jan 2010 at 16:06

Christo said:
So you dont listen to music, surf the internet, check emails on your commute/out and about?

Don't need much cpu power to listen to music though, and yes, I am not popular enough to recieve emails that often that I need to be permanently connected, discounting a mountain of spam

.

And hey, what you need the "power" for? While I was on holiday, worked out how to get video playback from the device without sound ending up late or re-encoding the videos. So really the only improvement of 900 (outside lighter wallet for me), would be the slightly improved net browsing and more storage space.

But like I said before, I am just cold and bitter at the cost and seeing as Nokia are not going to carry on with 810 updates, eventually I will need to move on to something. Just a question of when il find something that is worth the money.

By the way, run "uname -a" in a terminal and post the kernel version please

Edit: @re local sim, why when you can find a FREE no ads, no blocked ports, wifi hotspots through out the city and call someone FREE via skype as just one of the examples of how useless GSM on smartphones is in other countries

Christo · 11 Jan 2010 at 16:23

rsatd said:
Don't need much cpu power to listen to music though, and yes, I am not popular enough to recieve emails that often that I need to be permanently connected, discounting a mountain of spam .

And hey, what you need the "power" for? While I was on holiday, worked out how to get video playback from the device without sound ending up late or re-encoding the videos. So really the only improvement of 900 (outside lighter wallet for me), would be the slightly improved net browsing and more storage space.

But like I said before, I am just cold and bitter at the cost and seeing as Nokia are not going to carry on with 810 updates, eventually I will need to move on to something. Just a question of when il find something that is worth the money.

By the way, run "uname -a" in a terminal and post the kernel version please

Edit: @re local sim, why when you can find a FREE no ads, no blocked ports, wifi hotspots through out the city and call someone FREE via skype as just one of the examples of how useless GSM on smartphones is in other countries

Where in the world have you found free wifi, its not so easy! Maybe the N810 will be upgradeable to Maemo 5? (unofficially of course)

Linux Nokia-N900-42-11 2.6.28-omap1.....armv71 unknown

rsatd · 11 Jan 2010 at 16:34

Madeira, even found some in a random village on top of some cliff. Its free and has more coverage in the main town and around it then in Bristol. Its completely free to use, no ads, just need to accept and agree to some rules and that is it. In the airport, they had the same free wifi and even power sockets. So I spent the time the flight ended up being delayed playing with my home server remotely through it on nice comfy seats. Come to Gatwick, find about 5 all paid wifi spots, no comfy seats or power sockets... what a dissapointment.

Maybe someone will bother with maemo 5, but I am really not too bothered about it, not like you always need the latest and greatest for a machine that most of the time isn't even connected to my home wifi.

.28, not too shabby, 810 I got has 21 and the latest general stable is 32. Not even that far off.

Of course in time il end up buying this or some other linux based pda, just only when they become worthwhile for what they offer to existing owners of a device that does it all anyway.