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Nokia N900 review: A new hope

26 November 2009 | Read the review | Post your comment
Nokia N900 review: A new hope - read the full textIt’s crystal clear by now that the Nokia N900 has almost nothing to do with the traditional Nseries values. The full QWERTY side-slider may look similar to its double-digit mates but the Maemo experience is completely different...

 

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I like the OS, but this phone is just a brick. 18mm is thicker than the 13.3" laptop I'm typing on now! And it's got a keyboard, a screen, a dvd burner, USB ports, network ports, webcam, bluetooth, wifi, etc, etc...

There's no excuse making a phone this thick. It's just sloppy manufacturing.

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  • 2009-11-27 04:26
  • xmVg

Yeah great device, but not for Australia. Nokia have confirmed several times that Australia will NOT be getting the N900 so one must launch a smuggling operation to get one. With all the hassle and cost that involves one may as well give up and just get an iPhone. There are NO good Nokia's on the market in Australia and won't be for a LONG time, if ever. Nokia have lost the Australian market - RIP Nokia.

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  • 2009-11-27 03:26
  • v3}Y

too big and heavy...we just have to wait for Nokias next offering. At least it has to be in the same dimension as the N97 mini.

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  • 2009-11-27 03:11
  • t7K1

to bad,it's to big for me, i hope the rumors are true that their is a upcoming model without qwerty keyboard and a maemo platform...

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  • 2009-11-27 02:20
  • wY5%

> In reply to ik @ 2009-11-26 17:03 from miNm - click to readyerh, i'm sure you can't customise it by opening up an xterm and going into /etc...

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  • 2009-11-27 00:38
  • 32RE

It's important to keep in mind that outside of hardware functionality (camera, video, weight) all other features that were noted as negatives can be and most likely will be fixed in time. Half of the complaints in this review are already being worked on in the form of firmware updates and apps. (An FM radio app has already been added, for example.) For that reason, it's important to note that the views about the handset, and maemo 5+ devices in general, can only be assessed from moment to moment. The maemo community is great and a definite strength for the platform. It doesn't excuse the omission of some very basic features in the handset upon release, but the fact that they can be fixed should be noted.

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  • 2009-11-27 00:12
  • j5BP

> In reply to ik @ 2009-11-26 17:03 from miNm - click to readIt supposed to be more customizable than S60 and Winmo.

And it is... you can pretty much re-skin the whole thing.

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  • 2009-11-26 23:48
  • n$eC

> In reply to Mace @ 2009-11-26 22:20 from pdhd - click to readThey look nice downsamples, yes.
But a lot of ugly noise when you see the original
http://www.flickr.com/photos/w...404/sizes/o/
Absolutely the same quality as here.

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  • 2009-11-26 23:21
  • 0EaF

> In reply to Mace @ 2009-11-26 22:20 from pdhd - click to readI agree.

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  • 2009-11-26 22:33
  • 0W}t

please come with your in depth review of Nokia E72 - it's been sooooooooooooooooooooooo looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong..............­.........................

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  • 2009-11-26 22:24
  • vaNs

nice.
Tough i had expression that the n900 would be better.
But it has what i need. Nameing a few Decent no exelent web browser, good camera (better than this 5800 crap). Im still wondering why the h.... I got this.
The software on n900 is little em...in childrens shoes (directly translated from finnis), but expected to be boosted.
But mainly i finaly get rid of symbian os. That in my use hasnt been stable. If maemo wont deliver, its winmo that has the next try.

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  • 2009-11-26 22:24
  • nmUx

The N900 camera is amazing, just check these photos!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/w...e/tags/n900/

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  • 2009-11-26 22:20
  • pdhd

you crazy? the picture quality of N900 is very the same of that Nokia 6720 and you claimed it's one of the best 5MP camera shooter and now you're saying N900 has a poor picture quality? it makes no sense at all! HTC HD2 has worst picture quality!

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  • 2009-11-26 22:07
  • vaNs

I doubt that the camera is outdated. I have seen incredible pictures on flickr taken from N900. 5 MB is ok, if the optics is better that other phones what I believe.
Also the Video resolution is one of the best in today's handsets.
Dual LED flash helps taking videos in dark light conditions.

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  • 2009-11-26 22:01
  • puBY

> In reply to ik @ 2009-11-26 17:03 from miNm - click to readwrong, it's better than WiMo and very similar to Symbian. Where can you place the icons on the desktop where you want than with Maemo ? Look the HD2 with the stupid horizontal srolling of apps. Far behind N900.

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  • 2009-11-26 21:54
  • puBY

soooooooooooo:

First you hail the big screen and the QWERTY keyboard, then you bash the phone for being bulky. After that you say twice that the 3-row layout isn't ideal. I mean, seriously, what do you expect? A phone with a 3.5 inch screen and a 4 row qwerty keyboard that somehow isnt bulky? Pretty sure the nokia engineers tried all possible trade-off's between sizes to come to this device, only for it to be critisized so cheaply. And a cheap stylus? I don't even know what that means. How can a pointy plastic stick be cheap? How is that even relevant?

How can you consider "limited third party software" as a disadvantage for this phone? You got to review a pre-production unit of a phone that uses a brand new OS and you're surprised people haven't made apps for it yet? Maemo has the potential to become the biggest apps community besides the iphone. And that's only because people make iphone apps to make money off the stupid though. Two dollars for an application that plays farting sounds, bet you guys were impressed by that huh. Also MMS is outdated technology, can't even remember last time i sent one.

As for the camera, 5MP with dual led is enough and far from outdated. No point in throwing megapixels around like samsung has been doing recently, 12MP in a phone camera.. my DSLR has 11, my point and shoot has 6.1 and they both take better pictures than the samsung. You guys know very well that the whole megapixels game is marketing at it's best/worse.There are such a things as DPI,sensor size and build quality and they are the reason phone camera's will always lagg behind. As for the simple interface, 99% of people i know use their point and shoot camera in automatic mode or on one of those basic presets. If you want manual settings, you should buy a DSLR.

Besides these few nitpicks it was actually good review which gave me alot of info i was looking for and it seems te N900 is living up to the expectations.

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  • 2009-11-26 21:48
  • n7Xy

I have learned my lesson, to never buy 1st new things from nokia its bether to wait until the next model with maemo comes,The one without qwery

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  • 2009-11-26 21:29
  • 0rmL

> In reply to Anonymous @ 2009-11-26 19:42 from pWF$ - click to readReally?! So you actually think the headers "5MP Carl Zeiss camera fails to impress" and "Video recording let down by the framerate" are good ratings in 2009? It doesnt hane to say "BAD", you just know... it's common sense mate

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  • 2009-11-26 21:29
  • M8Tu

i feel depressed after this review =S i was thinking to buy n900,,,but after reading this review dunno know =S ill read more about the htc hd2,but hope it have a big memory like n900 or iphone 3gs

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  • 2009-11-26 21:14
  • LfYs

> In reply to David @ 2009-11-26 19:39 from p8c4 - click to readu need a multimedia device n900 aint a multimedia device . go to n97 mini

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  • 2009-11-26 20:34
  • mcYq
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