I pre-ordered my N900 the moment I found out about it, back in September. And I patiently waited, and waited, while watching every demo, preview, and review I could find. With each passing day, I knew I was closer to mobile bliss. And one day, my N900 arrived.
Sadly, it didn't really deliver.
Having (briefly) owned an N97, I was incredibly disappointed to discover that Nokia has tried their hardest to port elements of Symbian phones to the Maemo platform. Once you're past the (admittedly awesome) desktop effects, the N900 feels disturbingly similar to the N97 in terms of use.
"Mail Not Responding. Quit?"
If you use e-mail, you're going to see this message. Using the included Mail application for Exchange and an IMAP account is painful, to say the least. If you're coming from another Symbian phone, you'll discover that the Mail application is every bit as slow and constrained as your old phone, but does a (marginally) better job of rendering HTML messages. If you're coming from something like an iPhone or BlackBerry, forget about it. Having an iPhone 3G and BlackBerry Bold as well, the messaging on the N900 is infuriating.
The screen is gorgeous, in terms of resolution. It's trash in terms of accuracy, if you aren't using the included stylus. I don't have huge fingers, and yet, nearly every tap is either interpreted wrong, or not registered at all. Using kinetic scrolling will inevitably open something you didn't intend to open, or do nothing at all. You'll find yourself asking "Did I tap once or twice?".
Web browsing? Brilliant. Seriously. The included web browser is every bit as good as everyone says. Pages render properly, Flash works, zooming in and out is excellent. If you just wanted a handheld web browser and nothing else, I'd recommend this ten times out of ten.
"But it runs Linux! Linux, Linux, Linux!"
Sure. I consider myself to be fairly platform agnostic when it comes to phones, and frankly, the "open" nature of Maemo is something of a red herring. Yes, getting applications on the N900 that aren't blessed by Nokia is relatively easy. Yes, you can compile OpenOffice to work on the N900. The question really is: "Will you?". In a lot of ways, I can see how the N900 would be an excellent tool if I was a Unix / Linux admin who wanted the flexibility to work anywhere without a laptop or netbook. And, there's a certain geek credibility that comes with doing something for the sake of doing it, especially when you have such a portable platform. The N900 is great for those things. And keep in mind, that's largely the audience that Nokia is targeting with the N900.
For well over a decade, Nokia's been known for rock-solid performance on signal and voice quality. With the N900, again, they've come short. 3G call quality is decent. If you're outside of a 3G area (which is likely, if you use this with T-Mobile, and a certainty if you're on AT&T), the N900 has a very difficult time maintaining a decent GPRS/EDGE signal, and dropped calls are frequent. Admittedly, the phone functionality is something of an afterthought from Nokia on this specific model -- but it really shows.
As for carrying it around, the N900 isn't quite the "brick" some have claimed it to be. It's definitely substantial, compared to other phones available, though not unreasonable to carry in a pocket. The multimedia functionality is above average, capable of playing just about every type of music and movie format I could throw at it. The camera, while decent, is not substantially better than what you'd find in most midrange to high-end phones in terms of picture quality.
Overall, the N900 is a huge series of tradeoffs. For many "it doesn't do..." there are workarounds, or will be workarounds, or might be workarounds. And that's really the crux of my rating. The hardware, in and of itself, is not very special for a phone that costs this much. And the shortcomings may well be addressed, but you have to question how much time and effort you're willing to put in to this device just to bring it at par with similarly priced alternatives. At the same time, there's a lot of wishful thinking, if you aren't prepared to roll up your sleeves and do some development work. "Maybe Nokia will address this in a firmware update..." or "Maybe someone will write a script or program that does this..." will be your mantras if you don't do the work yourself.
***January 2010 Update***
I'm now on my third N900 -- the previous two were defective.
I had considered completely re-writing this review, but too many aspects continue to hold true.
What's different:
The newer N900 is much more stable, and doesn't crash nearly as often as I had described previously. That's not to say that it doesn't crash, but with the newer hardware and firmware, it no longer crashes if you look at it the wrong way.
The developer community is reasonably active on the Maemo platform, and it didn't take very long for some great apps to come out. Installing them doesn't hold a candle to what you'd find on an Android phone or iPhone, but if you're familiar with CVS/SVN or can follow simple instructions, getting some repositories going is a snap, as is finding interesting software. I've been particularly happy with seeing open source projects like Pidgin and Keepass ported over so fast.
What's the same:
Mail is still pretty terrible, especially if you have a large inbox. Getting the number of messages down will help to make the application more responsive, however, it still is a far cry from what you'd see in competing smartphones on every major platform. It also inexplicably stops updating (yes, fanboys, even when it's not set for off-peak hours), and the "Last Updated" timestamp rarely correlates to reality.
The OS still needs refinement. Case in point: It simply doesn't do a good job of telling you that it's busy. Sure, nobody wants to build an hourglass (or spinning beachball) in to their OS, but there are times when the OS is just bogged down when you're positive the screen isn't registering taps.
All things being equal, I'm still going to hold to my original conclusion that the N900 isn't for the general consumer looking to out iPhone the iPhone. But for someone not afraid of rolling up their sleeves, the N900 can be an amazing device for Unix aficionados and hard-core gadget geeks.
Oh... and a quick tip: This car charger works perfectly with the N900, and is dirt cheap: Motorola P513 Vehicle Power Adapter MicroUSB Rapid Rate ChargerGet more detail about
Nokia N900 Unlocked Phone/Mobile Computer with 3.5-Inch Touchscreen, QWERTY, 5 MP Camera, Maemo Browser, 32 GB--U.S. Version with Full Warranty.
