Buying 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

ADDED after having it for 3 weeks and a trip abroad:

1) Main camera is really good, no matter what some people say. I made night and low light landscape pictures, no flash, from hand, and the quality is damn good for a phone camera. Flash is good enough to take night pictures of an object about 3 yards away. Daylight pictures - of amazing quality, especially landscapes.

2) Built-in maps work off-line, which means, I don't need an internet connection to navigate. Download the maps of the area where you are going to beforehand, while you have a wi-fi or a cheap data plan, and then if you happen to not have an internet access when you are out there, you still will have the maps of the area. You'll have your GPS position on the map and still will be able to use the routing features. It's not perfect, since search of places by name will not work (search depends on internet access), but you can chose locations by pointing at them on the map. Network positioning will not work, of course, you'll have to rely on GPS only.

3) I had to restart my phone just once in over 3 weeks, which I think is pretty good.

4) Battery life never was a problem at all. With all the picture taking I had to recharge the phone only once in 2 days. I don't keep the GPS on all the time, only activate it as needed, which probably does the trick. I must admit that I don't text or browse uncontrollably, so probably I can be classified as a light user.

5) The absence of MMS was disapponting. Normally, you always have email so you can live without it. But while travelling I found myself in a situation when I had no cheap and easy internet access for a while. So I had no email and no MMS, hence no way to share those beautiful pictures with anyone! As far as I can see, there already are some applications allowing to send MMS from N900, but I haven't tried them yet.

Original review:

I have my Nokia N900 for 3 days now, and I honestly don't understand complaints that the interface is not simple enough. For example, many reviews say that it's not so intuitive how to switch to a phone call mode, and that you need to use both hands to do it. Actually, it's very easy: select an option which launches the phone application each time the phone is turned into a portrait mode - and voila! - the phone launches itself with the wave of your hand. If that is not easy enough, then I don't know. I didn't have any problems with the interface at all. From my point of view, it's very intuitive. I must admit though that I am a professional programmer, and it kind of helps.

Other than that, I guess I agree with the majority of reviewers.

Pros: all hardware is just excellent. I didn't see specs like that for any other phone. As far as I could see, all the hardware really works as expected. Interface very nice and completely customizable. I like the way the Contacts are organized and managed. VoIP is integrated, contacts from Skype are imported into the regular phone book - very convenient. Nice main camera. Browsing perfect. Email perfect. Unlocked, which means that I can buy a local SIM card when I travel abroad, and save on roaming. Again unlocked, which means that I can switch providers if my T-Mobile stops being the best choice for this device. Plus I generally like Nokia products, they are very robust.


Cons: Built-in maps have a very rudimentary interface, and no upgrade available. There is no problem with routing itself, but I didn't find any way to save my waypoints or select my waypoints from the contact list. That should be annoying if you have to use it more than once in a while. Built-in Skype doesn't allow video calls, even though there is a front camera just for these purposes. Lack of applications - personally for me it is not a big problem, I am too busy to worry about having games and specifically wanted just an Internet tablet. But for a person who needs to kill time playing games it might be a deal-breaker.

Applications: funny, but even though there only 80+ available, so far I've found all I really needed, except good maps. Maybe I will need much more very soon - appetite comes as you eat - but so far this thing does all that I needed it to do. I can view documents, I can read email, I can browse internet. I can get weather on my desktop. I can get directions when I need them once in a while. I can call my relatives overseas for free via Skype-to-Skype calls. I can track my outdoor activities. I can take notes and make hand-writen notes to pdf files, almost as I would do while reading paper documents.

Bottom line: all the cons that I see are on the software side, that is they should be fixable with a software upgrade or new applications. The hardware part is just excellent, so let's hope we'll see more excellent applications for n900 in the near future. Get 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.