The N900: My experiences

I was contacted a little while ago by WomWorld, offering me a review copy of the Maemo-powered Nokia N900 for a couple of weeks. That two weeks just came to a close and here are my thoughts from the point of view of a Linux user.

On the whole, I enjoyed the N900 but not without reservation and sadly, the little niggles I found outweighed how great the device is as they got in the way of me being comfortable using it. I had to keep reminding myself while I had it that a mobile device such as the N900, a smartphone is A tool not a toy.

So, the positives:

• Maemo is a great OS. It’s based on Linux and it was fun thinking that I had a UNIX box in my pocket again (back in 2002, I had a semi-usable install on my Psion Revo). The advantage of Maemo is that there are a bazillion Open Source apps there just waiting to be ported to it. There are a number of official and semi-official application repositories which you can easily add. A few that I found very useful:
  • SyncEvolution – to allow me to sync with my main computer on which I use Evolution. With the next release of SyncEvolution, this will be redundant though as it should be able to sync with the N900 out-of-the-box via bluetooth.
  • Witter – a great Twitter client. In fact, I’d say it’s possibly the best one I’ve used on a mobile platform. The default Twitter client on the N900, Mauku, is appalling – very feature limited – so Witter was a must.
  • Rapier – great Bible software based on the Sword Project. Very useful for someone in my line of work.
• The Mozilla-based browser is really good. I’d say it rivals the mobile versions of Opera.
• The N900 automatically switches between WLAN and mobile data service to get the best data throughput. I was very impressed with this and it worked really well.
• The GPS seemed very strong compared with my N95. It picked up satellites quickly and held the signal well. Annoyingly, you need a Windows box to be able to update the maps application or install additional maps.
• The notification light is a really simple thing but absolute genius. It flashes when there is something to which you need to attend (configurable). It saves the battery (which, as you’ll see below is really important) by removing the need to activate the screen every time you receive a text or email.
• The camera (and the camera application) is very good. The Zeiss lens is of a very high quality and the photos I took came out very well. I’m no professional photographer so this impressed me.

And now, the niggles:

• With the exception of the Phone application, none of the core software works in portrait mode. Why is this so big a deal? Well, it meant that whereas with every mobile phone I’ve ever had before, just about every function can be done one handed, with the N900, they all become two-handed jobs. I found this really frustrating. With the latest firmware, you can enable the portrait-mode in the browser but I wanted it to be available on applications where I was going to inputting information (such as texting, emailing and tweeting). Below is a simple diagram of an idea for how this would be achieved by having a pop-up soft number pad when in portrait mode allowing classic phone-style text input.
  • Within this, it warrants mention that this includes the maps application. I have Nokia’s “universal” car mount. The N900 just fits (very snugly) in it in portrait mode but of course the only app that’s going to work there is the phone app, meaning it can’t be used with Nokia’s own kit as a sat-nav. In this arrangement, the mini-USB charging socket it on the top, not the bottom which means the USB cable needs to stretch further to be able to plug in – even if the maps worked in portrait, this would be needed on longish journeys. Also, in portrait mode, the car mount presses the power button on the “top” of the device.

  Being forced into landscape mode constantly meant that I simply could not use the N900 on a full-time basis. This may seem like a small issue but the user ought to have the choice.

• The battery life is shocking. With any degree of use, it quickly approached being depleted. For the amount that the N900 costs, Nokia could provide a battery with a decent capacity.

So, my final conclusion is the same as where I ended up in November, that the best smartphone for Linux users is going to Symbian-based, not Maemo (ironically). Or at least, not at the moment.