Nokia N900 Review

Writing a review on such a new and powerful device was never going to be an easy task.  There is just so much to cover, I am sure I will have to return to this review at a later date to update parts once software updates come into place but until then this is a review on the Nokia N900 which by the way is NOT a mobile phone, It is an Internet tablet that just so happens to make phone calls.  This is something to remember when looking to purchase this device and also when reading the review.

As always a huge thank you to the WOM World/Nokia team who loaned me this trial N900 device, especially as they only just had them come in and demand was high.

The main features of the Nokia N900 are:

Maemo 5 OS

Dimensions: 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm

Weight: 181 g

10mb/s HSDPA & 2mb/s HSUPA

ARM Cortex A8 600MHz

5.0 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics

WVGA (848 x 480 pixels) video recording @ 24fps

32 GB internal memory

Now onto the main part of the review starting with a look at the phone.

HARDWARE

The N900 really is a device from the future with top specs, new OS and a vast range of connectivity options.  In a time when most manufacturers are looking to make phones as small as possible, Nokia come out with one of there biggest phones made in recent times

Size. The N900 is built like a tank.  There is no better way to describe the N900 than a black brick of connectivity. Weighing in at 180g you really do need a pocket just made for this phone because it will need it!.  The reason for the sheer size of the N900 is because of the amount of computing power they have managed to put into it, with blazing fast web browsing, capacitive like although resistive touch screen, 800 x 480 pixel screen and much more.  Measuring 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, the N900 really is a beast.

Build Quality. The N900 is very well built, especially for a phone with a slide out keyboard and a camera lens cover.  Although you do not get the satisfying ‘snap’ action as with the N97 when sliding the keyboard out, there is a good click locking sound when you open or close the keys which will mean the keys wont spring back on you when your writing something.   Interestingly Nokia have placed the camera lens slightly back from the camera lens cover which from my thoughts is to stop the same scratching issue that hit Nokia recently with the N97 and causes a stir with people who spent out on the what was supposed to be flagship device.  The only part to complain about is the stand on the back by the camera to stand the phone up, it is rather loose and does not feel too strong either.

Memory. Just like the original N97, Nokia have managed to fit 32GB of memory into the N900 and if that was not enough for you, there is also a Micro SD slot allowing another 32GB of memory to total a mind blowing 64GB of storage!.  Memory really is no issue with this device and neither is the RAM with more than enough to be able to multi-task on without having any problems… being a Nokia user for years I have to ask why could they not have made a Symbian phone like this in the past!

Screen. At 227 PPI (pixels per inch), the N900 has one of the highest quality screens seen in a mobile phone with 67 more pixels per inch than the Apple iPhone which has had many great reviews about the screen quality.  Having such a large, bright and dense screen really shows off in video playback and web browsing.  I converted some Family Guy to play back on the N900 and the quality was stunning as was the audio quality.  The screen is one of the best if not the best feature of the N900.

Keyboard. Nokia have really been making a impact recently with slide out keyboards.  The E75 was the start followed by the 5730 XpressMusic and then into the more well known N97 and N97 Mini. The N900 has a 3 row QWERTY keyboard which slides out and with the design of the phone mostly being used in landscape this is very easy to text on.  What is annoying is some of the symbol keys with some having 2 or even 3 options depending if you just press it, press the blue arrow first or press the white arrow first.  At times this can get very confusing and personally I think it would have been better to just have 1 button to load up on screen symbols and let you tap the screen to get it.  After all why try to cramp as many buttons as possible onto a small area when you have a large clear touch screen to use instead?.

Once you get used to testing on the keyboard you will have no problems at all, there is a good click sound when you press each button and this gives good feedback so don’t expect to be missing and letters in text messages or emails.

Camera. The N900 has the typical Nokia camera on high end devices and uses the 5.0 Mega pixel Carl Zeiss lens seen on the N97 and N97 Mini.  There is a Dual-LED light which although is bright, I still think a Xenon flash would have been ideal, especially as it is obvious Nokia were not worried about the size of the device so it was not like adding a flash would have made it much (if any) bigger.

The camera lens cover is a nice addition and is something the N97 did have but caused problems with scratching so it was taken off on the Mini.

Video recording on the Nokia N900 mini is good but then again would you expect anything different?. It records video at 640 x 360 at 30 frames per second buy you can also record VGA (640×480) too which is great for sharing on YouTube.  The LED flash does help in bad lighting which is something a Xenon could not do, just remember not to get too close to someone with the lights on as the strong light could pretty much blind them!

<< Camera Samples Coming Soon >>

Sound. Music quality is very impressive on the N900 with stereo speakers.  Even cranked up to full volume there is very little if any distortion and the best experience is in the video player.  There is a 3.5mm headset port next to the lick switch which will allow you to use  either the supplied headset in the box or if you have your own headset you prefer using from another device this will also fit.  Nokia really seem to be listening to customers now who for ages have been asking for a 3.5mm jack to use their own headsets… finally Nokia are delivering this on new phones.

Connectivity. The Nokia N900 is all about connectivity as it has most modern standards.  WiFi is there in the 802.11b/g form (no ‘n’) for browsing at home or at a hot-spot if you can find one.  There is 10mb/s HSDPA and 2mb/s HSUPA for super fast data transfer on the move as well as allowing you to use the N900 as a modem.  Bluetooth is also there with most expected profiles like File Transfer and Headsets.  The only option lacking is the fact MMS is not supported yet on the N900, instead you have to share via online services like Pixelpipe or via email.  It is not just sending, but there is not even a system in place to receive MMS yet but hopefully that is coming into a new software update.

MAEMO 5 SOFTWARE

Maemo has been around for quite a while with Nokia now, the main reasons for this were the N770, N800, and N810 devices which were Internet tablet’s and had a very limited market appeal mainly due to the fact there was no built in data connection for a SIM card.  In fact I can remember speaking to Christian at a Brighton Twitter meet where we also met WOM World that a N810 although nice would be really good it if had a SIM card slot for being able to connect in about 99% of the UK via a mobile phone network… and this is now what Nokia have done with the N900.

The main problem I can see is that there is yet another OS that developers need to write for.  If having Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone and recently Android was not enough choice, now Maemo has to be taken into account and with only Nokia selling Maemo devices at the moment will developers be as interested to back a limited OS when Symbian is still growing especially with the Symbian Foundation in full swing and a new version due out next year.

Widgets. Maemo 5 is a very customizable operating system and is far more desktop like than Symbian.  You have 4 home screens at your fingertips to personalize your own way with wallpapers, links, applications and bookmarks plus many widgets on offer to get the most from your Nokia N900.  You can add contacts to a screen and if you have a photo for that contact they will show up too, this was great if you have a group of most called contacts you can save time by adding them to their own screen.  A handy widget I HIGHLY recommend is Dataplan Monitor which is free of charge.  It shows you the total amount of Uploaded and Downloaded data using your Internet connection which is very handy if you have a limited data plan.  Even if you have an unlimited plan it is a good idea to know where your are through the month.

Email. Email is rather restricted to the built in client or using Mail For Exchange which is also pre installed into the OS.  Mail 4 Exchange works great with Google Sync for downloading and backing up contacts too across multiple platforms.  As of yet there is no Nokia Messaging support on Maemo and because of the new OS, there is no option of Profimail which seems to be a popular choice with many Symbian or Nokia users out there.  Hopefully Nokia Messaging will be coming to the N900 in due course.  Out of the box email is very easy to setup for most POP/IMAP accounts and if you use Microsoft Exchange then use Mail For Exchange.

Browsing. This is where the N900 not only excels, but blows the rest of the competition out of the water and yet that includes you Apple!.  What Nokia have done here is not built a small mobile browser, but used the power of the FULL internet to give the best possible experience.  Flash is supported right out of the box and even large graphic heavy websites such as the BBC load in record time, full desktop quality and there for you to see.  To zoom in you have the easy way or the geek way.  The geek way is to load a page, tap and hold onto the middle of the screen and spin your finger like a wheel clockwise to zoom in, and anti-clockwise to zoom out.  At first this was great fun but becomes tedious at times, especially when you have the faster way to zoom which is to just press and hold the volume buttons at the top to zoom in and out.  These are positioned perfectly when holding the N900 in landscape mode.

Music / Audio. The audio playback in video mode is almost surround sound like quality if the video has good audio codec that is.  Playing back the clip for the film ’9′ really shows off how good the speakers really are on this device.  Another great built in feature is the Internet Radio option in Media Player.  Using either WiFi or 3G/HSDPA (make sure you have a good data plan though) you can stream radio stations from around the world in brilliant quality.  In fact whilst writing this review I have the N900 playing 95.8 Capital FM streaming over T-Mobile UK HSDPA and there has been no breaks or connection errors in the whole 90 minutes the radio has been playing.  Great if you don’t have much music on your N900 and want to listen to something different

Connectivity Options

Ovi Maps. The basics of OVI Maps are on the N900 but there are a lot of things missing and at present OVI Maps looks like 1/2 a job from Nokia.  After taking a good 10 seconds to load, a GPS fix took another 10-15 seconds and even with all that computing power, zooming in and out was like running the latest game on a 10yr old computer with it stuttering all over the place.  Also remember there is no voice navigation so you could not really use the N900 as a sat-nav replacement.

Where it does work though is with the Find Places search.  After getting my location i searched for ‘Pizza’, ‘ATM’ and ‘Hotels’ and it within a few seconds found a long list of suitable places also allowed me to find the route to these places and if it was available show me the telephone number in case i needed to call ahead of time.

Application Support. All new operating systems have to start somewhere, and unfortunately because Maemo 5 is still new there is not many mature applications supported yet.  At present the OVI Store is not N900 compatible so you are left with smaller developer beta options under Maemo Extras.  There are however a few key applications in finished form and are highly recommended and these are:

• Pidgin IM – A great multi-service instant message app for Maemo
• QIK – A great live video streaming service also available for Symbian
• DataPlan Monitor – Ever worried about using too much data?.  This will put you at ease
• Pixelpipe – Upload and share photos to different services using just this one app.
• Accuweather – A great widget on the home screen giving up-to date weather forecasts

Maemo Application Manager for new Apps

N900 AS A MOBILE PHONE

I have had to be very careful when writing this review not to refer to the N900 as a ‘mobile phone’ because…. well…. it’s not really.  Nokia never advertised this as a phone, nor wanted us to look at it like a phone.  The N900 is more of an Internet tablet with a phone thrown in in case you just happen to need to make or receive a call.  The fact that the phone is the only application on the entire N900 OS that works in portrait mode is a pretty big giveaway that this device was supposed to be used in landscape mode.

The antenna for phone signal on the N900 does appear to be very good even in low coverage area’s it managed to hand onto calls like it’s life depends on it which is great for those people who live in a poor or very patchy 3G signal area.

BATTERY LIFE

The battery was a part of the N900 I really thought would not hold up well to real world testing due to the processing power, vast amount of connectivity options and large screen the N900 has to offer, plus with a 1320mah battery not a 1500 one I really thought I was in for a bumpy ride.

Unfortunately  I was right with the battery and was getting about a day at most from the N900 and that was with checking for emails every 30 minutes, sending around 20-30 texts a day, making a few phone calls and some web browsing too.  Friend of the site Michael  Hell from ‘The Thoughts From Hell’ recently said that Mugen are making a battery for the N900 and this is expected to have heavy duty power but will make the N900 even bigger!

THE FINAL DECISION

Just over a year ago I can remember speaking to Christian when attending a Brighton Bloggers meeting about how cool it would be to have a N810 (which we had just purchased) but with built in 3G for data use on the move.  Since then we have such a device in the N900 and it really is a multimedia powerhouse.

I have been lucky enough to not only get hands on the N900 at the Nokia World launch, but again at the N900 Meetup in London last month and once again on this review device so already the N900 feels like a part of my life.

As much as I want to love the N900, I cannot help but look at it like a project still in work and call it a prototype device.  The build quality is really nice and feels like you wont be able to break it easily, but then again is is a chunky device weighing nearly 180g.  The screen is REALLY good with a massive 800 x 480 pixel, 3.5″ screen and this really comes to life when you are watching video’s on the N900 (check out the trailer for ’9′ which comes pre-installed on the phone).

Where the N900 still feels like it is being worked on is with 3rd party applications and for me personally the lack of MMS for Picture Messaging.  As of this moment, the N900 still has no access to the OVI Store so has to use its own Maemo Extras access which is full of developer style applications, there is no access to Nokia Music Store so you have to download via computer and send over via Bluetooth or Cable and still no access to Nokia Messaging, instead using a built in Mail 4 Exchange application.

The MMS issue is not something everyone will worry about, but it is something which we have come to expect on the phones these days even if we do not want to use it.  Even on day 1 of using the N900 I wanted to send a MMS to someone only for it to hit me that this is not an option, you can’t even RECEIVE a MMS!.  A later firmware update should fix this but with the N900 already being delayed on going on sale, how long will we have to wait for a software update?

Also the lack of portrait mode is annoying to me and will be to most people.  The only time you can use the N900 looking like a normal phone standing up is when….. yup you guessed it … making phone calls.  All other operations are done in landscape mode.  Hopefully the next update will allow for more portrait use.

I do like what Nokia has done with Maemo 5, the 4 home-screen panels is a great addition allowing users to fully customize the phone to how they want, the keyboard is very easy to use and the speakers are really good quality.

Would I hand out £500.00 for a N900 right now?.  No, and although I did say originally I would be one of the first to own this phone when it went on sale, I am please I did not as at the moment there are a few things missing to make me fully happy with this device.

Once the OS is more up to date with MMS Support, OVI Store for downloads, Music Store for music downloads and more application support then this will be an amazing device,  The problem I have with that is by the time all that is fixed will we be looking at a brand new piece of hardware (N910?) in which case the N900 is just an expensive stop gap to something bigger next year.

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