I’ve been playing with the early release of MaePad and it’s quite a lot of fun. Like a sketch pad / notepad / finger paint thing. The only thing it needs is the ability to print it out in it’s full glory. And that brings back to the point about the Nokia N900, it really is a computer with a phone app installed. And while you can live without a printer for your phone, having a computer without a printer is missing something.
Nokia N900
A reason to NOT iPhone
I’m waiting for the first mass exploitation virus for the iPhone to arrive. With the iPhone ecosystem reaching critical mass, there can’t be much left in the way of roadblocks to prevent this. There has already been exploits that targeted ‘jail broken’ iPhones, more likely to have been created by Apple, or a fan of Apple DRM. Therefore the likelihood that a more potent virus will emerge is very high. The likely suspect, is one that exploits the ‘closed’ nature of the device, where the victim iPhone will show no indication of an infection.
Not that my chosen device is not subject to the same attacks, the Nokia N900 is also a target, but its just not as big a target as the iPhone. More or less the same argument that has been used to justify the lack of viruses on the Mac platform. I have a Mac also, and I feel safe, but not because it’s immune to viruses, it HAS been less targeted, and it has been ACTIVELY defended.
Learning the Nokia N900
Another day, another experience. Yesterday I managed to strech the Nokia N900 battery to more than a full day. This isn’t a miracle, it only takes turning off all the cute, but ultimatly useless eyecandy widgits. Not that they don’t look nice, they just spin up the CPU a lot.
However, today was much busier, lots of SMS, lots of Skype IM, calls and what not. I tried the GPS and bought a car charger. I then managed to download the new firmware update. I haven’t really see a much of a difference. But I have not tested, or timed everything yet either.
The update did not install cleanly, twice it claimed to not have enough memory. So I removed some of the apps I had been playing with, but did not intend to keep anyway. And it managed to install, but it did not manage to fix the media player that still does not play any video. I chock this up to a corrupt or missing media library.
Still, I am blogging from it, and I’m learning new things. It’s functional and feature rich, what more can you ask for?
A very High river Lee in Ballincollig
N900 Size comparison
As you can see in the photo (on top of a MacBook), the Nokia N900 is not that big, smaller vertically and horizontally than a Palm T/X but larger than a Nokia 6300 or a Motorola F3. And much smaller than a Apple Newton.
My N900 desktop
This is what my Nokia N900 desktop looked like until I cleaned it up to save battery power. And while I couldn’t get the pre-installed Media Player to play any video, including the pre-installed ones, I did get Mplayer to install and it works just fine, if not as fancy as the media player.
The Nokia N900 in use, a perspective.
I’ve had my Nokia N900 for almost 48 hours, and while I’ve have a few frustrations, I’m equally satisfied with the product. And so to keep it geeky and simple:
- I’ve logged into the device (not really a phone) with SSH from my desktop. And it just looks like a standard Linux system.
- I’ve logged in to my Opensolaris from the device shell (X Terminal) with SSH and that works like normal.
- I’ve connect to the VLC server on my server, with VLC, from the device, and while the navigation of the screen size differences will be ‘fun’, it works as expected
- I’ve Blogged from the device using MaStory.
- I’ve sent SMS and received SMS’s, I received Phone calls. (gee)
- I’ve been fetching emails, full html support (must turn off images)
- I’ve found my location with GPS.
- I’ve loaded up some songs, and they sound great with the stereo speakers
- I’ve listened to internet radio, that works great.
- I’ve used the keyboard, and I’m getting faster the more I use it.
- I’ve browsed the internet, and it’s amazing, although my blog identifies it as a PDA (must fix that)
- I’ve used the device to diagnose a neighbors laptop WiFi connection
- I’ve taken a photo, not so great on the first try, no image stabilization, but relatively sharp
- I’ve managed to post a photo to my Flickr account.
- I’ve synced up my calendar and contacts with my Nokia 6300 backup using the Nokia PC suite (as OVI suite does not work)
- I’ve connected to AOL and Yahoo IM with the Pidgin application.
However there is another list, of frustrations;
- Battery life really sucks, mostly because I’ve had everything turned on (default) and have not found all the places to ‘tune’ them to better setting.
- I can NOT get the Twitter application Mauku to connect to Twitter
- I can NOT get the weather with OMWeather it won’t connect
- I couldn’t get the MaxRoam SIM to dial anyone, though I could SMS
- Some Apps from the App Manager WILL NOT DOWNLOAD no matter what I do, and there no indication about why they won’t download
- I can’t get the FaceBook application which came pre-installed, to actually install, or function. It’s the same with several of the ‘pre-installed’ apps, they just don’t work without being ‘installed’ and they won’t install.
I am currently using a Vodafone Pay-as-you-Go SIM and it does indicate that I am connected with 3G. I have NOT tested it for dataroaming, or performance. The MaxRoam SIM did indicate that I was connected to a 3.5G O2 network But like I mentioned, I couldn’t call anyone, only SMS. I assume that it was my ignorance of setting for the MaxRoam SIM.
As for the phone itself, I like it, it’s a bit heaver than I thought, but a great deal smaller, it is not really any wider or taller than a Samsung Tocco Lite, but it’s almost twice as thick.
The keyboard is very small and not really thumb friendly, I started out using my fingernails to type. Now I can feel the contours of the keys, it sped up my typing a bit. I have a clear snap on case I bought from Amazon a month ago, but the screen section obscures the upper row on the keyboard, so I don’t have it on, so just the back is attached.
The resistive touchscreen is very sensitive. I have a Palm T/X and I know! It is nothing like the resistive screens of the past. There is virtual NO give to the surface, and while you can tell that it is ‘softer’ than a capacitive touchscreen, it has a great deal more precision. Just try and draw something in the ‘sketch’ app or better yet, the XJournal application.
Overall I could say that it’s a keeper, a Geeky keeper, and looks like it will be a learned love. It does do what I need it to do, be a computed device, with a phone in it.
I’m sure there will be other revelations, but I may be too busy playing with my new toy.
UPDATE : I’ve managed to get the missing FaceBook App to install and Mauku and OMWeather are working after I changed some of the connection setting on device to fixed ip addresses on my WiFi router.
Blogging from a Nokia N900
This is going to be simple, and my first blog post from a Nokia N900! it won’t be my last.
Nokia N900 to be locked to Vodafone network.
It looks like all the previous vendors (eXpansys, Amazon UK and other suppliers) of the Unlocked Nokia N900 have been consistently denied product to sell by Nokia. Now the word is, that the N900 will be exclusively the product of The Carphone Warehouse (with a Vodafone ontract) and Vodafone UK.
This means only one thing, there will be NO SIM Unlocked Nokia N900’s. They will all be locked to Vodafone SIMs and further OTA updates will be to Vodafone specifications. With the advent of Vodafone 360 they will be more and more tied to this service. You really can reach no other conclusion, so much for Nokia’s commitment to Open Source and Open Source developers.
The Nokia N900 is a Fake
From the email this morning…
We regret to inform you that the following items have been delayed as we are still awaiting stock from our suppliers :“Nokia N900 Mobile Computer with Maemo 5 Software”
Estimated arrival date: December 17 2009One of Amazon’s aims is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have fallen short. Please accept our sincere apologies.
I order this on the
2nd of Oct 2009
and this is the third delay. Could Nokia get the release of this phone more wrong? No! they have nothing to release, it’s a fake, vaporware! There are stories out there of Nokia shipping empty boxes to keep up the illusion. I’t no wonder that the boxes themselves look so cheap, they are cheap mockups.
Time to look for another REAL smartphone.
UPDATE: It REALLY is a fake I just received this email from Amazon on Sunday the 13th;
We regret to inform you that your order will take longer to fulfill than originally estimated. Our supplier has notified us that there is a delay obtaining stock for the following items you ordered on October 02 2009.
And the Amazon web page now states that the ‘Product’ is “Currently unavailable.
We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock”
The Nokia N900 Carl Zeiss optics
From the photos being posted on the Flickr N900 Pool I have been observing that the Carl Zeiss optics (Tessar) installed in the N900 is exhibiting, particularly in Macro or near macro focus mode, a classic shallow depth of field focus typical of a small f-Stop.
The N900 specs indicate that the Lens has an F-Stop of 2.8 and a Focal length of 5.2 mm, which for such a small sensor is good. But a real camera it’s not, from all it’s behavior, it looks like the F-Stop is fixed wide open which make any control over the depth-of-field meaningless. The lens does exhibit classic Carl Zeiss high contrast, which results in a very sharp photo. but there appears to be no real ‘shutter’ either. Motion effects behave more like video scanning where all sensor elements are NOT sampled at the same time like a real shutter would produce.
Over all the ‘Camera’ in the N900 could best be qualified as a very high end WebCam.
With regard to the sensor itself it appears to be relatively low in ‘noise’, probably more due to the restricted ISO controls than to the sensor. However one thing that I’ve noted is some jpeg artifacts that could probably use a little refinement in a firmware update. And guess what? no ‘raw’ mode from the camera, unless someone in the Maemo community wants to add this feature.
Still, I wish I had my pre-ordered N900 now … I could have posted my own photos. 🙂
The Nokia N900 in Portrait mode
One thing about the Nokia N900 (Maemo) system has always bother me. And that was it’s dependance on operations in Landscape mode, usually with the hardware keyboard extended.
Often I have heard other potential buyers put this restriction as a deal breaker. And while the Phone DOES operate in Portrait mode (in fact it switches to the Phone application when in Portrait mode) it could not operate the other applications in Portrait mode. This issue was also due to the lack of a Portrait virtual keyboard. Most of the complaints I heard were that people would use one handed operations while the phone was in Portrait, and that the N900 was flawed if it could not.
Now, watch some YouTube videos some time, if you watch other phones in operation, particularly when using their virtual Portrait keyboards, it’s never one handed. Almost without exception, the user brings both hands into play holding the phone with both hands. This more or less renders the argument moot if the user always uses both hands. The N900 in Landscape would be equally operated with both hands, and in fact be easier to use with either the larger virtual keyboard, or the hardware keyboard.
Problem, and flaw, resolved. By human behavior.
An Idiot talks about the Nokia N900
While most of what this guy said is short sighted and generally idiotic it did touch on something I agree with
Nokia, NO MORE DELAYS!!!
More Nokia N900 Slippage, Shit!
I’m saddened and disappointed to report that Amazon has reported another Nokia N900 shipping delay.
“Nokia N900 Mobile Computer with Maemo 5 Software”
Estimated arrival date: December 03 2009 – December 09 2009
That places the Nokia N900 dangerously close to a Vaporware classification. And moves the Nokia release date to the very end of November, rather than the early or middle of the month as was hoped. This is a bad move, one that put’s it’s release AFTER the Motorola Droid and all the other Android handsets. It makes the Nokia an Also Ran handset Maker, a Me Too! in a marketplace soon to have a large number of failed and marginalized handsets.
Android (Hero) and Maemo (N900)
The battle continues, while in London this week I got to play with several HTC Android Hero and Magic Handsets. And I have to say, the Hero really fits nice in my hand, Very pleasing phone. I did not find anyone carrying the Nokia N900 as yet so I didn’t get to see one, and hence I was disappointed in that regard. I still think that the N900 is the better choice for me, but the Hero is very tempting. Now however there is an Acer A1 Android phone soon to be released which has superior specifications to that of the Hero. And there is still the Palm Pre to try and evaluate.
I did Pat Phelan a boost and bought one of his MaxRoam SIM Cards on the plane to London. But found out that my Nokia 6300 is NOT unlocked but glued to the Vodafone network. So I had to wait until I got back to Cork to try out the SIM in my old Motorola F3. and it worked a Treat.
I tried to up grade my wife’s mobile to the Samsung Tocco Lite before we left for London, but she would have none of it until we returned, clinging on to her familiar V177 Motorola.