Nokia N900

While most smartphones pick out features to combine with phone functions, here Nokia has gone for a little pocket computer with a few telephone features. After Garmin with its GPS phone, Nokia is giving us the N900, a hybrid terminal, somewhere between a very mini mobile PC and a multifunction phone. Based on the Maemo operating system, derived from Linux, be under no illusions the N900 has obviously been designed for the most geeky among us and will be far from accessible for the average user. Let’s take a look.



Nokia and its signature style

In terms of product design, Nokia marches to a different drum. Some think, rightly no doubt, that the world n°1, whose position is threatened, ought to reconsider the look and design of its phones which are so far from current trends.

This is how we’ve come to recognise Nokia mobiles: lack of finesse or sexy lines. The N900 is no exception with its house style old school look. Solid, heavy (180g!), masculine and fairly austere, it's difficult not to notice it in your pocket. It does however benefit from a very reassuring finish, which is another feature we’ve come to expect from the Finnish brand. Nevertheless, we really feel it’s time for Nokia to review its smarphone format. Technical performance is no longer enough for the average consumer, who is just as likely to be swayed by style.

The 3.5 inch resistive touch screen has a good quality display (800 x 480 pixels) with sufficient brightness. It only requires light pressure from your finger, nail or stylus to work the function you're looking for. Nice to use and precise, we do regret that it isn’t multipoint.

Yes! You didn’t misread, there’s a stylus (lodged within the terminal), which is still TOO frequently required with the N900. Shame.

Maemo and me: interface, navigation, responsiveness, multimedia

Just a few minutes handling is enough to see that the N900 is far from standard as general consumer smartphones go. Usage habits will have to change here! Firstly, you use it in landscape format 99% of the time, with the keyboard pulled out. Portrait is only for camera and and telephone features.


Secondly, though the interface is nice (light years from Symbian!!), you’ll need a bit of adaption time to get used to how it works. Just take a look at the video. Four personalisable desktops are available, one of which can be used for your favourite intenet pages, which is obviously nothing new as the vast majority of touch phones have several welcome screens. You move from one to the next at the stroke of a finger. As the terminal is fairly docile but responsive overall (ARM Cortex-A8 processor clocked at 600 Mhz with 1 GB of RAM allocated to applications), there aren’t too many long pauses. It only slows down when too many applications (around 15) are open at the same time, so the N900 multitasks well, certainly better than the N97. Navigation in menus is also fluid, though you will get the odd untimely glitch.


You have to adapt to certain navigation inconsistencies. The menu button is squeezed in at the top on the left for example and the button that appears when you click on the top of the screen requires another click and then another to get to the personalisation thumbnails. Not always very logical then. However we liked the mechanism for returning to the previous menu: you just have to click on an empty part of the screen to take a step back. It’s original and above all, it works well.

A word on the slide-out keyboard: fairly comfortable to use, we would have liked an extra line for figures with keys that stick out a little more to make them easier to differentiate. Though you don’t make too many keying errors, you do make some. For those who know the ease with which you can write a mail on the BlackBerry, the N900 is still a long way off that sort of functionality. You can also use the virtual keyboard if you want but it gives less ease-of-use.

Up to here, you’re thinking, the N900 doesn’t seem particulary difficult to get a handle on for anyone moderately versed in smartphones. Patience, patience, we’re getting to it! Something to note: integration of the interface with applications isn’t as thorough as on general consumer ready-to-go smartphones, though they are also personalisable afterwards. The list of general consumer widgets is very restricted as is the list of applications, especially social netorking (the application store dedicated to the Maemo system isn’t yet open). Facebook is there, yes, once you’ve downloaded it. However, while you can check the status of friends in real time, to change yours you’re redirected to the Facebook site, where the functionality isn’t what you’d get on a dedicated app. We like the message manager that combines texts, chats (OVI, Google Talk) and so on on the same Conversations page.



On the multimedia side the N900 offers a simple (some may say basic), effective interface combining audio, photos and video. The terminal gives high quality photos for a device of this type. Nokia scores some points here. For a while already, it has been including high quality sensors (5 Mpixels here) on its phones. It doesn’t do badly in terms of recording video (848 x 480 pixels) either. Audio quality doesn’t stand out but gives a nice enough mobile solution.

Equipped with an internet navigator derived from FireFox, the N900 can be used as an internet tablet and gives a pleasant navigation experience. The display is good , page loading rapid and it gives effective handling of pages and history. To zoom, you can choose between the physical zoom (that doubles up as the volume button), hidden behind the screen and not easily accessible, a double tap of your finger on the screen, which allows you to zoom in and out precisely, or lastly drawing a circle with your finger. We were least convinced by this last option. Scrolling in pages is also still a little less easy than on an iPhone 3G S. The N900 however supports Flash, which the iPhone doesn’t.


Another feature, the GPS chip calls on the Ovi Maps service to guide its user.

To benefit fully from this high-end smartphone, you’ll have to get inside the guts of it. Otherwise you’ll risk using just a fraction of the N900’s potential. To enjoy it then, it’s best if you’re familiar with the world of Linux!



The N900 from the point of view of a technophile

Although the N900 can do pretty much whatever any other smartphone can do (though less well from the point of view of the average user), we do nevertheless advise that this expensive terminal is really only an option for more expert Linux fans, familiar with the open source universe. We gave the N900 to Franck Mée (for whom Linux is second nature) to have a look at. While he’s not generally the least interested in what smartphones offer, he did spend three happy hours with the N900. He liked! To the question, "Would it link up well with your computer?", Franck answered immediately: "Yes, obviously". That’s what the N900 is, a PC (using Linux) in its most mobile version. Franck didn’t need too long to get to grips with the N900 and he found the interface reminiscent of his computer.

Our camera editor confirms: "The N900, is a geek’s heaven, you have to enjoy getting your hands dirty to get the most out of such a terminal". He liked the way that the graphics of the app installation system are reminiscent of certain Linux managers: for those who are interested Maemo was developed using Debian, a distribution of Linux that is certainly not the friendliest for the general consumer. D-Bus is used with this for communication between processes, GTK+ (soon Qt) for the graphics library, Matchbox, the windows manager and Hildon, the framework derived from GTK and which should soon also be replaced. There you are!

Franck loved the fact that you can use the N900 as a terminal for getting inside the entrails of the phone (or how to make your life more complicated!) and the visual part of the interface. He regrets the lack of applications on Maemo.org, the fact that navigation isn’t always the most logical and that the keyboard is restricted to three lines (5 would have been preferable) "especially as you need to look up characters in the symbol bank that you often require for those famous "commands"".

Who would we recommend the N900 to? To those who know and like Linux and will be able to put this terminal to work, but not your average user.

QED!

The N900 shows that Maemo is a good base. All that remains is to embellish it, dress it, perfect it and simplify it so that it can one day perhaps be the basis for general public phones.