Nokia n900 first impression

Update 10/13/10
Unfortunately due to NokiaUSA screwing my $280 rebate I have to return the phone for refund. I like the phone, but the problem is that it's too much of a computer than a phone as the phone requires a lot of tweaking to make it really work. Coupled with the lack of applications and nokia support I probably won't recommend the phone to anyone else unless they are really into Linux.

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Just got my Nokia n900 last night. Played with it for a while and setup somethings. So far so good. Here's some of my first impressions. Will continue to update the page as I go through the phone/apps.


Build
About same size as my Touch Pro2 (TP2) but lighter. Build quality is good, I'd rate it a grade below Nexus one and on par with TP2. Physical keyboard is nice, but having 3 rows only really limits the typing speed compare to the excellent keyboard on TP2. I also like that they have a sliding door and a dedicate button for the camera, makes it a lot more useful in real life situation.

OS
Maemo is a fine OS. Smooth UI and good multi-tasking. Unfortunately it's simply not as intuitive or user-friendly as Android or iOS at this point. The UI definitely has a strong Linux feel, but it's fairly usable. The concern is that Nokia has officially said Meego will not be commercially available on n900, but hopefully the active community can pick up slack and port it to n900.

Communication
Haven't been able to test the phone functionality, but this is more like a tiny laptop computer than a phone. n900 has skype, sip client, and tons of other IM clients (MSN, jabbar, ICQ, AIM, google talk etc) built in and it is relatively straightforward to setup.

Skype:  There's no dedicate interface for skype, instead it is built in to the system. Voice and video calls work right off the bat. There were some high-pitch noises when n900 is talking to pc via skype, but I am not sure if that's because of my limited upload bandwidth or some other factor. Nevertheless it's very nice to see skype works well on n900, considering that they have refused to release an android client...

SIP: Setting up SIP with sipgate.com is a breeze. I was able to make VoIP calls between n900 and my nexus one (with Sipdroid) through WiFi. Voice is clear with some slight delays, but very usable.

Google Voice: You can get a google voice plugin from the app manager. I've only tested the text part. It works but since it does not support push functionality (a.k.a. google voice on android), it takes a while to have other people's text messages show up on the phone.

Applications
Maemo simply does not have the sheer amount of applications available on Android and iOS, and I am still exploring this aspect, but some built-in applications are really nice.

Browser: I'd say this is one of the best browser on mobile platforms I've used, second only to the browser on android 2.2. Pages render fast and correctly. Flash support make the browsing more complete. The browser also supports ad-block plus plugin to eliminate some ads. Unfortunately there's no multi-touch on the phone so sometimes it's hard to zoom-in zoom-out of a page. Also the flash is an older version instead of the newer hardware-accelerated 10.1 available on android. But overall a very nice browsing experience.