maemo.org - Talk - N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

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- Nokia N900 (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=44)

- - N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35391)

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

On the subject of whether more than one person claimed the N900 had an easily scratched screen -- here is a SAMPLE comment from early December:

", I have been sniffing around the N900 for a wee while now, and well ,like so many others, heard the rumours of the easily damaged screen on the N900"...

I saw many similar messages, and of course many messages on which screen protector to buy.

I haven't looked at all the threads yet; there are so many.

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

Many issues are being talked about here but the fundamental issue is obviously if the N900 is a suitable device for you.
The n900 is a developers handset that was released for the benefit of potential developers to get fully involved developing apps for this Linux based device and that has been exactly what has been happening on the device since its release last year so if you need a device to start developing apps etc for then the n900 is for you.
Nokia are not able to confirm the future of the N900 simply because they are awaiting as much development as possible and my guess is that this will lead to a base platform for the next Linux "flagship" Nokia will release.
The N900 has very basic phone functions with a lot of apps and functions missing from what we have became used to on a Nokia device.
On a positive note the N900 is in fact fully programmable and can be a suitable device for a fully developed platorm in the future, whatever it will end up as will depend on the development success in the future.
Meego is indeed the direction Nokia are going and no one knows when this will be available in a complete workable state as a base platform for any device let alone the n900.
For now my thoughts are NOT to buy the N900 if you want a fully functioning device with no conflicting problems within the OS, as said erlier the N900 is a developers tool and obviously has a long way to go if it ever will reach a final point of software completion as this device is primerally designed for developers to develop linux based software for mobile devices of the future.
The biggest flaw the n900 has is the USB port that will detatch itself from the motherboard due to bad design, this has now i believe finally been accepted by Nokia as an official design flaw and this means it is obvious Nokia will go to a better design as soon as the development is at a stage when a complete OS can be installed with the apps fully working without conflicts etc and please note that the os conflicts are simply due to installing new developed apps etc that are causing the partly developed os to crash or malfuntion.
Please also note that a complete fix is indeed possible for the usb flaw but unless Nokia officially implement this on all repairs being sent in (i doubt this will be the case) then to self fix will invalidate warranty so best to wait till the warranty period is over before implementing the usb port fix.
The N900 is a developers "toy" and will i guess at some point reach a state of full usability once development has moved on to the stage of putting together a fully non conflicting os of maybe Meego.
So the choice is yours but a clear point is the n900 is NOT a device that is fully functional with the apps we are all used too and requires time to get to that stage.

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

Created a thread for this but nobody responded, however thanks to this thread I realized there's a bug log out for this which I tried to contribute to.

Quote:

I'm confident this website needs another negative review like I need a hole in my head, but my vent is intended to seek help not besmirch the device.

I've had my phone since the December, the original launch I guess. Since then its been riddled with issues that made me realize why I never wanted to own a touch screen phone, however these issues are probably not common in any other touch screen phone. It seems as though the issues get worse and worse.

This recent issue is rather unexplainable. I use my N900 to listen to music while I drive or walk around, I hit pause when I'm done or pull out the headphones. During my finals I received a call from a friend right after I hit reject the song I was listening to started playing (this is not the first time this has happened but the most embarrassing).

The touchscreen stops working/responding. This is particularly annoying when waking the phone from sleep. But also when doing random things with the phone such as reading RSS feeds. I feel that this is part of a broader issue that I will be touching upon in a bit.

The issue is the lack of multitasking ability for a phone that can supposedly handle multitasking. I have loadapplet installed and it always shows the three full bars (left and right) with a flashing red one on the left doing fairly simple tasks. This leads to several problems.

One problem is answering phone calls. Just today I missed a call from a potential employer because my phone displayed an illuminated black screen while I frantically tried to hit where the answer button should be. After flipping the hold switch several times I finally got the screen to work but despite my efforts to repeatedly hit answer the call went to voicemail. This is not the first time this has happened but certainly the most infuriating. During this scenario I had a music player open without playing music, gPodder, RSS, two text message windows and an email notification, the phone had been sitting idle so there's no reason why it should have issues.

I'm not sure if this is part of the multitask issues but occasionally the touchscreen stops working and i have to put it on hold and take it off before it will respond to my touches.

An issue with MicroB is I continuously get those script errors which also slow down my phone and I always get those errors saying the website stopped responding would you like to close it? which gets annoying having to deal with.

I guess I'm a fairly fast typer but hate dealing with a lagging phone having to catch up with my keystrokes or miss some of them. But this is an issue I can deal with I guess.

Sorry for the long read/rant but I really want to like this phone but there are so many things that prevent me from doing so. Thanks for any help/advice.

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

@fidel cashflow
have you installed stuff from testing/devel? If so i would recommend to flash your device (both vanilla and emmc) just remember to backup and copy backup to computer before operation.

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

You should have the battery life issue on there.

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

I love n900 as a computer devise, its a little slow but its good for what it is. Battery is not getting even close to 6 hours as some would say, try 1 or 2 hours and this is my second battery too. The worst part about this n900 is that as a phone capability this is the worst phone I ever had in my live and I use mobile phones sense 1994. I am on phone a lot and will tell you that I get disconnected at least about 10-12 times daily. I also get many times an error message something like "Connection Error" as well as a busy signal to a cell phone as I'm trying to dial out and if I would turn off and then on the n900 it fixes the problem. I know its not from the service provider because I never had experienced anything like that in the past 7 years ever sense I'm with T-Mobile. I'm also very disappointed from the signal strand of the phone to towers, so far I have been very pleased from Nokia's capabilities to get the most tower bars, unfortunately not n900. My wife uses Samsung also with T-Mobile which I think is the worst of them all on towers, but in some places that I don't get any bars she has a signal and is able to do and receive phone calls and I paid almost $600 for my n900, WOW Nokia, way to go!!! I know that there is a meager software update coming up end of second quoter and I hope it will fix the phone problems I have experience so far otherwise this will be my last Nokia phone ever, unfortunately!

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

Quote:

Originally Posted by 9000;666244

[i

How is Nokia marketing the N900 ? Is it a phone ?
It is sold as a mobile computer with the Internet in its heart, and it was introduced as 'step 4 of 5' for tech leaders / lovers. If you want a mature Nokia mobile phone with extensive Java support and full SIM features then there are plenty of choices based on Series40 and Symbian. I think Nokia has been clear on that since http://maemo.nokia.com was launched this Summer.

Source : Quim Gil (Nokia) (http://wiki.maemo.org/What_can_we_realistically_expect)
[/i]

Nokia does sell N900 as a mobile computer. I'm sorry that it failed your expectation, but it's just not sold as a phone, only.

I want a tablet PC with cellular communication capability running Linux. Nokia makes a product I really want so I buy it and am happy with it. You expect something else, so your disappointment is understood.

Well I agree with you but still its all about marketing :)
Here take a look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS54VEJF5Gw

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

Quote:

Originally Posted by HellFlyer (Post 671157)

Well I agree with you but still its all about marketing :)
Here take a look at this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS54VEJF5Gw

Quim Gil's job title in Nokia is open source advocate. From his job title I believe he's far far away from marketing. At least he meant to make N900 a computer with phone function at the beginning. :)

Btw, thanks for the video, but honestly the ad is horrible, I wouldn't consider buying a N95 if I had watched it. XD Where did it show?

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

The issues fidel describes can be encountered in certain conditions on a fresh N900, once you've set up an e-mail account and use the web browser.

Erratically, the device will spike CPU usage in some fashion. Unfortunately, it is not predictable and by the time the device is responsive enough to bring up top the process has calmed down.

So far the major culprits might be modest, its background daemon, telephony, or browserd. They will sometimes kill responsiveness entirely, other times they will just eat the CPU to the point that no software runs but the system still registers screen taps (you get a buzz, but no action) and the backlight switch can be turned on and off.

Re: N900 Issues: For Potential Buyers

Quote:

Originally Posted by 9000 (Post 671181)

Definitely but sometimes business doesn't work that way :(
Marketing team usually are not familiar with all the technological stuff and this is what happens. Its really stupid of course N95 was a great device but comparison to PC is just ridiculous.

Same with N900, When I read it has Skype my first thought was OMG video calls from a "phone" without using 3G and free of charge? but then...

I saw this video in Europe but yes it sucks that guy sounds like tired monkey :D