Re: Nokia N900 Pitfalls and Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

I'm for N900 and I think it is fine the way it is, you should explain what do you mean on what I should reword.

You may want to re-read what I have written. I am saying those points that people complain about are wrong and should not complain about those issues I have mentioned.

Nokia has marketed this as a Mobile Computer rather than a smart phone. Type in google 'Nokia N900' and you will see the result "Experience the speed and raw power of the high-performance Nokia N900 mobile computer. Nothing else even comes close."

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

The problem with the counter-arguments is that they aren't counter-arguments at all. They can all be summarized as follows: "Nokia never said x feature would be supported, so you can't complain, or "The N900 is not a phone so stop complaining about missing phone features".

As for the pitfalls section - I thought there was some office-to-go installer preinstalled on the N900? I deleted it so I can't remember. At any case, using the OP's writing style, I could rebut this as such: "The N900 is a handheld Linux computer, and .doc, .xls, etc are proprietary Windows formats, so it shouldn't be expected to support them out of box. You should have gotten a windows mobile device if this was important to you"

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

Good point about the .doc. How come OpenOffice has it then? I think there is an OpenOffice port. Not sure.

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

Rather than counter arguments, to me they feel more like explanations on how those deficiencies came about.

This is how I rationalize the arguments against N900:

- The N900 is a Nokia branded product which receives wide marketing and distribution, usually displayed/presented along other Nokia smartphones in its price range: E72, N97, N97 mini, so on.
- Nokia has consistently provided the previously mentioned features in their 'smartphone' product lines (3g video calling when there's a front facing camera, vertical on-screen keyboard, good pc sync capability, etc).
- It is only natural to assume that Nokia has not lowered any of their standards on any of their new products.

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

@matthewtt: reverse engineering. If you are interested in an office viewer, checkout freoffice. My point wasn't that those formats can't be opened under linux, but that linux shouldn't be expected to handle these formats.

If you install easy-deb, you can technically install open office on the N900. It's still in extras-devel so not really suitable for regular use, but freoffice is also supposed to be able to handle these formats as well IIRC.

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

if this is a "mobile computer", then how come we can't edit Word and Excel documents out of the box?

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

I suppose you neglected to read all the responses. Your argument is as silly as "If my box running windows <insert version here> can't read ext3 partitions? how can it be called a computer" or "If <insert statement here> can't run Safari, how can you call it a computer". The (in)ability to open a particular file format or do OS-specific tasks doesn't (dis)qualify a machine as a computer.

In fact, by default, stock Windows laptops can't open excel spreadsheets either without first installing (or having pre-installed) microsoft office.

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

That's a rather bad analogy. Safari is not an exclusive manner to get to the web. Each OS has their own default method to get to the internet.

And each OS can read certain file system partitions. A reasonable person would know that Windows will be able to read NTFS and FAT32, Mac OS X will read FAT32, HFS, HFS+. And Linux will read ext3, ext2, ReiserFS et al.

To assume past that is folly - out of the box, that is.

Agree here. But you needed to be a bit more specific earlier, which (in my opinion) was somewhat incorrect because it left too much room for error.

Matters. Most come with the Excel, PowerPoint viewers. I can, however read *.doc files in Wordpad out of the box.

But as a "mobile computer" the N900 does fit the fact that you can indeed install an application (after purchase) that will extend to read, edit and manipulate *.doc, *.xls and *.ppt (among other MS Office) formats.

Oh... and *.doc was originally used by WordPerfect. It was their original proprietary file format before Microsoft adopted it. I remember that from my WordStar days.

You might want to correct that part.

Re: Nokia N900 Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

@gerbick: I never claimed that Windows couldn't read *.doc files out of box.

Are you implying then that *.doc is an exclusive format to write reports, papers, etc; that excel is an exclusive format to write spreadsheets?

"Reasonable" was a bad choice of words here. It seems to imply that a person that doesn't know that Windows can't handle ext3 by default is unreasonable. The point of mentioning ext3 partion format is that every modern operating system that I have come across can read ext3 by default EXCEPT for Windows.

Either way, it shouldn't be expected for a non-windows computer to be able to open Windows proprietary formats -- can stock Mac OS 10 open excel spreadsheets, yet? Why should a Linux computer be expected to?

No computer I have purchased (either through newegg, circuit city, or best buy) has come with an excel reader preinstalled without paying a premium. It has been a couple of years though, so perhaps this has changed.

The original complaint was that these things weren't built-in, so the mention of installable applications to fill this void is unneccessary.

No need for corrections, lest everything that was ever said on the internet need be historically accurate.

Re: Nokia N900 Pitfalls and Counter-Arguments for Complaints
 

Marketed as a computer and not as a phone?

The headline on Nokia's N900 page "The Nokia N900 Mobile Phone"

http://www.nokia.co.uk/find-products...#/main/landing

I think, and it is only an opinion after all, but when Nokia say " The Nokia N900 Mobile Phone" they are actually marketing the device as a mobile phone.

Unless, of course, I've missed the subtleties of the headline......