Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

The proximity sensor simply detects if something is covering the space directly in front of it (e.g. when you hold it to your ear, it's in your pocket, etc). It's instant.

I do not know if and how it is used for answering phone calls though. It definitely stops you from accidentally hanging up a call with your ear while in a conversation.

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

I do not think there is a Google Maps app (officially) on the n900. Now gnuite is working on a MaemoMapper for Maemo5 so in that regard you would have Google Maps (along with Microsoft, and Yahoo) but unless he radically changes the way POI are done then you still wouldn't have full Google Map features.

I think the widget you are talking about is the Ovi Maps one.

But you could always use Google Maps in the web browser + maybe activate location aware.

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

Please see "How to extend Bluetooth profiles in Maemo 5".

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

wow lots of ot bickering. I've never heard anyone complain about difficulties answering calls on nokia phones, touch or otherwise, so I'm pretty sure it will work just fine.

Three things with the N900 annoy me.

1. Mms. Not because I need it, but because I've made so much fun of iphone users when they didn't have it. Awkward!
2. Usb OTA. Not because I need it but because some people could do some really cool stuff with that.
3. (and here is the big one) no JAVA!? Wtf? Not that I need it, but my wifes grandmothers phone has java!

None of these things have any affect on my decision of buying the phone, because frankly, maemo makes other mobile OSs look like pong.

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

Actually.

http://java.sun.com/javase/embedded/...quirements.jsp

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

I think a lot of people fall into this category lol, the irony.:D

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

Sign me up. :D

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

Hey Dexter,

I have a n95-8gb and a n810. If you never used a maemo device, you will be blown away by the usability of the n900 when compared to the n95.

Anyway here is what you will miss in the n900 in comparision to the n95 8gb:

1. At&T 3G. May be big issue if you still want to stay on AT&T
2. Google maps. Nokia has Ovi maps but it is not as good as the google maps because even routing is not free on ovi maps. And the ability to search locally for something is really awesome on google maps. I hope google will port a version very soon or maemo mapper will somehow enable local search and routing.
3. N-gage games. There is no DRM so no N-gage.
4. Bluetooth tethering AFAIK is not officially supported by nokia but i assume work is being done to get it start working right from the start by the community
5. MMS
6. Hardware keys for task switching.
7. Nokia pc suite? I am not sure about this one.

But when compared to what you will gain.... i can write pages. But it would be fun to learn the limitless possibilities of Maemo.

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

Thanks for your reply, sachin007.

Luckily the AT & T thing doesn't bother me since I'm in the UK. Out of interest why can't you use 3G on AT&T?

I will miss Google Maps, hopefully there will be an app for it eventually, or the website version will work nicely in the browser at least.

Never used N-Gage, so that doesn't bother me, but is the lack of DRM system wide, or just games? i.e. no DRM would mean no iPlayer downloads!!

The Bluetooth bothers me a little but not too much, it's not something I use that much so I can live without it, or find/use a work around.

The MMS is my biggest bug bear (sp?), though like I say I'm sure I saw a post on here recently showing how to email an MMS using someones telephone number, but I can't find it now to test it out!

Not sure how much the lack of hard keys will bother me until I use it.

Isn't Nokia PC Suite, now Ovi suite? Haven't used it for ages tbh, but I'm sure I've read about contacts/calendar syncing, so there must be something.

Overall, I'm confident the N900 is better (or going to be better), than my N95.

Oh, also, someone said that the N95 takes rubbish photos, since the N900 and N95 have a similar 5megapixel, the photo quality isn't an area of concern. My N95 take excellent daytime pictures!

Re: A few questions before ordering my N900
 

US AT&T uses a different frequency for their 3G network than EU (and most of Asia?). I guess they had to choose which one of the 3G antennas they wanted in and the AT&T freq just couldn't be justified for whatever reason. :)

No DRM at all at the moment - not sure how iPlayer would/wouldn't work. There was talk about implementing it as Ovi Store payed apps require it (afaik, but don't take my word for it, going off memory here :))

While Bluetooth won't be supported out of the box, the actual BlueZ developer is having a talk about how to enable other BT profiles at the Maemo Summit, so you can almost count on this coming at least from the community sooner or later. (Only saying this as you said it was not a dealbreaker, had it been I would advice you to wait and see ;))

Some operator let's you email an addy and the receiver gets it as an MMS in his/her phone, not sure which does though.

Ovi Suite is currenlty in beta afaik, and it lacks *a lot* of the functionality PC Suite does. It's more like a basic picture/addressbook/message sync (also handles installing maps for Ovi Maps, at least on my N95) while PC Suite comes with the messaging centre etc.

From what I've seen, the N900 might even take better pictures - but as you say, I think my N95 takes good enough picture for when there isn't a DSLR around ;-)