Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

There are for the virtual keyboard, but for the hardware keyboard you have to get down and dirty editing config files manually as described in the wiki.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

1. I'm not sure about Ubuntu and i don't think it'll work, it'll be laggy as ****. But yes, you can boot to Android while keeping Maemo as well, i.e allow dual booting. As for Meego, it's not even out yet and the current builds we have so far don't allow dual booting. The current builds we have are crap and unstable so no point going there anyway, not yet at least.

2. Again, the builds we have right now still have bugs, they're mainly for developers to test them out. Nokia has said that once the official Meego is released, they might allow N900 users to dual boot into that so we'll see.

4. As with overclocking/underclocking with ANY device, of course there's a risk to it. But on a phone, it's usually harmless and u can almost ignore that. I'm fairly sure about 80% of N900 owners on this forum have already overclocked. I have overclocked myself on 2 N900s and they worked fine for months, so u don't even have to worry about this.

5. How about doing some searching?? There're too many posts out there, ur lucky ppl didn't start to come in ur topic to flame or troll against u coz that's precisely what most ppl do on Maemo.org. I've had past experiences where i asked questions that are more technical to a more specific problem, and even that got trolls flaming on my topic.



Personally, I would go with a different device. N900 has a piss poor battery life, and i've tried out tons of mods and tweaks to increase its battery life, even sacrificing performance, but it's still crap. It's a good phone, but battery life is one of the majority issues that users have had with it. Also, it's been out for almost a year now, the development for this phone is poor, there aren't anything worth mentioning about it. Personally, i bought the device just coz it looks sexy and that it's one the few good looking devices with a hardware keyboard. But i'm soon changing to a HTC PRO 7 or HTC Desire Z, so i would suggest you look for those devices instead of the N900.


Windows Phone 7 or Android is at least more promising, and I doubt Meego will do well, one can only hope for it to. That's just my opinion anyway.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

I'll throw in my 2 cents just on the battery life. Mine lasts a day standing at 750MHz OCed. I don't think that's too bad considering most new big and bright smartphones last about the same. Just get autodisconnect and decrease the brightness when you're not using it. I find the tradeoff in slightly worse battery life (than a normal phone) is more than made up for in what it can do and the potential it has (which is a lot, unfortunately.)

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

One quick note about overclocking:

Your phone does not run at max speed all the time. It will spend most of its time in a sleeping state at minimum speed (or in some states, partially off) and only jumps to maximum when loaded.

Also, overclocking will cause a slow increase in errors (not sudden failure) over time due to electron migration. While this may take a while to happen, it'll mostly reveal itself in strange, unreproducible errors. Others who have since reduced their posting due to the poor atmosphere could explain it better than I, but them's the breaks.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

Maybe the thousands of posts here giving experience about overclocking have some value.

I happen to know that voting Republican damages your brain. It's invisible at first, but happens in twenty years. People who are Republicans who don't agree are in denial.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

There is theory, then there is empirical evidence. Both are equally substantial, in my opinion. However, I personally don't think that two such subjects should be used to argue against each others case, rather they should be used to benefit one another.

Even so, I don't know much about phone hardware. My experience of hardware comes from old school computers (pentium 1, 2 and 3 era, k6-2, etc) and I know that the majority of that stuff is very different than current phone hardware, at least in terms of overclocking.

However, all I can say is that in my experience, running my N900 @ 805mhz (no voltage changes) has been rock solid stable. That being said, I have enjoyed the use of my device substantially more than when it was at the stock 600mhz clock rate.

It's not a huge difference, but it is very noticeable. I feel that this way I am not as tempted to buy another device just because it is faster - as mine isn't so slow anymore. I will keep this up until the upcoming devices are phenomenal, justifying my need to move on to something better. That being said, I personally feel that overclocking my own device is in fact an investment - it's preventing me from getting bored and wasting my money on the next coolest phone prematurely, as there will inevitably be something even cooler than that just over the horizon.

In the end, we all know that the OMAP 3430 is designed to be scalable at up to 1ghz. Although there are more factors than the cpu alone that contribute in the cpu's clock rate, at least we know that keeping below 1ghz isn't really pushing the envelope that much. This is probably the biggest reason why we, on this forum, haven't read many (if any, i haven't at least) horror stories of overclocking too much where their device turns into a brick.

Either way, to answer the OP's question (and I hope we all can agree on this) - YES, the N900 is overclockable - even relatively safer than overclocking your E90. However, that is not to say that there is no risk, it's just very very minimal.

PS - Feel free to send your E90 to me. I've always wanted that phone, but I went for a US spec N95-8gb instead because I wanted 3g in the states. The E90 was WAY cooler than my dumpy N95 that kept falling apart. Hah.

Good luck and I hope this helps! I've loved my N900, however I do miss some of the phone functionality with Symbian S60 (even though the N900 is still good enough), and I am very bummed out that we didn't get Flash 10.1 and we most likely never will. Boo. However, the Maemo5 OS is fantastic for what I like to use my N900 for - basically being almost a mini laptop. Hah.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

I see it work acceptable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMwlchuqsXo
I don't think it will be worse than my e90 battery life, wich i charge every night until morning(7-8am) and after browsing some web, listen to music, play some games (that is about 2pm) the battery is at the last line - so i charge the phone about twice per day. And so i am kind of used to have a crap battery, but if n900 could resist from 8am to 10pm without a charge it is perfect.
I am not interested in how the device looks, i am interested in what it can do as long as it fit in my poket(no offence but i think sexy looking phones are for girls) :D
Windows phone 7 is a joke - a big mistake from microsoft- instead of improving and innovating windows mobile, they start all over from scratch and with the left foot, i mean come on this os doesen't stand a chance even in front of my old s60v3 os 9.2 e90 look at the limitations:

Windows Phone 7 OS LIMITATIONS:
No system-wide file manager
No videocalling
Limited third-party apps availability
No Bluetooth file transfers
No USB mass storage mode
No multitasking
No copy/paste
Too dependent on Zune software for computer file management and syncing
No music player equalisers
No Flash or Silverlight support in the web browser
No sign of free Bing maps Navigation so far
No DivX/XviD video support
No internet tethering support
New ringtones available only through the Marketplace
Swapping memory card requires hard reset; cards not readable by computer

Microsoft may fix this with time if they will survive in the mobile os market or everything will go the way microsoft kin phones did-to certain death.

Android does look like a promising platform but no phone with android have the opening that n900 have and with android been able to install on the n what else could you want?

If you send me your n900 i would gladly send you my e90 :D

About overclocking i read somwhere that the worse thing that may happen is the mass memory that could become corrupted and no camera or messanging acces becase of that

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

Just a note on that, your E90 probably has a duff battery if that's the kind of life you get out of it - Mine lasted (and still does) 4-7 days per charge depending on usage, with wifi and bluetooth enabled constantly.


I think you're a little mis-informed with this list (the misinformed list that was first published a while ago on gsmarena and has been incorrectly copy/pasted loads of places since), as quite a few of these arent correct.
Also, further worth noting, most of the limitations above that *are* correct (and some of the ones that arent) also apply to Maemo and the N900, which also lacks, out of the box:

system-wide file manager
Video calling
USB mass storage
equalisers
current flash
silverlight
wifi tethering

The difference is though, Maemo will never see any of these issues fixed. Microsoft have already announced their intentions to fix most of the current limitations of WP7 within the next few months at the most.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

Which is generally for the best, since your average user has no business nosing around in /etc or /lib. In fact, I'd say this is wrong since you do have the Bash shell. It's not a GUI, but if you need a GUI to browse the greater filesystem you probably shouldn't be messing with it.

Which is a fast dying feature in the face of things like Skype.

What do you mean by this? I think the person you were replying to meant that WP7 devices can't be used like a disk when plugged into the PC, and I suspect you mean host mode.

Could totally be added.

Could happen. Probably won't until MeeGo comes out.

I don't see why this doesn't already exist.

Nonsense. Probably not by Nokia, but still nonsense.

Indeed, and you are forced to wait for them to catch up. But then the greater problem of WP7 being as restrictive as iOS (if not moreso) comes into view, and it just ensures that you can't really do what you want.

Re: some questions from a potential buyer: multi-boot, MeeGo, USB host, overclocking
 

I'm not fully sure what point you're making - Whether the lack of a feature is "for the best" or "a fast dying feature" or "could totally be added" the fact remains those features arent there.
I was simply pointing out that ryu1 essentially rubbished WP7 on the basis of a not entirely accurate list of limitations it has, when half of those limitations, for various reasons, also exist out of the box on Maemo on the N900, a device he's considering buying - When he's using that list as a reason to not buy a WP7 device, it's clearly pertinent to point out the limitations which also apply to Maemo.

Yes, some of the functionality can be added through additional software, just like it can on WP7. Yes, some of it can also be fixed through updates, however barring the community SSU it's highly unlikely Maemo will ever get any more, whereas MS have committed to improve WP7's functionality pretty promptly.