Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

Quite frankly overall the show was lame.
Josh in particular was TRYING to be funny on every line - which he doesn't realise takes away from any serious conversation.

Why do these guys have to review product with that hackneyed made up funny bone ? It really not that funny at all.

And secondly because of this attitude - they were actually trying to make jokes on nearly every product - the Moto Cliq, Blur, the Nano's with the tiny cameras and of course the N900.

I liked it at least when Josh said that its not really Apple's fault cause they were under so much pressure (as usual the Apple sucker) and Nilay interjected and said the ONLY pressure was to put the camera into the iPod Touch and instead they go put it into the Nano. And Josh was - "oh I am not trying to be apologetic for Apple " or some such back-tracking. Lame sucker at that !

And of course the silliest act of the show was the swiping gesture on the N900 by Josh - come on put some brains into that head full of hairs - its resistive screen - Nokia SAID SO.

And Paul was even sillier - "I love soft keyboards" - like they are manna from heaven.

I just felt like I was watching three rich snotty college kids with an attitude reviewing tech gadgets without a basic sense of technology or market economics.

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

Looking at all those accessories I would have thought that he would be dressing pretty well for a show which had lots of viewers. But instead this guy shows up on stage wearing sneakers, unfitting jeans and an unfitting shirt. Seems like you can not buy good taste in fashion :)

sorry I had to :D

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

Agree. He looked like a bag lady

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

i'm surprised the bad did not hold a DSLR...

still, 4 phones?!

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

@ Resistive screen fans and apologists

First of all, with the exception of the theme music, I thought the Engadget Show was pretty lousy. His 'demo' (and I use that word loosely) of the N900 was nothing short of childish. With that said, I do think his halfhearted attempt to use the touch screen is telling.

I'm tired of the screen debate but I'd like to give a perspective on this topic that I don't often read about (especially in this forum)--the perspective of a first time buyer. I have never owned a smart phone before. I have been in the market waiting for the 'perfect' phone for awhile and I think the N900 is the closest to matching my idea of perfection.

Still, with all the great things about this device, I am buying it in SPITE of the resistive screen--certainly not because of it. When I see people in these forums touting the 'ability' to use a stylus _in 2009_ as a good thing, I just shake my head. To me as potential new user, not having to EVER use a stylus is a much more desirable feature.

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

Maybe... but what do you think about the 'ability' to use the phone with fingernails... and gloves...

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

lol.. this is precisely what I had in mind.
when I think about the open source crowd.. STYLE and FASHION are the two foremost words that are associated with us.

Come on.. all this childish tit for tat stuffs are pretty lame. What good does a collective sigh do in our forum?

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

This is the most valid criticism of the show so far.

Engadget is meant to be a site with a bit of humor (after all, they have tags for everything from HelloKitty to RobotApocalypse). Plus, this was their first "feature length" show so I think you have to expect reviews with attitude and [attempted] humor more so than depth. I would guess they aspire to be AOTS Gadget Pron.

That said, I don't think their review was much different from what you will see when the general media start to review the N900. You need to first and foremost remember that in the US you can get a subsidized iPhone or G1 or PalmPre for a fraction of the cost of a non-subsidized N900. The expectation will be that the N900 should offer hundreds of dollars of additional value. Any area where the N900 is not better than all of the competition will be pointed out as a failure. Get used to the phrase "for the price you'd think they could have made the <blank> better."

As far as the screen debate, if it doesn't have a Wacom digitizer, it's a poor excuse for a screen. I personally would have liked the N900 to ship with a dual digitizer - active and capacitive. However the masses have not seen the benefits of active digitizers so we are stuck, for the most part, with resistive and capacitive screens. Those same masses tend to view capacitive screens as easier to use and they are right. A very well made resistive screen can, at best, be almost as easy to use with a finger as a capacitive screen but the best capacitive screen is still better for fingers than the best resistive screen.

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

Why don't you EVER want to use a stylus? This desire to remove features just because they're unfashionable or something is ridiculous.

Just as one example, I'm pretty sure I'll be installing dosbox and some classic games as soon as possible. Many would be impossible to play if you obscure the action with your thumb, and the limited accuracy would be equally painful.

No one is forcing anyone to use the stylus for everyday tasks - the UI will be quite up to handling your finger. Not to mention that some of us actually prefer to use our nails. To me, my 5800 is much more pleasant to use than a capacitive screen.

So stop trying to badmouth our choice of tech. We don't want Nokia to cease using it just because it's "uncool" and gets them too much bad press to be worth it. That Engadget ***** is a complete ***.


Edit: imho the ideal solution would be a next gen resistive screen that the user can set from super sensitive to very insensitive. That way everyone could choose for themselves.

Re: N900 on The Engadget Show
 

You can do something like that a little bit on the n810: while screen-calibrating press very soft on the points: it will be much more sensitive than pressing very hard on the points.