About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

I've been a long time Android user and I loved it. Then I moved to WP7 last month and realised what a POS OS it is. But ever since I saw the N9 I can't get my eyes off it. I've sold my WP7 and now looking to get a N9 however there are a few questions I need to ask before I can make a move. Please do answer if you know :)

1- Gmail push notifications- Are there any? And when I get it does it show up in the feed menu or the top notification bar(apart from the stand-by screen)? Is there an audible notification?

2- Does the facebook timeline in the feed automatically get refreshed or do I have to do it manually? Is stuff related to me (wall posts, comments) highlighted or something? Same goes for twitter feed and mentions.

3- GTalk and Facebook chat- When I get a message, how am I notified? Is there some sign or something in the top notification menu or the standby screen with the clock? Is there a audible notification for this?

4- Does WiFi always remain on or does it turn off when phone goes into standby?

5- Do contacts automatically get synced with Facebook/Twitter?

Sorry I know these are trivial things but they did bother me a lot on WP7.

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

1) I believe all email accounts are configurable from "instant" to timed 10 mins -> 1/day. As far as I know all alerts trigger the "asleep" screen to show a relevant icon, then you get a list of related notifications grouped on the lock screen (swipe to go direct to the app to read them)

2) I believe all feeds are configurable in update freq (I only have rss feeds configured). I don't think update would be live, eg you would choose updates every 10 mins, 1 hour, or whatever

3) I don't use gtalk/facebook/skype, but SMS, skype, emails all trigger a notification as per 1) above on the sleep screen and more detail on on the lock screen. Message tones are slightly configurable for noise and volume

4) Wifi is smart, but generally it's on all the time (that something needs it). So if you have always on email then the wifi is always on. If you set it to poll then it's only on as needed. There is a powersave mode which forces connections to disconnect when idle - even more neat you can have this triggered automatically when battery is down to XX% empty, ie go into low power mode automatically when running out of juice! Why don't all phones have this!!

5) Dunno about FB/Twitter, but when I added skype those contacts auto synced down and for clear duplicates were automerged (but the matching has to be exact, so expect to do some manual merging...). The phone book allows me to pick a single contact and then message/phone them using ANY method that the phone is configured to use. So with a sim in, skype setup and my asterisk pbx, each contact has quite a lot of dialing options in my screen!


You didn't ask, but it's very fast and easy to enable/disable each of the accounts, eg I normally don't stay on Skype, but I have my asterisk logged in all the time. This can be triggered on/off by touching the top of the screen. Presume FB/Twitter is handled the same, but not using it...

All in all, incredibly slick and logical setup!! I have very few niggles with this thing!

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

thanks a lot for the reply. I actually prefer if the WiFi is on all the time since I prefer to be online on my social networks (FB,Gtalk) even if my phone is on stand-by.

as for the feed, if I understood correctly what you said, I can set intervals for its updates after which when it does refresh, it pulls in stuff from my RSS, FB, Twitter etc? 10 minutes is fine, I just dont what to look at it and see it hasnt refreshed in 6 hours (something that was persistent in WP7 and it bothered me quite a lot)

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

Buy it! You'll like it! There are still some things still to iron out, but hopefully the next firmware update (coming soon) will sort some of that stuff out. Some people have issues with wireless connections (I'm one of them) and the MfE client is buggy. These are known issues for Nokia.

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

what kind of wireless issues?

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

Wireless connectivity can be iffy - either not finding networks, or finding them but not making a reliable connection. Some people have not had any issues though. You should look around the forums, people have discussed this I believe. And if it's a real concern, I would wait a few days for the next firmware update (supposed to be imminent) and see if people are reporting improvements. It's not a dealbreaker, but I have found that I get a better connection if I put my home wifi to 'manual' connect and just leave it on the phone network 3.5G connection while at home, connecting manually only for specific purposes like ssh.

Battery life can also be an issue - my wife's phone barely makes it through a full day, and she's not exactly a power user. This had better improve, because once she starts using it more heavily, for photos and gps and the like, I have a hard time seeing how it is going to last even a full day. (Full day I define from getting up in the morning at 7 or 8 to going to bed at around 12 or 1am.)

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

I find battery life exquisite. It lasts 2 days for me with developer mode on (sshd) wifi constantly on, a few calls and a couple of hours browsing.

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

There is gmail push notification. The notification appears in your notification screen and a @ symbol appears on your lock screen. There is also a sound.

Wi-Fi is always on unless you choose power saving mode. You can also configure it to use 3G automatically when you are out of wi-fi range or if you prefer, manually. Wi-fi will auto-connect when you return.

There are some issues with weaker wi-fi reception than other phones but it will only bother you in areas of marginal wi-fi reception. This is supposed to be fixed in PR_1.1

Battery life is better than many Android phones. It's not unusually good or unusually bad, just normal with regards to smartphones.

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

battery life was certainly an improvement over the N900 for me... I say was - mine was part of the defective batch that a UK supplier sourced, and it had to go back...

Re: About to make a switch to N9, need some information
 

You can also disable background connections in the options. This will mean the phone will only connect to the internet when it needs to sync. This is not good if you want to chat, but I suppose it saves battery (haven't tested this though).