Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Two extensive hands-on previews on N900 proto devices! Overall very positive, but let's wait for the release for answers. :)

Lot's of photos, with nice comparison to E90 and other phones and interesting trivia about the history of Hildon
http://my-symbian.com/other/preview_n900.php
Huge amount of work, thank you so much Michal!

Eldar's properly translated preview (original discussed in this thread), no translated conclusion as of yet (29.9.)
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/...aemo5-en.shtml
Thank you Eldar! (But next time do mention it being a preview of a proto device.:) )

ps. As an example, Michal states a major issue being "storage memory for installable applications limited to ridiculous 256 MB, all the remaining gigabytes available for documents and data files only" whereas Eldar says "The N900 has 2Gb reserved for user applications (as opposed to 90Mb in earlier firmware versions)." So these are prototype devices and there are a lot of details not to be worried about too much at this point without contrary evidence.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

It's really disturbing if Nokia keeps installed applications to a max of 256mb

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Check out the /opt discussions. This isn't -that- big a problem.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Great review from Michal (as always) :-)

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The My-Symbian review is great! (Save for the few tech details he gets wrong).

I am now in "want-device" mode. :D

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Quoth the Jerz:

stooooop teeeasing uuuuus!

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

In a video with Jussi and others, they addressed this issue... you can find the video and a text summary here

In short they mention the following:
"44:50 Gerry: Internal memory is only 65MB of free. [That’s something the community has noticed as well, Nokia have responded to. There’s a thread on the mailing list where the lower level architecture design guys like myself who are professional software engineers as their day job, are collaborating with Nokia in a very open way to find a solution to this. There is going to be a solution, along the lines of installing to mem card as N800 but out of the box. We’re just discussing where the work happens. Is it with community packaging applications or do we try with Nokia and get a solution that will make community’s life easier….in terms for end user experience, there will be at least 1GB."

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

What worries me as well is the fact that he says the screen is very sensitive to scratches...

Jerz:
"The only thing that worries me when it comes to N900 display is its resistence to scratches and other damages. And it seems to be quite poor. I got the device without any protective case and the display got some awful scratches in just one day, and that's only because some sand grains got into the pocket I kept it in. So a good screen protector or soft carrying case seem to be a must. OK, now..."

What brand screen protectors work well while not affecting screen clarity and sensitivity? I am complete newby in this...

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

:(

very bad.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

from the first link:
What does this even mean ? I though N900 support normal calls and also voip.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

It involves you saying "peter" and your phone dialling Peter's number.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Thanks for the links, PetriS!

I really enjoyed reading the first one. THAT's how a PREview is supposed to be written.

Eldar, on the contrary, writes stuff like "I hope that after the New Year the next major software update will fix this issue somehow.", once again giving the impression that what he has in his hands is final...
He should really learn a lesson or two from Michal.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

It's odd, I even made the "key test" on my (old) device and couldn't get any scratches to appear yet.

The screen has been adjusted several times though in newer models, so it is hard to say what the final screen is like.

In any case, I am personally not going to bother with a case or screen protector. I want the "untainted" experience. :)

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Even this might change for the production version. As a lame comparison, see the difference of materials for example in the structure of keyboard back plates of Michal's and Eldar's. Other mechanical changes may well be possible too.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

I found both reviews interesting, they seem to be aimed at different people. Eldars review seems to state predictions as fact, but I have a feeling this is something caused by the translation, so I wouldn't read too much in to it. For me, the mobile-review (p)review seems to have forgotten the most important part of maemo - it's a full on evil-robot linux distro!! The other stuff is just bonus. my-symbian touched the subject at least..

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

The My Symbian Preview was GREAT reading...

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The media player looks like canola (or inspired by canola).
See Michal's review
http://my-symbian.com/other/preview_n900.php?page=3

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

eldar forget the conclusion, its missing..

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

I read everything Michal had to write, and I personally loved it. It made me feel very confident about the device. But as always, I'm going to have to have it in my hands to text and see if it's any good. The screen part was a little discouraging, but I had planned on buying a screen guard as soon as possible. I'd opt for Zagg, but they haven't made it yet. Until I get something, I'm going to have to take SUPER CARE of my N900 :D.

I was a little sad that he didn't include the battery life of the prototype. I hope it'll last an entire day with EDGE. But I don't mind keeping an extra battery on hand. But I do hate having to turn off my device.

That said, Michal is an awesome reviewer :) He did a top notch review! :D Thanks Michal!

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Fantastic (p)review Michal....cheers.

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That review Michal Jerz did ( http://my-symbian.com/other/preview_n900.php ) was pretty thorough. Good stuff and well work reading.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

I found this very encouraging in Michal Jerz' article:

However, there are signs that work is being done and that there will be a more advanced version of Maps when the device starts shipping. For instance, I could find audio files for voice navigation, which suggests that we should expect this feature to be available.

I hope he is right. :)

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

+1

... balanced

The best explanation yet, imho...

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Hi guys,

First of all, I'm so glad that you liked the preview. It surely isn't perfect but I wanted to make it available ASAP so it didn't go through the usual verification. My goal was to focus on the UI and built-in functionality, hence so many screenshots showing most of available apps, menus, functions, etc. This was meant to let visitors know how the device looks and feels.

I haven't written much about things like battery life, performance, etc. because my experience with testing protos tells me that such things are usually THE LAST to optimize and differences between protos and commerical units are often so considerable that it really does not have any sense to elaborate on a battery life of a proto when final units will become available in a matter of just a couple of weeks. Actually, I wasn't even sure if I should post sample videos and images as they're also subject to improvements. For instance, the second video with noticeable frame drops must have been affected by some swap activity in the background, which won't take place if e.g. memory usage gets optimized a little bit.

The preview will be extended and updated once I get hold of a newer firmware or a commercial unit.

Regarding the small storage capacity for software installation, I am well aware of the /opt (actually, home/opt) directory providing some 2 GB worth additional space. But the problem is that it is NOT being used by installable software packages. The only software that installed there was Dataviz' Documents-To-Go whereas (if I recall correctly) the "guideline" is that all apps larger than 500 kB (including all dependencies) should go there. Apparently, this is being ignored. Even the "official" Bounce Evolution (17.5 MB) installed under root ("/") and ate a lot of that precious space.

In my opinion, this should not depend on developers' choice as lots of developers will be ignoring it and make their software install under rootfs. There should be either a user-selectable option where to install a package, or the system might do it by itself, i.e. automatically choose /opt if a package is larger than e.g. those 500 kB. Otherwise, it just won't work....

Regarding the "few tech details I got wrong", I'll be grateful for pointing them out so that I can correct them. The preview will surely be read by thousands of people so it'd be good if the information posted was entirely correct, not to mislead anyone. I got the device without any information or support, so everything is based just on my own observations and I surely could have gotten some things wrong...

Finally, regarding the screen, my observation is based on a fact that I had two phones in that pocket: the N900 and the 5800 XM. The N900 got a couple of awful scratches (gosh, if I knew, I would protect it somehow!) while the 5800 didn't get a single one, which leads me to a conclusion that N900's display is more fragile. But I may be wrong and it might have been just a coincidence... Nevertheless, a good screen protector or a good carrying case definitely won't hurt the N900 even if what I wrote about its screen wasn't right ;-)

All in all, I am so obsessed about the device that I am going to launch a separate site (My-Maemo.com) for it. I don't remember being that excited about any mobile gadget since the early Communicators or the first UIQ 2.x phones :-)

P.S. I've heard about enabling the USB host not being possible on the N900 due to some hardware restrictions, but I kept it in the preview until I verify it myself :-)

Best regards,
Michal Jerz
http://My-Symbian.com

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Welcome aboard...

Your review is linked to from > here < as well if you don't mind. http://www.clicksmilies.com/auswahl/ernaehrung004.gif

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

thx for the extensive review michal!

one question: the contact shortcuts (the pictures of people) seem really big, is there a way to make them smaller?

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Michal's preview was well written and amazingly comprehensive and took care to point out this was a pre-prod device. I could not have asked for a better confirmation that my decision to pre-order was well founded. The best line of the review for me however was

the N900 truly impressed me with its FANTASTIC PERFORMANCE, STABILITY (it was really ROCK STABLE, take my word),

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

So right! +1

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Definitely a +1 from me too... This is a great preview (http://twitter.com/timsamoff/status/4468106943).

Tim

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I sure did. But I'm really looking forward to you telling us how the battery kept going. Or not.

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You're going to need to wait for final for that since there's still so much work being done on exactly that right now.

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Am I the only here feeling a little uneasy that battery life is only getting "so much work being done" on it at this late stage?

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Michal! Great to see you here! It's been a while since Mobius Boston, and I see you're now using a 50D. :)

Anyway, excellent N900 preview (blogged about it)! Thanks for providing some screenshots of some that I have not seen before like the rich-text email editor, calendar views, phone portrait mode screens, PDF reader app, and Documents To Go (Word, Sheet, and Slideshow).

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

+1 for the article, with on minor correction: I believe its 1200 DMIPS. The 2000 DMIPS is a theoretical maximum for the 1GHz Cortex A8 (you get the 1200 following the 2DMIPS/Mhz pattern).
.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

You're putting words into my mouth. It isn't ONLY getting work on it at this late stage. It's been getting work on it this entire development period. It's a long-term on-going process, so no... it's not something that was just started last week or something.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

You are.

Battery life is always one of the last things to be tweaked as other features need to be nailed down and tested throughly before the battery life targets can be set and met.

Re: Two extensive previews of N900 prototype
 

Thanks again for your very informative and enjoyable preview!

here are the few things i noticed:

"(the first superscalar CPU in a Symbian phone)"
this is not a symbian phone :)

"memory available for installation of 3rd party software (i.e. actually the whole rootfs file system) seems to be limited to a relatively small capacity of about 256 MB "
i remember reading somewhere here in this forum that this actually won't be a problem, because the rootfs is supposed to be around 1 GB in the final version. i can't find the source for that any more, so i guess it still remains a rumour :)
what i did find was this thread. the mailing list linked in the last post is a good hint that many applications have already been modified to use /opt, so the small rootfs (if it stays small) shouldn't be that bad an issue as you make it out to be.

"enabling USB host mode"
information on that is somewhat limited, currently it's all speculation.
it might be only a software issue, maybe a small adapter is needed, but it could also be that it won't work at all. the only thing that is certain is that there's no official support.

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@My-Symbian.com

Haha we don't mind you talking about unoptimized things, because as you clearly pointed out. It's unoptimized yet! But true given that they have the ability to change drastically it may not make sense to bother with anyway.

And bah on the fragile state of the n900 screen. I guess you gotta sacrifice something to have the sensitivity?

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Yeah, you guys are probably right. The same sort of stuff was being said about the iPhone when it was launched. :)

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For those people with the n900 unit and an NDA. Do we assume the NDA has now expired since the My-Symbian.com is out and Nokia gave him the unit to review?