N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

Hey everyone,

Instead of making a post with I'm typing this from my N900, I thought I would focus a bit on the usability of the web browser with and without the stylus.

With the stylus, combined with the very high resolution, I'm able to browse 95% of content without the need to ever use the zooming function on the webpage. What this means for me is saving a lot of time. Stylus lovers rejoice!!!

Without the stylus, it's still a slick experience. However, zooming in and out is a must when clicking small links, and double tapping is my preferred method as I feel that the clockwise finger roation is not precise enough for me, and more tiring.

In terms of responsiveness and feedback, the browser is very good. It's giving me the same response with a single window, or multiple windows with flash content, so that working with multiple tabs is only increasing my productivity (Of course there is a performance threshold somewhere).

After my brief one-day session with the N900, I can suggest this device for all people, who need to be online anywhere, in a fast, efficient, and mobile way.

I could speak of all the other features but that would make this a very long and repetitive post. I guess I'm one lucky bastard for getting a fault free device :)

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

you can also make tiny swirls and it works, very sensitive. i dont have to zoom much either, and ive become fairly adept at selecting link with a finger and no zoom. this is by far the best mobile browaing experience ive ever had, and ive been using internet capable devices for over 6 years.

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I find the zooming by tapping function to be finnicky, especially when running heavy processing apps. But gesture zooming always works, no matter what, in my experience. You have to do a partial circle to get it started, but it is VERY accurate. Just turn slowly, and the smaller the circle the better.

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I'm upset that there's no RSS mechanism for subscribing to feeds. What are we supposed to do, open, RSS and load in feeds? In 2009?!

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I'm not generally a huge fan of google services, but I've found a winning combination, IMHO.
I use Feedly as a front-end for Google Reader, in Firefox on all of my regular 'puters, and I use the iPhone version of Google Reader on my N800 and N900.
This works nicely for me. Google also strips the linked articles down to a bare minimum on the iPhone version and saves much traffic. Its all synced so you don't read dupes.
It works really well. Give it a spin ...

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

Forgot to mention - I am having some minor issues with rendering at the bottom of the view during browser scrolling, and whiteouts in the browser whilst rendering a new page and showing a heavy load. I have got adblock installed.

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

Browser is great however, I haven't quite got the hang of clicking links.

Most of the time it zooms in instead of opening links. Anyone know how to rectify this?

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I see this, too. Quite often. Very irritating and slow things down significantly

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

Out of curiosity, do you have adblock installed?

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

No, but I do have the native pop-up block set to Open pop-ups (only requested.)

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I'm a huge fan of Google Reader and spend most of mine time in it. I've never heard of Feedly but I'll have to try it out. I'm glad to hear that the N900 plays nice with Google Reader. Currently trying to use the mobile version of Google Reader on the E71 that I currently have is a little painful. I look forward to trying it out on my N900 when it gets here.

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I'm not a fan of online RSS browsing. I prefer offline instead. That's why I don't like Google Reader. I LOVE Firefox Brief, Internet Explorer's reader, and even Nokia's built in S60 reader, and they all work offline. I use the N900 SIM free

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

You need to develop a certain knack. You must tap hard enough that contact with the touchscreen is not interrupted (because that would break up your tap into two taps, i.e. a double-click which zooms).

Also it helps to know that a very quick tap just moves the focus to a button or a link and doesn't "click" it. A substantial push will click it, but don't press for too long or it will be detected as "long tap" which works like a right-click on a desktop browser.

After a short time it becomes second nature.


Regards,
Roger

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but while on the web page, just tap "+" -> subscribe to rss feed?

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

thanks peio. I actully remember hearing that before. but it would be nice to have some sort of indicator that a feed is present instead of always having to check the Add button. maybe make it flicker if a feed is available?

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

I've seen rave reviews for the N900 browser. Even Engadget liked it. SlashGear compared the N900 speed of rendering with that of the HD2 using the Opera browser. Surprisingly the HD2 came out the winner. I don't know if this may have to do with the method - they measured rendering of the full version of each site. As the N900 loads the full flash this may have slowed down it's full rendering compared to the HD2 Opera, may it not? Would anyone know if SlashGear is comparing apples to oranges in this case?

Re: N900 Web Browsing Experience (Zooming vs Stylus) and general browsing experience
 

opera has a turbo mode and does server side rendering like Opera Mini. So its expectedly faster, but dependant upon Opera stsying in business. I prefer keeping the rendering local. more secure