One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

I've actually had my N900 for ~6 weeks now and been logging impressions (naturally on the device itself) as I went. The time has come to publicize them; I'm hoping to:

• See if others agree with some of the shortcomings listed below so we can start brainstorms to hopefully get Nokia to address the main ones for the N900.
• Perhaps serve as pre-purchase advice for people who are wondering if the N900 is right for them?

My previous phone is a venerable N95 and I also own a 1st gen iPod touch (both 2007 devices). I've also test-driven an iPhone 3GS for 2 weeks last summer. So these are going to be my points of comparison - most of the shortcoming listed in this post are not issue for either or both of these platforms, ie: points where the N900 has some catching-up to do...

Let's start with general impressions:

• Hardware build quality is good - no visible or tangible wear & tear after 6 weeks.
• The OS is actually rather stable, especially considering how new it it. I think I've only experienced one spurious reboot and perhaps the odd browser crash - it actually feels more stable than the iPhone OS and certainly a great deal more stable than the N95 when it first came out.
• The OS and the phone are generally sufficiently responsive for my requirements - not outstandingly so but good enough. The only exception is navigating around IMAP email accounts - this is unbelievably sluggish (certainly when compared with my 2yrs old(!) iPod touch).
• Battery life is along the same lines, not great but adequate - daily charge is in order.
• Phone reception is actually a good notch better than the N95's and another notch better than the iPhone.
• In terms of features and usability, Maemo 5 is IMHO somewhat behind both the iPhone OS and even the N95's Symbian OS.

That last point, I personally feel, is where Nokia really need to step up the game with Maemo 5.

Shortcomings are being addressed: the recent 1.1 f/w update actually fixed a few of my gripes (listed below). Hopefully things are going to continue this way as there are rumours that Nokia may be concentrating on future releases instead of finishing the outstanding work on Meamo 5.

I've also tried to link existing brainstorms or bug reports. If you care, please visit them and vote; if you know of others that relate to similar topics, please follow-up on this thread and include relevant links...

My severity ratings: :confused: = low ; :( = medium ; :mad: = high

Email

• :mad: Display the number of unread mails on accounts overview screen (so I've received a few new emails but I have 5 accounts, now which one are they in??)
• :mad: Deleting emails from device doesn't delete them the from IMAP server; junk mail is annoying enough to not have to see it more than necessary...
• :confused: Cannot copy from email body w/o editing message first

Calendar (link to brainstorm)

• :mad: Unable to set specific time for calendar reminders (only "x minutes before")
• :mad: No sorting for notes kept with calendar (seems to default to oldest first which is pretty useless)
• :( Tasks cannot have descriptions or be linked to notes

Web Browser

• :mad: Provide shortcuts to go to top/bottom of pages; smth along the lines of CTRL+UP/DOWN as scrolling a long page can be painfully tedious (eg: iPhone lets you jump to top of page by tapping the title bar)
• :confused: Make it possible to enter history from the bookmarks page

Phone

• :( Cannot paste copied numbers into dialer as DTMF
• :confused: Redialling a saved contact's SIP call from the calls log dials using a cell connection

Media player

• :mad: No ability to rate tracks in the media player. In fact, there seems to be no support for ratings anywhere (display, use in smart playlists etc).
• :( No gapless playback...
• :( No robust way to sync music and related metadata from PC or NAS... yet
  

Others...

• :( The N95 would let me set the same PIN for SIM and device and have it prompted only once at device startup - not the N900... really tedious
• :( Lack of (customizable) profiles (eg: Outdoor, meeting)
• :mad: PDF reader doesn't support TOC (or other intra-document linking)
• :( "Maps" has no integration w/ other apps (eg: lookup/link contact's address on map)
• :confused: Some search/match functionality (eg: in selection lists for browser drop-downs) seems to be case-sensitive
• :confused: File manager doesn't respond to keystrokes to navigate contents - more tedious scrolling...

Now for the better news...

:) Issues addressed by latest firmware (PR1.1)

• Tasks couldn't have reminders (meaning they were next to useless)
• File manager allows browsing DLNA shares but when attempting to open files, eg: music, the media player would say it can only deal with local files.
• :confused: Auto time update doesn't seem to cope with timezone change when travelling

:) Issues reportedly addressed by forthcoming firmware releases

• Sending files via Bluetooth from File Manager

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Interesting post to read. I'm still on the fence when it comes down to buying this or waiting out to see what happens with any updates or even new phones coming out.

Some of the things you mention, like number of unread e-mails would be a slight issue for me so I hope that gets fixed. I think the majority of other things I can live with, but I'm happy to wait a little longer and see how Nokia updates the device.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

MMS, portrait SMS (SORELY required), Ovi Maps turn by turn (as with all other ovi maps), Ovi integration.. ie ovi syncing/pc suite support .... all fairly large basic features missing..

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

When I delete mail from my IMAP gmail account on the n900, my mail is deleted from the server too

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Soleil that would be expected , IMAP is effectively looking at mail on the Server , so you delete it on the client , it effectively syncs that back to the mail server. If you use POP3 then that would download a copy which you can delete. With POP you should be able to specify to delete the email from the mail server when you download the email, which might not be the desired option

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Actually I meant to mention syncing to Outlook 2007 via the latest version of PC Suite as one of the things that actually works reasonably well for me (over Bluetooth and running on a Windows 7 PC to add to the challenge)

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Tweakr, gives you the ability to create and customise profiles.

For me from the main Gmail folders it does delete, but from Spam for some reason not. Have not looked into it in more details yet

This would be a nice feature.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Ovi Maps as it stands now on the N900 is dangerous to use as a navigation tool while driving. Turn by turn directions is the last thing I "require" on this phone/tablet/computer. I travel for work and having to carry around my old phone to use as my GPS is not cool.

A few other things I'd like to see:

- Somewhere in the status bar or on the "home screen", an indication that one has messages waiting: SMS's, VM's and e-mails (and the number of each would be ideal)

- An actual percentage of battery power that is remaining.

- A workable media streamer over WAN/internet.

(MMS is working: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...highlight=fmms)

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Whilst you can get it to work - its not integrated and has its issues eg you/I need to connect via a non default data connection to send/receive MMS's.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

True, it's not integrated.

As for non-default data connection, not sure about other providers, but with T-Mobile USA, you can just edit your default "T-Mobile - Internet" GPRS connection, with epc.tmobile.com as the APN, and (as outlined) the http proxy and automatic configuration web address added. Works just fine.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Works fine for me on several IMAP accounts.

rsync works wonderfully.

Worked for me last week.

That's Google's `fault` - when deleting messages from spam/junk on your IMAP client, it actually marks them as read in gMail junk.

You have an indication with LEDs when locked, and a highlighted `multitask` icon when unlocked (which on click give you further details - IMs, Mails, Missed Calls).

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

N900 lack of Camera mode option. Lack of camera focus for video and very bad picture in low light. No night mode and no LED flashlight while recording video.

Lack of on screen zoom for picture and camera. No smile detection, nor time capture. Browser crashed very often with this new firmware..etc,.,, many more problems

Some say Megapixel doesn't count, but i saw it and compared it with Sony Ericsson Satio 12MP camera, man!!! it drown my N900 both pictures and Video taken. At night the Zeon really look great just like the real camera. Whereas I can't even see anything on my N900 when taking the picture. :mad: Nokia should have add Zeon flash for the N900 from the beginning but now it is too late.

Bluetooth cannot sync with the headset properly and keep dropping off. CPU sometimes just load so easily and as for Virtual Keyboard randomly stopped working after reboot the device.

I have to keep rebooting 3 to 5 times and disable then re-enable the virtual keyboard a few times to make it work again. This is bad.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Here's my second impressions,
No dpad on left side and missing shift on right side pretty much limits the device for third parties to make games for it and extremely annoys me when I try to type capital letters that are located on left side of keyboard. Games will all have to be touchscreen or accelerometer because of no dpad.

Why not make a N905 that's for bigger people with better specs and bigger screen and dpad? Put an NBA player on tv with it.
I want it to be a little bigger and with dpad and speakers are a little too weak but otherwise love it.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Am I missing something? Where is this 'multitask' icon? Is this a downloaded app?

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

The Shift button is sticky...

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Holy cow. It´s time to learn something new about your phone :) It´s in the top left corner. It gets highlited when you have missed calls or new messages.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

I would like to see a "refresh" selection in the browser.

Also, as suggested earlier, I'd like a more prominent display of new messages. Maybe on the lock screen. I keep forgetting that I need to hit the "multitask" button to find that out.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

jsbigs. If you type lshal|grep percentage into the terminal you get the remaining battery percentage.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Well no s**t. It would be hard to miss the orange thing that flows across the screen. That's not what I'm hoping for here. I'd like to see something on the "task" bar or whatever you want to call it, that quickly tells me the number of voicemail messages I have waiting, and maybe the # of unread sms's and e-mail's, without having to go to another screen. I can certainly live with the current situation but would prefer this added convenience.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

While it's not strictly the same as "refresh", there's CTRL+R for reload and CTRL+SHIFT+I (assuming you manage to hit these together ;) which does some sort of "reformat to fit screen" and so causes smth similar to a refresh.

True, while I like the current MT icon trick, the notification currently disappears as soon as click it. I now know I've got 8 mail msg but the N900 will maybe show me one when I click that notification and let me hunt around for the 7 others, which, at the speed of Modest, will take me about a minute or two.

And thanks to those who report that deleting from IMAP servers works for them, so it must be yet another compatibility bug between Modest & my IMAP server - deleting from the same server works like a charm from my iPod touch. I can now raise a bug (as opposed to start a brainstorm). I'll post the link once that's done...

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

good points.... these are the reasons why i left the "tablet" and went to something else.. surprised its not much after the update...

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Having N900 for two months I've been very satisfied with this new device. Albeit having initial battery problems the positive sides clearly outweigh the negative sides. The community seems to provide fixes to small annoyances very quickly.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Wouu..Nice day to you also :) Let´s see what happened here:
So I answered to your question because clearly you didn't understand zwers answer. Sorry for that.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

OP, Very good points all, much the same niggles I have. However, they do feel like very small problems, when you consider the awesomeness of the device as a whole. Not even blips on my radar really. :) It's a matter of priorities though.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Agreed, this is a major advantage of the open source model and a clear reason for my choice of this platform. However, one issue that's preventing more useful community solutions is the closed source nature of Nokia's s/w stack...

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Mostly agreed. However, some of the idiosyncraties particularly the quirks with the mail client or the shortcomings with the calendar are really letting down what needs to become a viable contender against other polished platforms (you know the ones I'm talking about...)

For example, if I had to use the N900 professionally as opposed to as a hobby, I couldn't possibly, due to aforementioned shortcomings. This is where Nokia need to up the game. Let's see what the next f/w updates bring...

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

sxc I agree, I am running two phones for this very reason, I wonder how many people are?

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

if you click on the web page title (drop down menu at the top of the browser which is visible when not in full screen mode) then "reload" is a selectable option

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

I have been using my for 2 weeks and returned it for full refund. Why ? Because it makes no point to have all that great features in a device that can't survive a day without charging. In this case I prefer to stick with a real phone that will last more than a week + dedicated internet tablet, like my 1 year old N810 (or something new, there are so many of them in the market). That was the main reason why I returned it. Some minor ones:

- Device definitely too fat and heavy.
- The stand is a joke (Nokia, use proved solutions from N810).
- The screen less bright and less responsive than in N810 (and its smaller, but it is my personal preference to keep it over 4") - again, Nokia, use proved solutions from N810.
- Slider - much worse mechanism than for example in my SE W910i, it moves so easily in the trousers pockets.
- Hardware buttons are in my opinion upside down - lock should be swapped with headphone jack.
- Keyboard, again, Nokia, use proved solutions from N810... keyboard should be bigger, why only 3 rows instead of 4 ? Only the way how the key press is better now.
- Stylus - should be on the top, not on the bottom. Again, like in N810.

I am not going to write about all the advantages of N900 as you guys covered all of them many times :) Maemo 5 is the best mobile operating system in the market in my opinion, but put it together with all electronics in N810 case and increase battery life at least 3 times - then I will buy it. Probably as N910 ;)

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

The device is "too fat and heavy", but you still want it to be bigger and have a longer battery life?

EDIT: I'm not trying to bash you for taking it back - if it doesn't suit your needs, then I'm just glad you made a decision to take it back rather than just hanging around here whining about it. But if you're drawing up a list of requirements, you need to make sure they're not contradictory!

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

No, it isn't. Believe me, I would have noticed if it was...

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Okeyyy.
Maybe you have some really really rare Microb browser.

Also ctrl-r reloads page

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

The Reload button only appears if the previous page has fully downloaded successfully, which may be why you haven't seen it.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Which makes it useless, because that's the reason why I need it.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

This last point bugged me as well (and many of your other points too). Being able to quickly access the recent history when you launch the browser is very handy, especially on a mobile device. I really loved the Opera Mini start page on my Symbian phones - it would display both the bookmarks and recent history and make it a snap to get to the page you wanted.

I actually raised a bug for this a while ago for this. See bug 5719. It's been marked as WONTFIX unfortunately. Feel free to vote for it though if you'd like this behaviour changed.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Excellent & exactly what I had in mind in spending 1 valuable hour of my Sunday evening compiling this post.

I've just voted for it and hopefully so will others. Also adding the bug link to my OP. Hopefully this will help stop Nokia mark perfectly reasonable requests as "won't fix"

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Yes, that is what I expect - make it sleeker and with better battery life. But as I said, I don't mind bigger... battery can grow in many other directions than just up and down ! And there are much more factors that influence on battery life, than just size ! Again - see N810.

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

when you want to reload a page that is still loading:

press the red X next to the "resent history"-button on the bottom, press the title bar, find the reload button.

there you go!

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Well it doesn't work for me from the N900 but works fine from my iPod touch (same accounts/server). It therefore sounds like a bug in Modest; I'll raise it in Bugzilla shortly and will post the reference.

Perhaps I should have been more specific and stated that I would expect a solution that works cross-platform and is "reasonably easy" to setup. I also doubt that rsync would cater for metadata.

I guess this could still be useful for others who are running a UNIX-based desktop. I'm sure they would appreciate pointers on how to set this up; last I checked SMB shares weren't supported by the N900 and NFS mounts were somewhat hit and miss...

Maybe that's another thing that PR1.1 fixed - my last trip abroad was at Xmas (ie: before the f/w upgrade).

Re: One month in the life of my N900 or "second impressions"
 

Over all a good article.

In the end my biggest woe is when I see my friends with there 3GS and they have about a bazzilion apps for anything and everything I just get a small shrinking feeling that we wont see any of that on the N900.

Mainly due to Nokia appearing to not really support Maemo 5 in the way Apple supported iphone 2.0 +