It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Hi,

First of all, I am not a big smartphone fan, in fact, my last phone was the Nokia 6680, which I bought way back from 2007.

Anyway, I'm now looking for a new phone... The n900 really caught my attention eventhough it's pretty outdated. Here are a few features that I actually liked:

**QWERTY
**It's not too small and not too big
**It's pretty cheap (around $180 - $300 on ebay)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Cell-Phones-...fLoc=3&_sop=16

(It says new, Im not so sure tho, give me your thoughts on this one)

**High resolution
**The OS of course (it gives you more freedom than the other OS)
**Storage Capacity (It has 32gb internal and an additional 64gb extrnal - from what I've heard around this forum)

So guys, tell me, is it still worth buying this?
And does this phone has the rotating screen??

oh, and btw, if you guys could recommend another phone, that would be great! The only thing Im looking is a huge huge storage capacity, QWERTY is a bonus!

THANKS!

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

It depends, not if u value usability and speed. But it has only or two pretty unique features, but if the price is right and buy a firefox, sailfish, tizen, ubuntu device in the end of the year.

But I can't recommend the device over newer once even if I like it. So go for somthing newer.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

1) Do you enjoy messing with Linux using a terminal?
If yes: continue.
If no: Look for another phone.

2) Are you very careful with your phones?
If yes: continue.
If no: Look for another phone.

3) Are you able to read documentation and use Google?
If yes: continue.
If no: Look for another phone.

4) Do you really want the N900?
If yes: buy it.
If no: Look for another phone.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

1 what do you mean by messaging with linux? dont it have a sms feature itself?

2 i am careful with phones, whats up with that?

3 why?

4 I really do like the phone...

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

It has SMS feature, of course, it's a phone.
He means playing around with linux and if you don't mind that you don't have all apps your friends (might) have then go for the N900. It's only you must be sure you really want it. Because all "phone" features are pretty basic, for example no MMS support ( there is an application for that though)

2: N900 has a weak USB port so be careful (mine is still intact after 2,5 years, though) and screen scratches easily so a screenprotector is recommended too

3. Well if you have problems with the phone (aside that those problems are almost always the user), dont be afraid to google it up and read what can be done about it. Or some question about how to flash it, most of it's covered up in the wiki of maemo.org, so make use of that ;)

4 good :)

Note: I don't try to put you off from buying a N900 but you really have to be sure you want it and know of it's shortcomings and not whine afterwards: why I can't play templerun or wordfeud. Just an example :D
Best wishes

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

1. Messing, not messaging. I thought messaging too at first glance
2. It's fragile. Search for usb port troubles
3. Many things, icluding the rotating screen need some work from you, sometimes involving the terminal. ON the other hand you can do amazing customizations on this phone
4. Go for it.
5. Beware of the "new" N900's on ebay. Better buy from a regular user who's been taking care of his phone

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

dont have native MMS though its possible to send them but a bitty messy from time to time, not sure if you are using it. But its good to know atleast.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

OH, he meant "MESSING" lol...

really great help guys, i think imma go for it..

Im actually a web developer myself and I do pretty much simple pentests using terminal, so this feature might come handy..

on the other side, Im pretty much very careful with my stuff.. as i've said, I've owned my previous phone for about 5 years..

@Mr_Pingu yea, im not really that type of person that complains alot, I'm pretty satisfied easily... thanks tho!

@qwazix What about the "new" from ebay? are they like refurbished or something? most of em are from hong kong actually, which i am curious about.. are those legit? they seem to tho cause most of em are top-rated..

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Hurrian's "query" is very good way to check, if you may enjoy N900. I could propose another one, though:

Do you want to have full-fledged mobile computer (first) powered by GNU/Linux in your pocket, with phone functionality (second, always)?

N900 is exactly that - mobile computer, which all things related to it (enormous capabilities, but just like with any linux-powered computer, you must get your hand dirty, from time to time). This can't be said about N9, upcoming Ubuntu phone (probably), or any other device, except for very niche (and much more hardware-limited) openmoko's.

So the thing is, what you really want. If you want smartphone (so you can remain dumb ;) ), you won't be satisfied. If you're, hoever - at least in part - geek, look no more.

/Estel

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

You won't regret go for it!

About pentesting, it's even capable of running aircrack-ng with injection, not to speak about other tools like ettercap, dsniff mdk3

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

well that's the thing really... N900 has this unique freedom other phones cant provide...

btw, I also liked it cause of the large storage... It is true tho that you could put a 64gb card in it?

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Hi,
I've just purchased mine a week ago for 100 EUROs and I'm thrilled about it :)

If you intend to write a lot from it, I suggest you to buy a foldable bluetooth keyboard it comes in very handy, it's full size when unfolded, and it's compatible with most of the actual phones either.
Geyes GK-308e

Good luck :)

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Oh really?!? This must be the phone that dude from Watch Dogs is using... lol

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Yes many of them are refurbished. Users have been complaining that the phones even had personal data from previous users. Some even had problems reflashing them. On the other hand I haven't seen complaints about a device bought from a fellow user in this forum.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

The major features:
-USB OTG(connect hds,mouses,modems,keyboards,prints)
-it can run debian,ubuntu,arch linux, mer,meego,nitdroid(gingerbread),windows 98
-high customizable if you know what youre doing
-hardware documented
-watch and download youtube videos
-tv output,gps,5mp with manual controls,raw format,led and autofocus,fm receiver and transmiter,audio stereo,qwerty,mobile modem,bluetooth tethering
everything in c++ and qt without loss too much performance in ram and cpu like android and its java virtual machine

but i dont understand whats the problem with the "new" n900 from ebay?(it has fragile hardware,its old and used)

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

I've messaged some sellers on ebay, they said they're new and if ever I wasnt satisfied they would give me back my money + the shipping fee so I think its a win win for me... they do ship from china tho

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

make yourself a dual battery and get an extended case. then overclock it running at 500mhz-1000mhz and it runs fine.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Until it dies from being overclocked to death.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

I bought one of these from a seller in Hong Kong. Big mistake. When it got here, the shrink-wrapped packaging was clearly inauthentic, so I sent it back unopened and the seller assured me a refund would be forthcoming. That was a month ago, and still no refund.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

what do you mean? The battery will dry up easily? Thats no promblem for me, batteries are cheap as f*ck so no problem on that... on the other hand, does overclocking make a difference performance wise?

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

you bought one of those n900s from china on ebay? so, you think it's fake? or just not new? and you sent it back unopened, meaning you didnt even turn it on to try if it works? and its too bad you still havent got you money yet.. It would be great though if you could tell me which user from ebay it is and where you are from...

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

The device is only set to work between 250-600Mhz.
Overclocking (using frequencies higher then 600Mhz) will reduce the life of the device. It also greatly reduces battery life.
Smartreflex only supports upto 900Mhz so any overclock higher than that would be really silly.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

but will it have significant effect? Would you yourself sacrifice battery life over the performance boost it would give?

thanks

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

These seem to be used N900s, repackaged as new. But you can tell immediately from the box that they were not sealed at the factory. For instance, see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xd7IVCV3Jg

I basically assume any N900 on ebay, and especially coming from Hong Kong, being sold as "new" is one of these used units.

I have read here that Negri Electronics N900s actually are new, but that was based only on a single comment, as I recall. Those go for about $250.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Thanks, I wont buy from those anymore.. I messaged them and they said they had to open the packages to set the language to english. I seriously doubt that though...

What about "new" ones inside the US? I found 1 from florida and another one from illinois

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Hi Greedness,

I suggest you look in your direct neighborhood for a try before you buy 2nd hand N900.

I have 6 N900 now, of which 4 I have paid under 200 USD, 2 only 60 USD.

At this price point there is no reason not to own an N900 is there?

Just take your time to find a cheap and clean one with a USB port that is still firmly attached.

The saved cash I suggest you to invest in a Mugen battery as the standard battery on the N900 is too weak in combination with overclock and multitasking.

http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com.../?q=mugen+n900



As you mention the form factor is a point of attraction and that is important.

I think after the current anorexic period devices will start to resemble the N900 again.

Yes, the N900 is slower but at least it provides the user a sturdy feeling of being control than most of the faster devices that just do what they (Apple or Google) want:

I have the chance to use the Galaxy Note II daily but I still prefer the feel of the N900.

form factor once called a brick is undeniable more ergonomic than the flat types
battery removable
screen estate overview thanks to HW keyboard
efficient application switching
ctrl-v / ctrl-c is very consistent
selecting text via virtual cursor
infrared / FM
document scanner functionality (Frontview: again great control thanks to resistive display)
built in Jabber / SIP / Skype / Phone -> real communication centered device.
internet radio soft built in (buffer is better in low speed connections than Airstream 10 or Symbian)

I write this since I honestly still prefer to use the N900 for surfing mobile compared to that Galaxy Note II of my GF.
I don't use it as a main phone: I have the 808 because the camera is too good compared to anything else.

But for mobile office work I use the N900 or a laptop.
For email I use Zoho.com: web based thin client that can include your other (pop3) mailboxes and that may be one of the reasons I can still get along so well with the N900.

Success.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Yeah, that is the way to think of it. The N900 isn't like a current generation smart phone at all. It's not just slower because it's a few years old. It has nothing remotely resembling the app ecosystem of iPhones, Android phones, Windows 8 phones or even Blackberrys. It's a pocket linux workstation that happens to have GSM radio hardware for networking and a phone app.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Checked out craigslist, didnt find one... Right now I can only find these ones from ebay

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Cell-Phones-...rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

some of em are listed as new, doubted it though... Tell me what you think!

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Oh, There are also a few @ amazon.com although im really confused if I should buy those listed as new or as used...

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Nobody asked how the OP intends to use the phone. If it is mostly for phone calls, messaging and playing music clearly there are better alternatives than the N900. Another aspect if you live in the US N900 can only work at 3G speeds with T-Mobile here, it is limited to GPRS/EDGE on ATT which makes loading non-mobile versions of web-sites painfully slow while on the go.

Nokia E7 is penta-band, has h/w keyboard and overall should be a better device for general mobile phone-like usage, it does suck in the camera department though. And it runs on Symbian, which can be a pro or a con depending on your point of view. One plus is that there are more polished apps for Symbian than for Maemo. Of course there are Android alternatives, but I don't want to go there.

Edit: forgot E7 has no microSD slot, oh well, iirc Symbian^3 can mount USB flash drives out of the box

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

I have an old phone, which I use ofc for phone purposes but lately I've wanted to buy an mp3 player. I decided to buy a new phone instead cause it comes with an mp3 player itself. What I liked about the n900 is its huge memory capacity... Then when I was researching later on, I found out how open it's OS was thats when I started to like it, I could do pentests, light coding and stuff...

I have now decided to buy this phone, if you guys however could recommend another phone that is quite similar, or if it has somewhat the same memory capacity and has a qwerty, then that would be great, I would reconsider buying this...

OH and also, Im not doing any browsing without wifi.. It has terminal anyway so virtually, I could use any wifi out there...

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

It won't give you much as the real bottleneck of the N900 is IO, so I suggest you to get a uSD with great random write speeds and put swap on it. This gives much more performance boosts. Sure you will notice overclocking will make the device look faster as transitions are faster buit the real performance boundaries are reads / writes from the "disk".

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

I see, but, what would I need performance for anyway? for games and stuff like that?

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Sure, and there is no reason why future SDXC cards (128 GB and more) shouldn't work - currently, all you need to do, is format them using some sane filesystem, like ext2-3-4 or vfat (from factory, SDXC cards have exFAT filesystem, due to windoze)

Hoever, I know that kernel-power & CSSU team is working (or planning to) on backporting things, that should allow using exFAT too, so no need to reformat. No much reason for using it over better ext* filesystems, just to have possibility of doing so.
---

As for you overclocking question, it looks the same as with overclocking any other computer's hardware - all warnings like electromigration etc apply. That said, running N900 with up to 900 mhz is considered sane, by practice. I use my device with limits 500-900 mhz and set the same for every N900 in possesion of family members and friends - never, ever, any problems with it, despite some devices being used for years.

As for extending battery life, you may want to look at this thread:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=65568
---

Before asking if N900 could do something, ask yourself, if desktop computer powered by linux an with comparabl hardware could do it. If yes, the answer is "yes" too, with high probability - unless you're first to try that thing (o no one written correct program, or kernel modules), and need to get your hands dirty, or, in very rare cases (nowadays), there is closed source blob sitting on your way.

/Estel

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Not that I don't overclock myself but I say im ~90% on 600Mhz as max ;) Sometimes I need that little boost for emulation (dosbox) or 720p recording (see my signature). There are special occasion you might need this performance boost but I would say for day to day use it's not that much of a gaining.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Quick reply...
I don't over-clock. It's out of character of me to take risks which could lead to permanent injury. I am using CSSU-Testing, with extras-devel repository enabled. Sometimes, I install CSSU-devel application (tklock). I do not play computer games... but there are exceptions, such as chess, tic-tac-toe, mahjong... I dislike violence, and I never play video computer games. I am a light developer - HTML, Javascript, CSS, C, C++...
I will use Nokia N900 for as long as I can. I will repair it, replacing damaged parts with new ones, for as long as I am able to.
The only phone I could recommend as newer successor of Nokia N900 is Nokia N950. Maybe, Nokia N9, if you don't need hardware keyboard. But the idea of Aegis makes me uncomfortable.
If I was in a falling air-plane, the objects I would protect would be Nokia phone, Fujitsu computer and identification documents, and yes, in that order. Computer would be turned off and in its bag, so its hard-drive will not be damaged much, even if it is submerged in the salty water (though this possibility is reason enough to consider investing in waterproof-fireproof bag). Nokia would be turned on, and its hardware is much more difficult to replace if any of it gets damaged (yes, a small and waterproof-fireproof-impactproof case for it would be a good idea; but I still would not trust it out of my sight). Identification documents are not that difficult to restore, and hold no sentimental value.
Best wishes.
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

I seriously considers these 2 since they're newer... Too bad they had to have small storage capacities.. God I would pay $200 bucks more for a 128GB n9

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

Aha! So that's what caused the plane to crash ;)

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

never mind the battery life, i think most people (myself included) would happily sacrifice a few months on battery for the extra speed in overclocking. the component you're reducing the life of is the CPU itself! once that's gone, sell it for spares on ebay.

personally, i do clock mine up to 720 every now and then (oooh, the extravagance!) and it does add a nice bit of extra speed. i tend to get worried and reduce it back to normal pretty quickly, though. :)

as mentioned here, your best gains are to be made by swap on an SD card.

Re: It's Almost March 2013, is n900 still worth buying?
 

You are seriously giving me wicked ideas...
The Boeing 737 series is the best-selling jet airliner in the history of aviation...
It was found that cell-phone signals, specifically those in the 800-900 MHz range, do interfere with unshielded cockpit instrumentation...
The captain of a Boeing 737 airliner on an instrument approach to Baltimore-Washington International Airport one night in March 2003 reported that his course indicator, called a localizer, had been centered during the approach, then suddenly showed a full deflection. Just then the aircraft, flying on autopilot, broke out of the clouds—at an altitude of 2,500 feet and a full mile off course. The incident is described in NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (asrs.arc.nasa.gov). The 737 pilot theorized that after announcing that the United States had started attacking Iraq (information received from air traffic control), passengers had placed calls on their mobile phones.
To the frustration of Boeing engineers, follow-up testing never duplicated the problems, either on subsequent flights or in the lab.
The government first began investigating disruptions from carry-on devices in the early 1960s, when an FM radio was blamed for an incorrect off-course indication...
A popular mobile phone broadcasts its intended signal at a frequency of 1,850 to 1,910 megahertz and a power level of 30 milliwatts. At the same time the phone is emitting its intended broadcast loud and clear, it is also putting out an unintended, or spurious, low-power background buzz of radio signals ranging in frequency from 100 to 2,000 megahertz. It happens that the very high frequency radio that air traffic control uses to communicate with cockpit crews broadcasts at frequencies of 118 to 137 megahertz, which falls within the frequency range of the mobile phone’s background buzz. Interference is not likely to occur, however, as long as the VHF transmission is sufficiently stronger than the phone’s background buzz. But the farther the airplane flies from an air traffic control tower, the weaker the tower’s signal is when it reaches the airliner. And if the phone transmits a signal that has the same frequency as the tower’s and is nearly as powerful, the two signals will compete with each other. Result: interference.
Thanking Wikipedia and Air&SpaceMag for the information. Now, an interested hijacker would need to go into physics of mobile phone’s background buzz, and probably low-level programming to increase the power output of the 'buzz'.
Best wishes...
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...