Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

This is an expansion of my post in the battery life thread.

Background

This month marks ten years of using a PDA in my daily life. I started with a Handspring Visor Deluxe, upgraded to a Handera 330, downgraded to a Palm T3 when the Handera was stolen, and then sold the T3 and bought a used Zaurus SL-C860. The Z served as music player, calculator, spreadsheet, PIM (mostly as a calendar journal), reference book, novel, and notepad, as well as an all-around geek toy. The previous devices had pretty much the same roles as the capability showed up. An LG 8300vx phone took over as my music player and calculator 3 years ago, and also added a handy (but awful) camera.

I have been seeking a convergence device that could consolidate these roles and add a much-needed GPS (i am a car-free cyclist these day) and replace my beloved-but-cumbersome-and-aging (dinosaurial) Z and phone combo, but not seen anything with a VGA+ display, keyboard, and reasonably open OS. Truly, the Z was ahead of its time.

It's with that background that i excitedly (re)discovered Maemo (the step 1-3 NITs were inferior to the Z by most of my criteria) just as my brief infatuation with Android was soured by the realization that it is anything but "open" in actual practice.

I jumped eagerly into the Fremantle world and began learning the ins and outs and dusting off my CS skills. I hacked and packaged a new (easy) port to Maemo 5 (The Ur-Quan Masters) and looked forward to getting an N900.

Day 1
Here's my experience with the battery life of my N900 (which arrived today). I partially charged it before turning it on. The charge level increased to about 99% until i unplugged it. By then i had set up wifi, but i do not yet have a sim card. The wifi remained connected as i proceeded to install and test and play a few games, the included map and IM and video camera and media player, and the browser. I had the gtalk IM client logged in the entire time, and sent as well as received a few dozen messages. Total game time was probably about 1.5 hours. The screen brightness was on 1 or 2 the entire time, and only blanked for maybe 15 minutes during the entire test. I kept open at least 6 apps all the time.

In short, i really gave it a break-in.

Battery Level @ Time
98% @ 18:30
91% @ 19:00
28% @ 23:15
21% @ 23:45
17% @ 00:01
6% @ 00:41

Comments:
6 hours of continuous moderate usage is probably a pretty typical battery life for a smartphone; i don't think the N900 is unusually inefficient. Do i wish it would last longer? Yes, but i recognize (and am willing to accept) that would require a larger battery. Really, i wish both the screen and battery were about 15% bigger. The device is so much smaller than any PDA i have owned that it would be no problem IMO. But that's just me.

Bounce is incredible as a showpiece for what the hardware is capable of, and it was silky smooth, even with a half-dozen apps open.

The screen isn't as much of an improvement over the 8-year-old Zaurus C860's as i expected, and the keyboard a bit more cramped than expected. I think both are adequete.

The hardware buttons are bizarrely shaped, sized and located, and thwre really should be one or two more.

The USB connector is both too hard to disconnect and too delicate--clearly a weak point.

The camera is pretty nice but the software needs beefing up. I'll probably look into the possibilities tomorrow.

No reboots. Mic works fine (knock on wood). Some weird UI glitches, especially in the initital set-up dialogues, but i generally am impressed with it.

The battery cover is a bit scary to remove the first time. I feared i was going to break my new toy before i even turned it on.

Packaging and all included accessories are quality: built in cable holder for both charger and sync cables.

Well that's my first day with the N900. After typimg this on it i am still not sure i'll ever get proficient with the tiny, aligned keyboard. It should slide out about another centimeter and have a bit more space at top and between keys. The three rows isn't so far as much of a handicap as the size and un-staggered layout.

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

Day Two

Same setup but more time locked
98% @ 12:20 (freshly unplugged)
57% @ 16:24
50% @ 17:20
30% @ 00:13
17% @ 01:10
9% @ 01:37

Day Three

Experimenting with disabling wifi
98% @ 10:21
86% @ 14:02 (wifi off, little usage)
75% @ 15:05 (wifi on and browsing)
49% @ 23:59 (wifi off, some videos and photos)
18% @ 02:12 (wifi on, flash-based game)

Day Four
91% @ 07:15
85% @ 11:00
84% @ 12:00

The best-case battery usage scenario (wifi off-no radios on at all, mostly idle) shows about 3% battery/hour drain. That translates to 30+ hrs uptime, which is within the expected range.

The worst case scenario here for battery usage seems to be the wifi+browser+flash game combination, which eats through about 14% battery/hour. It will be interesting to see how much that can be upped by putting in the sim card and using the GPS. The latter is not possible right now due to a bug.

It appears that the LED indicator can be green when the battery is only at 91%.

The music playback on the N900 is in a class of its own in my experience (fwiw). I'm sure the in-ear phones included are part of it but it sounds so muc better than my Zaurus SL-C860 and vx8300. It also handles MP3 files much better than the dumbphone, which would simply error out on about half the random mix i have on my microSD card, and not play OGGs at all. The N900 plays the whole MP3 mix. The speaker seems better, too.

The camera to be honest is disappointing It may have a Zeiss lens, but the sensor and/or DSP must be fairly rubbish. And the process taks a long time: i see a niche for a better camera app. The ability of device to take and playback high-resolution video is incredible, and the vid isn't too bad, but stills in any lghting have pretty pronounced registration artifacts and an almost "oil-paint filter" appearance. In poor light, the color and shutter time (as seen in blur) is bad. That's not to say that it's not the best camera my phone has ever had, hands down: The convenience of grabbing a high-res vido or snapshot wherever i am is priceless, i just found expectations unmet after reading about the Zeiss Tessar lens and 5MP resolution camera on Nokia's promo page.

Now for my main gripe, and i hate to have to say this, but the pimples anblemsihes on linux's face are showing throgh in Maemo. Video playba started getting laggy requiring a rstart (with nothing in top that appeared to be causing it) and audio in skype is just not ht. Although it was workinfine te othe day, this very webpage is causing the typos you are ing due to periodfreezes (i have been fixing them up until the last few lines). These are media/UI issues i just don't see in windows, but they pop up with alarming frcy in my linux box. Yes there is ussome but e fac it has toe fixehe usn' to (usually some fix but the fact it has to be fixed by the user isn't going to--back to fixed text after this) go over well on a convenience device like a phone.

The keyboard still isn't working for me as i'd like. The alignment of the keys makes touch typing still imposible for me (i had no trouble on my Zaurus). This is mitigated by the proximity of the keyboard to the screen, but it still slows me down. It may yet come. The tilde in the symbol keyboard doesn't work [Edit: someone, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the 3rd row Fn+Ctrl symbols should require you to press "Space" to complete the insertion]. No idea why. Having a Fn mapping for the spacebar (@) drives me bonkers, as does having one for the period ("full stop") because i often lock the Fn to type in numbers, and wouldn't you know it but "." shows up all the time within numbers!

The GPS needs work. Period. Come on, Nokia, this isn't news to you. This is outright failure on your part.

That's itfor no. Stay tuned.

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

Yep, the n900 IMO is the first device (from anyone) compelling enough to convince long time Z aficionados to switch.

Thanks for the very detailed review.

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

thanks. i suppose every one will have their positives and negs. as i read your comments, they seem pretty balanced. the software/os stuff i dont really worry about as presumably the 'community' has the power of change. hardware stuff (like keyboard, buttons) will require some smarts and work arounds. cheers.


p.s the virtual keyboard is actually pretty good for some situations...like the typing i' doing now :-)

pps how do you see battery life as a 'percentage?

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

I focus especially on the hardware shortcomings because those are the things that are permanent issues. While a lot of new functionality can and will be added by the community, the main roadblock to Maemo refinement is the Nokia-specific stuff. The breakdown between proprietary drivers and Maemo is especially a point of concern in e.g. the case of the GPS and GPU because not only the community but also Nokia can hit a wall there. That has been the achilles tendon of open devices since the dawn of time.

All of this IMO of course.

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

Balanced and informative review. I find the N900 lacking in many places my N95 8GB excelled at, GPS apps and Camera being one of them.

Everyone has their own gripes, the keyboard is cramped, I type at the same speed I type on my N95! But give me a month I'll be fine - and so will you!

Keep in mind that this is step 4 of 5 to maemo 6, its far from perfect, but its not even out in shops here in the UK.

The random reboots are whats really annoying me! I hope they are not H/W faults.

Look forware to your next day!

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

I completely agree, but in my interactions with nokia they seem to realize this as well and push their manufacturers as much as is reasonable to offer open drivers. And there has been measurable improvement here, IIRC the n810's wifi drivers were closed, the n900's are open.

I have a Zaurus SL-6000L Truly an amazing device, many years ahead of it's time. The screen is *still* amazing.

But it's still essentially stuck on a 2.4 kernel due to using a usb prism2 based wifi chip.

Very similar thing prevented my SL-5500 from using modern software as well (proprietary SD reader driver)

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

Sidebar: Development and Community

I'm typing this on my linux box for a change. It's appropriate because most of my Maemo experience to date has been through the browser and IRC client pointed to online maemo community chat channels and resources. This is a summary of my experience and impressions of the part of this particular PDA (yes i know that's a largely obsolete term...) that is unique so far: a vibrant online community of developers and users.

Take most of the complaints of this post with a grain of salt, as things are really in a state of flux due to consolidation of diverse Maemo web resources into a single destination (maemo.org). For example, the annoyance and confusion of having to register three times to access all the components of m.o will be resolved. Similarly, the unholy mess for developers and would-be "demoers" that is the scratchbox SDK is being slowly mitigated by other options (e.g. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38075).

Community
The N900 is an elite device, Nokia's "flagship" and the community surrounding it is fairly elitist as well. This makes for a lot of friction at the interface as ADD-affected kids and iJoes begin to trickle in to the fold. I experienced more than a little outright snobbery on IRC while beginning to grope my way up the developer learning curve. The good news is that amongst the socially inept and posers there are truly brilliant and helpful people who can save you hours of wandering in wiki hell. Wear your thickest skin and don't forget to google.

Which brings us to the wiki and the rest of m.o. The wiki is a mess, through no particular fault of anyone. If there was a single fault, it could and would have been fixed. As it is there's a combination of fast evolution (old, inaccurate information for previous Maemo versions is almost inextricably mingled with relevant Fremantle nuggets), fragmentation (beyond the fast pace of OS evolution, there are articles targeting all levels of expertise and intent), and above all poor visiblity and wretched search functionality that is still mostly broken from the aforementioned merging of Web resources.

So i've covered IRC and m.o and touched on the SDK. IRC is and always will be the niche of the nerds and we all want it to stay that way. The SDK experience and m.o are evolving quickly and, optimistically, upwardly. What's left is the actual experience of developing.

Development
I haven't done much software development and my CS classes were a long time ago, but a few things have already stood out to me as being fantastic about Maemo.

1. linux: like Android, Maemo is based on the linux kernel. The similarity ends there, however, and the differences are important. Android builds an application layer that looks and acts like a Java virtual machine on top of the kernel. This extra layer has some benefits but in my mind they are insignificant next to the restrictions. What makes linux so popular is not the kernel, but the kernel in combination with the "userspace tools"--all the ecosystem of tools, utilities and protocols that have been built up over decades of unix operating systems. Google shot themselves and everyone else in the foot by essentially throwing that out. With Maemo, any familiarity with linux or other unix systems will be a benefit. Web references for linux will probably be useful. Example code will probably be useful. Libraries and tools and apps will probably be useful. Seriously, there's very little reinventing the wheel here.
2. Debian: this is a more specific case of years of development and evolution in linux that benefit Maemo. The Debian package system and the tools that go with it are brilliant for simplifying the maintenance and distribution of complex software systems. The initial learning curve is more than compensated by the flexibility and robustness it brings to Maemo.
3. hardware: the N900 is loaded with good hardware, which simplifies things by making it work with a lot of apps already written for desktops. Sure, some UI and "optification" work may be needed, but having the grunt and the resolution to at least run these apps makes for a much broader world for would-be developers and maintainers.
4. No java: ok, this is extremely subjective, but i hate java and this is my own soapbox, so this is my little rant. It and the unrelated javascript have both been taken to places and repurposed for uses they never never should have been. Countless crappy software has been hacked together in both. Like any linux system, maemo system programming is done in C or C++. Python, as an elegant and easily-bound high level language, is also a viable option. Not having java supported in my mind avoids diluting the quality of available software by having cheap & dirty java versions of apps pop up that never work as well as the alternatives would--alternatives that either won't get made or won't get refined because the nasty java version is "good enough". I'm fully aware of the counter argument to this and my response is that i'd rather have fewer, better apps and that for cases where java is the only option, there are or will be solutions... :P

My own experience to date consists of the porting of uqm (The Ur-Quan Masters) to Fremantle, adding rudimentary accelerometer control through a joystick wrapper (which incidentally can be used for any other joystick-aware port--this is one of those cheerful little side effects of the three points above), writing an improved package description "nicify" function for the app manager (submitted as an attachment to a bug tracker enhancement request), and making an initial port of modern SDLMAME. The repository and hierarchy of extras, extras-testing, and extras-devel make it easy to provide a finished product to end-users while continuing work on a project and keeping it available for community testers and developers to play with. That makes it easy to work on a project when there is time, with the possibility of contributions from others who happen to have a speciality in some aspect of the development or have an itch to scratch. The setup and organization of maemo.org is really a big asset for Nokia, as long as both they and the community can keep making the planned improvements.

So, in summary, the N900 brings with it a huge community of developers and power users not seen for the Palm or Zaurus devices i've owned precisely because the platform development is actually driven by a community. While the members of the community and the tools have some thorns, they are overall becoming fewer. The nature of the OS and the sophistication of the device make developing for it a rewarding experience that can be as epic or minute as you wish.

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

I really agree with point 1 and point 4, point 4 in particular, sure there are thousands of apps for iPhone and Android, but its quality and not quantity that counts.

rdesktop, koffice, vnc, ssh, torrent downloading etc etc. are apps that enhance productivity - the iPhone nor Android has anything that comes close, and it never will.

Comparing the iPhone to the N900 is an insult to the N900, iPhone is nothing more than a gimmick for the clueless masses.

N900 is in a league of its own, its in the same league as the N95, which even today has more features than the iPhone.

Re: Flandry's ongoing N900 review: perspective of a PDA poweruser
 

Ironically, Nokia's intent is to make Maemo into an iPhone/Android/WebOS me-too by making javascript apps an integral part of the experience by step 5. Well, i guess there's always Mer. Or maybe some cheap Chinese Maemo device

Here's the most recent thread about the apocalyptic abomination that is iMaemoWebOSdroid: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38214