Personally I just found out the n900 wouldn't be supporting portrait for key apps. This is disappointing enough to make me seriously reconsider buying what looked to **finally** be the perfect smartphone for me (call it what you want but it perfectly fits the definition of a smartphone that the rest of the world uses).

I have an HTC touch pro currently, which is a similar form factor, it also has a similar slide out keyboard, though it's a bit smaller.

A few points about single handed use:

1a. Even with the TP's smaller screen it's impossible to reach the whole screen or the whole keyboard with my thumb with the phone in landscape mode, held from the side.

1b. Holding from the bottom is very unstable and uncomfortable for accessing the screen and keyboard with my thumb. Maybe on the n900 you can reach the whole screen with the KB out, but I suspect you can't, maybe not even with it in. I think I'd get cramp in my thumb if I used it for more than about 30 seconds like this.

2. I use a huge amount of apps in portrait despite buying this device because of its keyboard. I really find it quite irritating that people are arguing that portrait just isn't needed. Frankly I suspect that most of these people have never actually had a smartphone that worked portrait only and would soon change their mind with regular use. Even if that's not the case, just because you find it ok doesn't mean everyone else does. I can state categorically that more than half of my usage of my TP would be extremely cumbersome if I had to use its landscape mode.


3. Use cases (these are real *every day* ones for me):
- a. Can't use two hands:

- Holding a bag
- Holding a support bar on the metro (very common for me)
- Smoking a cigarette or drinking coffee while on a break from work (all the time this one...)

- b. Speed of use:

- I can check an SMS that's arrived by quickly pulling my phone out of my pocket (while unlocking with the same hand) and pressing the screen once. Usually I just need to know what the message says, often if I don't have a hand free that is enough so I know if I need to respond or not, often I don't so I can just put the phone back in my pocket. This is probably the biggest problem for me.
- Same is true of email.
- Same is true of changing track on a media player.

- c. Portrait is more efficient for reading longer text:

- This is why magazines and books are portrait. I don't think I should have to say much more here. Our computer screens are typically landscape mainly for historical reasons (CRTs) so software tends to be optimised for this orientation, but that doesn't make it the best one. Try a portrait monitor for web-browsing sometime... It's amazing.
- I don't know if the Mozilla (Fennec?) based browser supports reflow like Opera mobile, but on my phone I find web pages much easier to read in portrait. Less scrolling
- Same is true of RSS
- Same is true of basically anything involving a lot of text.

Finally, regarding the keyboard. The Touch Pro's on-screen keyboard is too small to use in portrait mode really (though the Touch HD, almost same size as n900, with no fancy algorithms is fine to use), however even without using any on screen keyboard (except for phone), I still use the portrait mode for the majority of usage, as most usage is reading not writing, if I need to write I flip it to landscape for a minute, usually going straight back to one handed portrait mode when I'm done.