Thread: Nokia N900 vs. Motorola Droid / Milestone
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Laughing Man is offline Laughing Man
2009-11-17 , 22:23
Posts: 4,556 | Thanked: 1,624 times | Joined on Dec 2007
#351
Originally Posted by Holyshit View Post

1. The Droid has a bigger screen, a higher resolution, a capacitive screen, multitouch in the EU-version, it has a stronger battery, t's got an internal compass, it's got a four row keyboard, and still manages to be thinner and lighter. It includes more software, free turn-by-turn navigation in the US, almost all built-in apps support portraitmode, full flash is upcoming. It's lacking an FM-radio (who needs it when you've got stream anything u like from the web) and a frontcam (although that isnt even properly supported atm in Maemo) - but if you really needed then you can get the Saygus V1 Android Phone which includes both. The Droid also has some very nice accessoires, like a Cardock (which loads up a Homescreen optimized for in-car usage automatically) and a regular dock (which transforms the device automagically in a photostand, nightstand clock etc).
Eh, I'm not a fan of docks, it's nice that they'll charge the device for you but you have to pay for them. (Same reason why I never bought into Apple's iPods and all those docks) And the Droid doesn't have a TV output either (something I do plan on using). I'll take standard inputs over docks anyday.

2. The future for Android in 2010 is looking very promising. All this excitment about "the best browsing experience" wont be for long. The Droid (Milestone) has multitouch, bigger screen and higher resolution. So with upcoming Adobe Flash 10 support and the mobile Firefox (Fennec) the Droid will properly be a better Web device than the N900.
Android isn't as optimized for multi-tasking as Maemo is. Not to mention Android has had problems due to the way it's framework is designed (video and audio codecs for example)

And all this porting of Linux apps to Maemo: wouldn't proper ports require some serious work in the UI-department? a smaller screen, lower resolution, and touchscreen; so a developer would need to rewrite bits of his UI (such as bigger buttons) for a mobile device. The lack of a portraitmode is a serious showstopper for consumers. Everybody is used to using the phone in portraitmode. The N900 is a smartphone afterall; not a tablet? Yeah, it's upcoming - but so is Android upcoming with full flash, fennec, and even more social integration.
You don't think the same thing applies for Android? Even Android device has different hardware, different screens, etc.. if I was a developer I would just target the most common differences, not take advantage of a few devices like Droid and cut myself off from other Android devices.

Oh and if development is so easy for Maemo: where's the MMS-app, where's the portraitmodes, where's the Ovi Maps 3, where's the Google Apps?
Last I read those threads..

1) MMS-app it's being worked on but it's not a simple program and your done. It seems that it requires something outside of the device (but I just read the thread real quick)

2) Portrait modes, some applications already do portrait mode.. nobody cares to make a full portrait mode for the device (it seems they rather just let each developer decide if they want to do a portrait mode). I can't imagine it would be that difficult to do a rotation hack combined with the accelerameter considering the rotation hack has been done on the n800/n810 for a while now. The only problem is that when you do that then the applications won't look as nicely (and that's a developer issue not an operating system one).

3) Ovi Maps is Nokia, nothing the community can do.

4) Google Apps is Google, nothing the community can do about it. Lest Google sends us a cease and desist letter.

5. How free is Maemo? There's actually not a lot to choose from at the moment. You've gotta pick Nokia's N900 if you want Maemo 5. And in the software department there's not a lot to choose from just yet either. So how is this freedom? If I want Android: I can pick from 20+ phones, several carriers, and several phoneset-makers. I can choose to run GoogleNav, Sygic, Destinator, Co-pilot or whatever.If I want a music player, I can choose from 50+ programs. And 100% OSS is not even the goal of Maemo (OpenMoko is btw), but more like 80/20. They do want to keep (just like Google) several propertiery Nokia software out of the Maemo OSS-cloud.
I do believe that's Maemo's weakpoint (that Nokia will probably only offer it on their devices) and why Android will win in the long run (though it's my hope Maemo will make a big enough splash that its competitors will take notice and adopt attributes from Maemo".

E.g. not having all apps run through java, better multi-tasking, etc..

As for choice in programs, sure if you only look at n900 specific applications there's only a small amount. More if you include what existed on the previous tablets and what's possible by doing things like running easy Debian for example.

Though in the end it goes back to the whole smartphone vs computer/internet tablet thing. And if people are looking for a smartphone I personally don't think they should choose the n900, I see it having more desktop roots than phone roots.

So even though I'm very excited about Maemo (the whole concept of it), I'm going to stick with Android for a little longer; and hope to see Maemo 6 very much improved near end 2010!
I'm on the opposite side, I wanna see Android improve before I inevitably switch over to Android. So I'm hoping that Maemo will make a big enough splash that it'll cause its competitors to change things are done.
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Originally Posted by ysss View Post
They're maemo and MeeGo...

"Meamo!" sounds like what Zorro would say to catherine zeta jones... after she slaps him for looking at her dirtily...