Hi all,

I've been drooling over the N900 for at least a month now, I've seen every video on YouTube and elsewhere and read almost very review or comment that exists and I'd like to share my observations.

As of yet, I don't actually own any phone - but I have seen, held, played-with the N900 for a short period of time.

Jerky Screen Scrolling

The screen scrolling (sideways) is very jerky and causes visible tearing, at first I put this down to bad videos on YouTube - but all of them?

Is there some limitation in the graphics hardware or a software limitation or bug? who knows - but it does not look good. I would expect it to be absolutely 100% smooth, no excuses.

Here is an example of the Marketing Manager from Nokia demonstrating this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Az8VE1NtY8


Dodgy/Misleading Advertising

All of the Nokia N900 promotional videos have speeded-up multitasking and task-switching much like the way Apple did for their iPhone Ads in the UK - these got pulled by the ASA for being misleading.


Multitasking

I'm not sure this device can comfortably run two or three tasks at the same time, from what I see in all the videos it is more "Task-Switching" rather than Multitasking and even that is not very responsive. When an option is selected, there seems to be a noticeable delay of about 1/2 second before the device responds - Very slow internal storage?, Overworked CPU? I don't know.

In almost every demonstration video of Multitasking, the user has to tap the screen a few times to switch tasks, almost like the CPU goes to 100% busy for a short period of time - particularly after starting the music player and if you listen carefully the music is jittery when switching tasks.

Task-Switching is not Multitasking, having said that, the N900 seems good at Task-Switching given that most the apps demonstrated are actually doing nothing e.g. IM, web page, etc. these are all 100% idle apps waiting for input.


3G Networks

I have yet to see a demonstration video of this device working fast using 3G, it seems everyone has a bad quality 3G connection when making a video!


Software Limitations

The device has lots of potentially killer applications pre-installed - but I suspect most of them are riddled with limitations?

I say this because applications like Mail for Exchange is a major app for corporate users, but know one is shouting about it, why?

Skype integrated phone App + WebCam but no video calls? but I've read that Nokia "may" include this at a later date - well, I "may" buy it then.

What other software limitations exist? -


Slick Advertising

Nokia's advertising is very slick and cool - e.g. (http://maemo.nokia.com/) and I really I like it - but it promises something I suspect this device does not deliver.

For me the glass looks half empty, I think this device is still a few generations away from where I'd expect (like) it to be


Shipping Delays

Even though I have not ordered mine yet due to these delays, these delays are not nice and I'm starting to suspect there are more serious reasons why only a limited number are available - I hope I'm wrong.

Al.