I have to agree with OrangeBox, the camera quality is very disappointing. I figured that getting a decent camera on a mobile phone was a solved problem. Apparently not.

And I'm not comparing the N900 to a regular camera. Such a comparison would never be fair as a phone does not have the space for the same kind of optics. My base of reference is my previous phone, a Nokia N73. That phone produced pictures comparable to a low-end compact camera. The N900 reminds me more of the earliest cameraphones.

There are two basic issues with the N900: (a) the ridiculous amount of noise produced by the sensor, and (b) the inabilty to get a decent focus. Since the camera achieves focus by analysing the image, (b) might be caused by (a).

So the camera function gets two thumbs down from me. The phone is still fantastic with its other features, but a cameraphone it ain't.

I suspect that this is the result of trying to achieve a higher megapixel number, quality be damned! There is simply to little light for the individual cells of the sensor to overpower the background noise.