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Posts: 117 | Thanked: 26 times | Joined on Dec 2009
#35
Originally Posted by bgrigor View Post
I haven't tried VOIP. Skype chat works great.
Good to hear that.

GPS is still in need of serious work.
Good to know that too.

Browsing is surprisingly good--great for checking news or TV listings.
Excellent.

First and foremost, a cell phone. I don't have a landline, so my cell phone is both my personal and business communicator. The N900 has a great GSM radio with fewer missed and dropped calls than my previous SE Z710i. BTW, I'm on Fido on Vancouver Island. HOORAY N900!
Excellent. I'm in Calgary. How did you go about putting your N900 on a Fido account ? What plan are you using ?

Second and very important: ability to hold ALL my contacts, appointments, tasks and notes from Outlook. HOORAY! I have over 4000 records on the N900. I've never used other smartphones, but my previous regular cell phones absolutely SUCKED at this.
What application are you using for this ? This is exactly what my wife wants. Are you syncing with outlook, ie receiving the emails on both your laptop and your N900 and then ????

However, Nokia PC Suite is giving me some grief, so the picture isn't completely perfect yet. Also, the PDA/PIM functionality is still pretty basic, e.g. cannot edit a contact from within the Phone app. I am hopeful these little issues will be worked out over time.
Is the Nokia app open source, ie could I add that functionality to it ?

Third, a music player. HOORAY! I have about 11 GBs of music and album art on the N900. The Media Player is basic but it works OK. Much better than my SE Z710i (shame on you Sony!). Only missing functionality is support for my Audible.com audio books, and I'm hopeful that will be added in due course.
Great to hear about the music. As I stated in a previous email, I'd love to have ONE music source for a change. I wonder if I could access my music files via a shared mount from my laptop and play them on Amarok on my laptop ?

Fourth, a decent camera. Again, HOORAY! The Camera app is pretty basic, but it works OK and the pix can be quite good, much better than the iPhone as I'm told. And it BLOWS AWAY my other phones.
Excellent.

As a bonus, the movie feature is also surprisingly good. There's an issue with the little chrome trim around the camera lens, but I expec that will be fixed (replaced with a black ring perhaps).
Fifth, a GPS. The N900 GPS receiver seems OK, but the Ovi Maps app is disappointing. First thing to do is download all the maps for your area ahead of time so you don't need a data connection to at least see where you are. I downloaded all of North America. However, Ovi Maps still demands a data connection to find addresses and do routing, which is rude. The "Track Me" only works with a route, etc. I eagerly await an upgrade, otherwise GPS is pretty much useless to me on the N900.
Google Navit. I think its going to become the GPS app for Linux.

Sixth, a decent calculator. Since I've been an HP RPN fanboy since the HP-35 and HP-41, I installed Free42 right away. YES! You won't believe how LAME the calculator is on the SE Z710i.
I am a TI89 guy. I would love to be able to use my phone as a calculator.

Things I wasn't looking for, but which work surprisingly well:

- Web browser with Flash, nice! I'm not into a cell data plan, but when there's WiFi, it's nice to grab the news or check ferry schedules.
Does the N900 have enough power to watch youtube videos ?

- Streaming media from all my Windows 7 media servers, VERY nice! I gather the iPhone can't do that? So I don't need to lug my laptop around the house to watch Photoshop User TV!
Its surprising what a difference a small form factor makes as to usability.

I understand the N900 does IR. I'd love to use it as the base for an all in one remote control.

Integrated IM. All my MSN, Yahoo and Skype contacts now appear on the phone in one App.
I'm not a texter, but I can see where that would be really handy.

- Sketch app. With a stylus and the awesome screen, there is actually some potential to use the N900 for on-the-spot llustration and artwork. This wouldn't be possible on a capacitive screen
Wow. Not that would be handy. That and the camera.

I'm looking forward to trying the KOffice drawing apps whether they're released.
KOffice on the n900 ? Is that in the works ?