This is not entirely true... There are two options for turn-by-turn maps, one is free (Maemo Mapper) and the other is pay (Sygic). I noted this in my sister thread in the top post. The gripe on OVI maps is totally valid still, but you may just want to say you need to find alternate solutions since the built in nav program is not useful.


This is actually a power-save feature, where widgets don't update while the screen is off to save power on the device. Not all widgets behave this way. Some that do this power save trick shouldn't (like the clock) and some that don't should (the Facebook widget for example until it was fixed in PR 1.1.1).

The screen redraw happens within a second usually, but I do see a valid complaint here, especially for status-bar icons and the clock. Those should update regardless of screen status, since they don't update often (they're not usually animated), and people rely on seeing them instantly to know the device status after a quick flick-on.


Portrait mode is handled on an app by app basis, even for Nokia based apps. PR 1.2 is going to expand the number of Nokia based apps that support portrait mode, but by default any app on the phone can use the existing APIs to detect and trigger portrait mode. An example of an early adopter of this was Xornal, which has had portrait mode since before PR 1.1 came out.

This is the way the device was designed, having a hardware keyboard. Just like most apps for the iPhone don't work in landscape mode (try it some time, only some apps support tilting), most don't support portrait on the N900. A key difference is that most of the vendor supplied apps on the iPhone do support tilt, while most on the N900 don't.

I can browse the OVI store on the N900 just fine if I go to the store via the standard browser. There's a link on the desktop that ships with the device that doesn't work, but just going to the store works fine. If you click on items while browsing from the store the link loads the App Manager and begins the app install process rather seamlessly. This is how I've installed all my OVI store apps. I didn't even know about the SMS option until you pointed it out.

The problem with tags and the like is that there is no one set standard out there to follow. Some program add art tags with JPEG images, some with PNG, some with GIF, some with proprietary formats.... and it's not clear from the tag which method is used in most cases. I've had similar issues with compilation CDs with "various artists" on Sansa players that list by tag vs by file name. I would like to see an option in the media player to sort by file/folder name though, that would be nice.

As for media playback, I've seen very little in the way of stuttering or problems, initially or otherwise. I've gotten texts or calls while the media is playing and seen it stutter then, but I can't say I blame it in that case. Putting the device in "airplane mode" while doing playback will fix such issues, but then you're "off-line". I've yet to see a device handle taking a text or a call gracefully while playing back media though, even iPhones stutter when that happens.

I have to disagree with this. My default media manager (a generic windows based pod-cast program) has no issues syncing with the N900. I point it to a folder on a mapped drive, and it works just fine. Any tool that can sync with a Sansa media player, or a file-based player that looks like a media stick will have no issues syncing with the N900. iTunes doesn't sync well with anything but iDevices, since that's it's target audience. iPhone can't sync with Google calendars, where my N900 can... Am I surprised? No. I don't expect companies to write their programs to play nicely with competitors products.

As for generic syncing, I sync my N900 with Google and with my office Outlook (via Nokia's free PC Suite) and it syncs contacts and calendars pretty seamlessly.