Thread: Need advice from the maemo community: N900 or Android device?
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jnwi is offline jnwi
2010-07-26 , 17:20
Posts: 145 | Thanked: 237 times | Joined on Mar 2010 @ Helsinki
#8
Originally Posted by antman8969 View Post
1. If you were faced with buying the N900 or an android device today, what do you think your choice has over the other option?
The N900 is getting a bit old, and Nokia definitely needs to start releasing more devices per year. I think I'd still buy one just for the OS, but might wait until the N9 is out instead.

I've tried Android devices for a few minutes, and the UI seemed very boring and traditional compared to Maemo. Android is definitely better at portrait mode support.


2. A big concern of mine is not being part of a large and evolving community, not having access to a quality app store, and not being able to easily share my apps with my platform users. Is this a valid concern and am I right to assume Android has the step up here?
Depends on whether the apps you need are available. I'm happy with the Maemo repositories. I don't think we'll see a major increase until the N9 is out, but after that commercial developers should become interested too. "Sharing your apps" is no harder than on desktop Linux.


3. I LOVE linux and I LOVE everything maemo seems to stand for. The idea of SSHing into my laptop or desktop give me jollies. Assume we're comparing a maemo with root access to a rooted Android (ignoring efforts that go into each), is there any comparison in what you can do for each?
I'm sure there's a lot of stuff you can install on Android, but Maemo comes with a nice set of commands out of the box, which makes for a much more hassle free terminal experience.

Easy Debian is really easy to install on Maemo, but honestly most GUI apps are a bit of a pain to use. In the terminal, it's great.


4. Is the platform dead? I've been researching this choice for a while and it seems that Nokia ditched maemo to merge and make Meego, which doesnt look quite the same. Do maemo users generally feel abandoned?
Many are feeling abandoned, but I think the merger makes a lot of sense. Moblin and Maemo were so close to each other that combining resources is the only logical choice. I'm looking forward to the N9, and people who want to stick with the N900 will be able to install MeeGo without official support. Keep in mind that Maemo 6 was always going to require multitouch hardware anyway.

My biggest fear regarding MeeGo is that they'll dumb the UI down a bit to go more mass market.


5. In a couple of months after I buy the phone, what is one reason that could make me regret my decision over an android? I've heard battery life was less than 12 hours...
Don't keep IM services or constantly refreshing widgets on and the battery is fine. Portrait mode and general phone functions are what annoy me the most, but I'm missing my old Symbian phone rather than hoping I'd gone with Android for this generation.


6. Finally: If you think maemo is still a fantastic OS and I would be missing out on nothing by not buying an android, what positive things can you say about android? (bias testing question)
Android is more mature, and is currently better as a "simple" phone. You might need apps that Maemo doesn't have yet.

My recommendation is that you wait until Christmas, if you can. All the current options have too many negatives. The N9 will have the best OS with top of the line Nokia hardware.
 

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