Thread: For your next smartphone, will you choose N9 or switch to an Android phone / iPhone ?
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porselinaheart is offline porselinaheart
2011-01-28 , 06:18
Posts: 188 | Thanked: 53 times | Joined on May 2010
#54
Originally Posted by Mentalist Traceur View Post
As much as I somewhat-often (I guess... I don't really count) agree with James Littler on things, I feel that in this case that's a luck-of-what-got-installed-when/where-and-what-your-use-cases are.

I've never had problems answering phone calls on the N900, and I haven't heard anything from anyone suggesting I just missed any. I HAVE had occasional bugs where the phone spontaneously shuts off, doesn't reboot (but still has battery power to do so and run for a while), and when it boots up the next time, the text messaging system is f'ed (new messages out refuse to send, new incoming ones arrive but if you close the convo they vanish). Reboot after that usually fixes it though.

The only time I've ever hung up on a call was when I was about to press an entirely unrelated UI element when a call came in. When I have used the N900 as a phone (mostly after PR1.3, with the exception of one week with, I think, PR1.1.1 or PR1.2), I have not had phone call getting problems. (I realize it was worse before-hand, but that's kinda indicative of the existing support.)

At any rate, I don't know how you feel limited, really. We just got a replacement keyboard that pulls of portrait damn well, we have just about everything a normal phone can do and then some, and if you look over the spectrum of users and use cases, we actually don't have more bugs on this platform than iPhones/Android devices have. I know damn well I've heard complaints from Android phone users about their phones being slow. I have also know there's a good amount of iPhone bugs - it's just that most iPhone users are busy going omg-I-haz-iPhone. If we had the same bugs on Maemo every one here would be flipping a **** calling Nokia horrible at supporting this platform, this OS as beta, etc, etc.

Nay, this OS is damn good. And if it had the same limitations the iStuff had, you'd never run into most of these bugs, because the stock apps barely have any. There would be some - but like the iPhone's alarm-not-going-off-at-the-right-time problem, that's to be expected.

What makes everyone here have a problem with it is that this phone doesn't BS you about what's behind the scenes, and it doesn't give you comfortable padding. If this phone only let you multitask on its terms, you'd run your individual apps one/two at-a-time just fine. If this phone hid every bug within an entire closed-source OS, instead of just within some (admittedly very important) binary blobs, you wouldn't know of half these bugs happened. Things would "just(/not) work", and when they didn't you'd either not know about it, or not know what the hell caused it.

You get the liberty to know a binary blob is buggy and Nokia is anal for not open-sourcing it because you get to see through the open parts of the OS in the first place.

- Edit -

At the rate things are going, unless I absolutely need something like later-than-9.4 flash compatibility with bs'ed version numbers soon (which, honestly, I'd like, but I don't need now), I'm probably keeping my N900 for a few years. (Really, dear god, do people really buy high-end gadgets only to upgrade less than a year after the fact? Is this just because the N900 is the first smart-phone I ever liked enough to go out and pay for myself, and it was an actual investment for me? Do the rest of you really have that many liquid funds?)

Anyway, right now, the only things I personally miss from this phone:

Full portraitization (It's known to be in the works, and MohammadAG fixed the Qt bug in Maemo that caused segfaults when launching in portrait). Honestly, given how MUCH portrait support is now available courtesy portrait keyboard and usable-in-portrait status-menu, I'm happy with what's there. I just like the aesthetic of having fully full portrait support.

The Flash being up-to-date, but like I said, frak it, it's not a problem enough for me.

Print function included in the FreOffice UI. I'm pretty sure host-mode + debian-on-armel-driver-for-printer = printing possible for even USB printers. Combined with the already present Bluetooth printing capability, there's no reason that shouldn't be in there already.

Beyond that? I'm kinda set right now. The rest are trifles, for me. I know I'm lucky and I don't have bugs like some other people do. I can't really help anyone there, though.
@ Mentalist, your posts on your personal experience with the n900 are always a joy to read (at least for me) since they usually quite succinctly articulate my own experience with this nifty lil gadget so far. I've always only used the basic telephony functions off all my phones in the past, and have only wanted it to be able to store and play my music as well. The n82 however opened up my eyes to the potential of doing a multitude of things on a device which had an actual OS like a pc. While i quite like Symbian and its ease of use, the OS restrictions, were what prompted me to jump onto the n900 after a lengthy stint with with my old n82 ( which is still running fine i can report, ).

Sure the android and iphone markets may have a higher number of apps/customisations in total, but I wonder how many of those apps are redundant ( different apps achieving the same purpose ) or frivolous ( i don't really care about fake fart, fake sounds and beer drinking apps, ) but as far as actual useful apps that serve some real purpose, the n900 is only missing a few IMHO.

To some the whole notion of "need an simple app to do something?Compile it yourself!" does not sit well, but it makes me think that they've bought the wrong phone. While devs complaining about lack of support, bugs, closed source apps, etc are viable issues, I don't agree with comparisons with old/new nokia models and the iphone/android herd. Sure they may be much better smartphones with nifty telephony functionality but thats not what i was expecting from the n900. After my initial research into the device, I came to the conclusion that the n900 was meant for heavy tweakers, those interested in learning about linux, people willing to DIY stuff that wasn't in place, and that it was an unfinished platform meant for devs while offering basic connectivity, so I was contactable. In fact for a while i was unsure that I could handle all the learning, as i come from a non-linux, non-programming background.

I'm glad though that i went ahead and grabbed one ( tho i must admit a large motivating factor was the frustrating disappointment that my n97 was at the time) as its only required a little time, reading, a commitment to learn and a willingness to experiment. Initially i will admit I was a little lost, but by the recommended TMO method of using the search function and actually reading through threads before asking questions, I've started to get the hang of it. The best part though is that the learning hasn't stopped! At the beginning of last year, looking through the QBW thread just made my head spin, but after finally taking the plunge, i know have a much better understanding of dbus commands, and even have gotten to the point of creating my own custom widgets, complete with animated icons,

For someone like me who's willing to put a little time in actually read up and then fiddle about, the n900 has been a godsend to my curiosity and interest in tech! Sure i could do with a few more music composition/turntable apps, a garmin port ( I wish! :P ) as well as a portrait mode conversations window, but to be honest, thats about it. Even my very minute gaming needs when it comes to my phone have been serviced with the onset of Preenv. ( I much prefer my psp for gaming on the go, )With all the fanfare of new higher hardware spec devices coming out, I more inclined to save up my hard-earned dosh for a psp2 by Xmas, hehe
 

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