TBH i was reasonably impressed with the camera - maybe its the fact my digital camera sucks and is annoying to carry around. Went fishing a while back and took this shot which i thought was reasonably good quality for a phone camera... more of a convenience really than a quality camera for high res pics....

I agree...It's a focus problem...I take very close up pics (cause I need to) and the difference between my previous N95 and my new N900 is abismal!! now I'm doing what I didnt want to do in the first place which is carrying 2 devices (a phone and a cam)...I know the N900 is fantastic in so many ways but if I could only have the same close-ups with the resolution of the N95 I would forget about some other things that I miss from my n95...

I HAVE A QUESTION...why the cam doesnt focus? like the N95 it takes a little time to take the shot while it focuses but the n900's just tak the pic immediately....why should I do? or is a bug problem?

You should not press the button all the way down, the camera has focus.

Bec is right. You've to half-press it to focus, then full-press to shoot.

This is not a bug, it's a feature *chuckle*. Seriously, this is an advance feature that you could find in other commercial grade consumer cameras. After your subject gains your focus, you can move your subject to somewhere else in the picture other than centre. Unlike other dummy phone camera, where you can only put your subject in the middle to have it focus correctly.

It is a feature, but not the one you mention. That would still allow focusing, even if you do not half-press first.
The idea is that by fully pressing the button quickly you can skip the autofocus, to make a picture more quickly. It is also present on the N82 (and N95?), but there you have to press really quickly to skip the focus (which works better imo).

Ajjara, try Live Focus to add a manual focus option. That makes the N900 a better macro camera than the N82, in my tests in any case.

It must be something I said cause the misunderstanding. I didn't say full-pressed shooting would not focus, half-press focusing is entire different thing from you've been describing.

The N900 focusing mechanism is averaging the entire focusing area, that means when you've too many objects within the focusing area, then the subject will not get the sharpest focus.

Also, in many case you may not want to put the subject in the centre. One-press-shooting in this situation will always cause the subject to out-focus.

That's the problem Ajjara might have encountered, thus my answer.

Fortunately, N900 allows focus-locking by half-pressing the button. Once the subject is focus-locked by half-pressing the button, you can move your camera around to change the position of your subject before full-pressing to shoot. As long as you don't move back and forth, the subject should stay in focus no matter where you put your subject.

Live focus is solving the problem with video recording focusing and LED controls. I'd be so earnest to introduce such a good app when I've given a chance, but in this case it's not quite reverent.

Edit: Press Submit Too Fast

Indeed, I did not understand your point completely correctly. But I don't think what you describe is the problem. The N95 also has the semi-press feature, as do most compacts. Almost everybody knows that.
But the fact that the N900 does nót focus at all if you press quickly is not quite as standard, and I've seen many people do it 'wrong' when I gave them mine to use.

edit: Live Focus works perfectly well for stills. As I said, I tested it.

i just tried it with my digital camera (samsung hz15w), and when i just quickly press the 2-level-shutter, it actually does do a quick focus.

Where does the N900 keep camera photos at. I am having a hell of a time finding them!