n900 has lots of shortcomings - its just if you are a certain type of user you wont care about them

some are
- gaming - to get good native gaming you need a palm pre. for emulation you need to buy the actual game and fiddle around with emulator settings not to mention the legal grey area ( see nitendos reaction to the initial demo of n900 emulating snes). other then that n900 gaming is very poor.

- no ports of popular apps - few software houses support the n900 commercially

- community based apps - some see this as a strength but there are definitly downsides. with no commercial incentive and almost all apps written by volunteers - apps only get written when the coder has time or feels its cool. once the cool factor runs out or the coder has no time projects get abandoned and updates stop until someone else picks it up - which may be ages or never happen at all. some famous examples are opera (no flash integration) and psxemu with smoku leaving.

- nokia n ovi - no or poor support by nokia - see the initial release of the twitter app on ovi and also how difficult nokia makes devs who want to release stuff for ovi - look up the ***** threads

if u are a linux geek you wont care for the above but if you are a regular joe then you will care. thats y there is alot of disappointment because much of the downside is lack of fallow through by nokia which is their modus operandi by now.

Annoyances on the N900 -

• Slow to respond , at times, phone application
• Virtual keyboard editing bug that scrambles text when using the virtual keyboard and you make a mid string edit.

That's about it for me. I'm overclocked fulltime at 250/1100. I love it and would be pushing you out of line at Amazon if I lost mine.

I am not a linux geek or even a linux lover. I bought this phone knowing I knew nothing about linux and would have to learn. From this point of view it has been incredible for me. I'm thinking of signing up at the Community College for a linux class because I've noticed my eyes glaze over when more than three lines of code are posted here.

When I was getting my BA degree I had to learn how to use a punch card machine to enter my data. I also had to schedule very scarce "computer time" to run it through SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) on whatever main frame the school was using. I think it was an IBM 360. Having this in my pocket is very "science fiction come to life" for me

Also, welcome to maemo.org forum. Super group of folks who keep trolls as pets.

Yes, we do b1tch m0an and compla1n regularly, but -

Just to underline what a lot of good folk have said in the posts above:

If all you want is a phone then you probably want to look elsewhere.
the Androids, WinCrap and iCrap all have some lovely features
which you may never see on the n900 (compass?)
But all those devices have shortcomings which even their fanboys
eventually acknowledge (camera quality, memory limits, trojans, etc)
These are in addition to the limitations of the OS they use.
They excel at being useful out of the box for merely what they
were designed for - a phone with some mediocre ability
to have a few minor applications added.
None of them run OpenOffice, or are able to hack a network,
or have the entire Debian application repositories to work with.
You cannot really see inside them, they have features hidden or
otherwise locked down by either Google or the carriers,
and the applications you install on them may have some
'interesting habits' which may require packet inspection to discover.
But they are quite competent at being simple phones you can slap
a sim card into and be on your way without any particular grief.
And in that regard they are a better choice for 'Joe Six-Pack'

If, however, you appreciate the ability to modify what you purchase,
then the n900 is in a league of its own and without peer.
Just do not expect any support from Nokia - that does not exist.
And remember it is a one-of-a-kind device and there is nothing
coming later to upgrade to.
The n900 is a beautiful b@st@rdized orphan
abandoned at birth by the very people who created it
but which with a little bit of care can be made to do just about anything.
(Except Flash, of course)
</shields up!>

I'm new to the N900. I just bought it a week ago. I Iike it because it is Linux and also my first mobile was a Nokia, but it could be faster. What about the DSP in this device? Is there any fancy app? With the DSP and a 600 Mhz CPU and a GPU it should be quite powerfull. Can somebody enlighten me, please!

overclocking: http://wiki.maemo.org/Overclocking_N..._for_Newcomers

swappolube: http://wiki.maemo.org/Swappolube

or your choice of "equivalent" mod: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...ghlight=boost; http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...ght=swappolube

to name a few

Phone app:
Strengths: Phone app integrates skype, sip, google voice, and phone all into one app. Conversation app features similar integration with SMS and IM.
Weaknesses: Always seems to auto-rotate at exactly the wrong time, right when i'm trying to click answer. Poor logging.

Mail app:
Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Slow as a dog in some configurations.

Web Browser:
Strengths: Fast. Smooth. Accurate rendering
Weaknesses: None really, I feel Opera Mobile gives better readability, but at the cost of accuracy.

Media Player:
Strengths: Wide variety of supported formats. FM transmitter, and TV-out are quite useful.
Weaknesses: No gapless playback, Media Player widget often doesn't respond to play. No equalizer.

Hardware: Front camera is garbage -- unusable even in a reasonably well-lit indoor setting on all the units i've seen.
Shiny ring around back camera ruins flash photos.
Battery life is not so great, but spare batteries are cheap.
Mediocre wi-fi range -- better than my laptop, not as good as my roommate's laptop.
Resistive touchscreen -- I like the precision, and the ability to take handwritten notes with the stylus, but many of the WebOS and Android games are mostly unplayable due to the lack of multitouch.
Kickstand is very nice, but device is poorly balanced with keyboard extended. I mostly use it by slipping my finger through it to prevent dropping.
Magnetic sensor for back cover stopped working on my first unit, making microsd unusable.
Stereo speakers sound nice, considering their size.
Hardware keyboard feels nice, and is easy to use.
No compass.
Plenty of storage.
IR out -- poor range, no IR in, so you can't just use it as a learning remote. I've never used a television that was actually listed in the irreco database. Xbox remote and apple remote work.
Only 256 MB of RAM. Default swappiness set too high.


Other software: This is where the N900 really shines. 3rd party apps make up for many of the weaknesses in stock software, such as Symfonie music player's equalizer and Faster Application Manager is a much faster application manager.

Many of your favorite linux apps have been ported, if not you can run them in a chroot, or if you're really brave you can add debian's lenny repositories right into your sources.list and run them natively just watch out that they don't conflict with your existing maemo software and be careful not to fill up your rootfs (rootfs space problems easily solved by copying it to /home using an easy script). If you're running off an alternate home partition, you can add the SDK repositories and write/compile programs directly on the device.

Powerful CLI tools.

USB hostmode available, convenient for external storage, mice, keyboards etc. Mouse and keyboard are convenient when hooked up to t.v. (I prefer to use bluetooth mouse and keyboard though).

MobileHotSpot features wireless tethering as well as wired. It can even tether your computer to wifi, which is convenient for me given the godawful range on my laptop.

Easily overclocked to nearly double its rated cpu speed if you need more power in a pinch.

Alternative operating systems can be installed to MicroSD or internal storage.

Awesome multi-tasking window manager. (Can even install IceWM straight from debian if you'd like to use a normal desktop Window manager with your mouse and keyboard)

Built in backup software not compatible with pc-based backup program. Built-in backup refuses to restore from internal storage, will only read from microSD.

Extreme scarcity of commercial software. Ovi store is a joke. But, the repos contain nearly everything you'll need. If you're used to linux, pretty much everything you'll want is readily available.

Ultimately, i'd say it's the most flexible and freedom-respecting phone on the market. Root access is readily available from the app manager. It's YOUR phone, not your carrier's, not the manufacturer's. I've used many other phones, and I like the N900 the most, by a lot.

skype with video over 3g, dosbox, snes emulator, exult, mplayer, usb-otg, stardict, good browser, real multitasking, xournal over easy-debian, open office, external mouse + keyboard support, fm transmitter, radio, panorama, f-cam, bluemaemo, android if u want, midnight commander, conky, kismet, wireshark, tv-out, phone, sms, fmms, xterm, ssh, vpn, bluetoogh, cusom hildon settings, etc, etc


it is very shitty out of the box, but the king of portables if you put in some time.

Overall system response - including the resistive screen which e.g. frequently misinterprets list swipes as clicks, aspect switch issues, etc
Media Player - in fact, everything to do with media, period.
Image Management (ditto)
Camera (And yes, I count BlessN900 - the results of which are for the most part still worse than an iPhone 4)
Flash videos (go to e.g. Dailymotion and compare the jerkfest on MicroB vs Skyfire on iPhone)
Navigation (in comparison to Android and even Symbian)
SSH / Remote Access (from your phone. Only the painfully nerd need SSH access TO the phone - what you actually need is remote wipe. And the N900 has that, right?)
Network Management
Games
Personal Productivity (DocsToGo and... Bueller? Bueller? Openoffice on Debian on a mobile form factor is a 24-carat joke, and about as /un/usable for everyday duties as accessing Office running on a PC from the N900)

...I could go on for, well, quite a long time.

Now, would you take booting a half-assed implementation of other mobile OS's, CLI and customisable UI, a giant body with no accessories - not even a wired full remote that works - and chronically short runtime once you start running some poorly written / perpetually-in-alpha apps (which are really common on the N900) over all that? Then you are a candidate for the N900.

It's a shame - but the Nxxx track record should have been, and indeed has been, an excellent indicator of where this is(nt) going. More resources spent on making Symbian relevant nowadays rather than being sidetracked by a forever-experiment-in-progress might have boded better for Nokia.

I have no linux experience but after having my n900 for over 9 months its still the best phone I ever owned. It seems as if I find something new with it every couple of days. Its going to be hard to get another phone after this

I just bought a second one! Great price at Amazon