Well let's start at the beginning. I do IT work for a living, I own a windows box and a mac laptop. I would consider myself a competent windows admin, but my experience with CLI's has mostly been network troubleshooting related and up until the n900 I had never interacted with a linux system.

When I first was told about the "next internet tablet" I was skeptical. I already had a laptop and a cell phone, what did I need this thing for? As I did more research and more info was given to me I came to realize that this was not simply a widescreen blackberry, it was an exceedingly pocketable netbook/cell phone/swiss army gadget monstrosity. I had to have one. Besides, my old cell phone was getting a little worn...


I was a November order so my n900 came in December 4th; the beginning of a month long vacation. I was surprised by how small it was, but found that using it at lap level yielded perfect results. I had one stuck pixel (barely visible) and none of the other hardware problems I've read the bemoaning of on these forums.

After getting a T-mo sim I set about browsing a little and installing a couple of apps. A little while later I plugged the little guy into my macbook so I could really get down to business. The setup was extremely simple (see here) and I was doing everything I normally do, reading daily comics, checking email and a few shopping sites for X-mas deals. it worked for about an hour, but then...


Well it wasn't quite that dramatic, but yes my mac 'asploded as it were (Screen issues, probably the ballast or GFX card). And all of the sudden my little n900 became a whole hell of a lot more important. I am 30 days away from my PC and who knows what apple is doing with my mac, so for now it's just me and this little guy.

I must say: Wow. This thing stepped up to the plate and won the grand slam friggin derby on functionality. Hell, the only thing I used to do with my laptop that this can't do is edit media. Yes, the screen has a lower resolution, it's slower, and has less memory. It makes up for all that in spades though with it's always on anywhere 3G connection, It's pocketable size, and a battery that won't give up for 6-8 hours of continuous use! (compare to the 2yo macbooks pitiful 1-1.5 hour internet browsing lifespan)


So, it can do most everything I need forever and ever on a single charge, it fits in my pocket and replaces my cell phone, what could be bad about it? Well, as my thumbs can tell you, if you are planning on writing any long articles picking up a bluetooth keyboard is probably a good idea. Support for extracting files is not available for GUI-only users: almost everything I download is compressed, and with good reason: bandwidth is expensive! Unzipping and/or unraring capabilities are a must! As of this writing I have a CLI tool for unzipping (from extras-devel, blah blah danger disclaimer) that is not ideal yet (integration into the file manager perhaps?), but it's doing it's job. I also needed an RDC client, and I downloaded one that has similar good/bad points.

All this functionality out of something the size of the n900... Apple can take their time with my macbook!

lol! u got me there for a second! but this is probably one of the most enjoyable reviews ive read of this device, thx for the good laugh!

our experience with n900 is set to get even better in the coming months with new firmware and apps,
i cant wait as I've seen over the years how Nokia improve products behind recognition with software updates over the years, it fills me with excitement as sometimes an update is like getting a new device what's 10x better than what your already happy using.
the only time i use my laptop now is when i hit the alcohol as I need big buttons b/c my aiming suffers lol

Although I wasn't going for comedy per-se I will take praise anywhere I can get it

And I agree, this is all within 3 weeks of initial release! It can only get more awesome from here.

Great post, I found it by accident while searching for something else. Would you have the time to update us on how you and N900 have been getting on for the past 6 months? Still best friends?!