I'm buying a new phone this week and I've narrowed it down to either the N900 or an android device. I've got store credit with newegg, so that is the selection I'm looking at (the android phone will probably be the mytouch 3g slide). Here is what I would like to know from people who have been part of the maemo experience and community:

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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?

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?

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?

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?

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...

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)

I GREATLY appreciate any advice I can get on this question. I identify with the technology I own and I definitely don't want to regret my purchase.

1. Well, considering there's Android coming for the N900 I'm content with my choice.

2. If you're looking for a huge app store you're probably better of with Android.

4. MeeGo will be ported to N900 too, though not officially by Nokia. There's still apps coming, if that's what you're asking.

5. Battery life varies obviously, some get 4 days, some get 12 hours. Depend on what you have running(just like a laptop). I get about a day of battery life, meaning I charge it every night.

1. Today, I think... Price would have a lot to say.
2. Small store, but not harder to share your apps. Infact, Maemo relies on it.
3. Maemo is Linux, Android is Dalvik.
4. The platform isn't as much dead as a small village on a side path to MeeGo town. There's stuff happening here, but in the future, MeeGo will be the place to be. Supposedly.
5. Battery life isn't going to be your biggest worry. I think what most people find disturbing, is the lack of features they have grown used to in cell phones. Examples like MMS, custom ring sounds per user, portrait mode, etc. User apps are made, but...
6. I don't know Android well enough to answer. I see pros and cons on Maemo by using it, and have no pros of cons with Android - apart from the store pro and dalvik con.

You might want to check out the NITDroid project

i have an n900 and a htc desire and i prefer n900. you can do alot more on an n900 and the loudspeaker on the desire is pathetc, its destorted where as n900s sound is quaity.
also the battery is poor on the desire. i think this goes for most androids. the android os just feels a bit disney to me

Do a search... there was a guy here who had his n900 stolen and bought a mytouch slide as a replacement. It sounded like the mytouch was pretty disappointing....

Found it:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...hlight=mytouch

It seems like the only thing he thought android had over maemo was the appstore, which is a debate point for me currently.

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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.

Thanks, your post was very helpful. Do you think you can elaborate on your future predictions? What phones do you think will be major contenders and is Meego supposed to be as open and linux like as Maemo?

EDIT: I just watched a video review of the n900 and learned that It has an fm transmitter.... thats a massive noteworthy plus that was not very obvious before.

Without dwelling on specific models, I think the N9's only major weakness in its price class will be that there won't be a keyboardless variant out initially. Even though Nokia's been asleep at the wheel, everything indicates that the N9 is going to be a comeback device.

Android will no doubt continue to advance, but it won't be able to match MeeGo's architectural advantages. Google can't just turn around and switch to GNU and X11. They're stuck with Dalvik. Once MeeGo eliminates the remaining problems with Maemo's UI and commercial developers show up due to the N9, Nokia's offering will meet or exceed the competition in all aspects.

I think we can rely on MeeGo being open, for now. Lets keep an eye on how much DRM content providers demand on any new devices from any company, though. IIRC, Nokia has said you can turn off DRM if you're willing to refrain from purchasing encrypted content. As if that's a hard choice

Ovi, apart from Maps and Store, will probably still be mediocre at Christmas, but nobody's going to force you to use those services.