Originally Posted by BigBadGuber!

The biggest problem for me are FONTS, make those FONTS scalable to larger sizes,

and my work MFE is not working.

Otherwise its a pretty, functional device with very nice maps and drive app. Its a good companion to N900, or in my case, iphone 4. The call clarity is great as compared to the iphone, so iphone is used for my work email and N9 for calls and everything else.

Originally Posted by BigBadGuber!

I have to agree with OP too. All in all N9 is a premature ejaculation. I am glad I got it for free and use it as a phone and messaging, but not for what it is supposed to be. It is a pretty accessory to N900. No more than that

Originally Posted by ste-phan

The interface designers' clear ignorance of things done so excellent in the N900 (out of the box and up till today not equalled by the competition) is really striking and personally I find it a relief to read somebody with feeling and understanding for user interfaces that goes beyond smoothly flowing icons and visual gimmicks, describing that feeling of one step forward, two steps back that comes with the N9.

Originally Posted by jalyst

Woops, spoke too soon....

Originally Posted by SamGan

Although I've never owned the N900 I've read enough to know that it was not excellent out of the box as you claimed.

So now you're dismissing the N9 and not giving it a chance to grow. Well, stick with your N900 for whatever useful years you can get out of it and hope that something even better comes along...out of the box of course.

Originally Posted by SamGan

Although I've never owned the N900 I've read enough to know that it was not excellent out of the box as you claimed. The OS was incomplete, it was buggy and abandoned by Nokia. It was only due to the tremendous effort of the Maemo community that the N900 is such a usable product now.

So now you're dismissing the N9 and not giving it a chance to grow. Well, stick with your N900 for whatever useful years you can get out of it and hope that something even better comes along...out of the box of course.

Originally Posted by pebby

this was an interesting, if grammatically challenging, read. I've had an n9 for 1-2 months now (and the n900 prior for nearly 2 years) and agree with some of the op's thoughts, in particular the dismay at the multitasking interface. On the n900, when i wanted to change apps or launch something, i'd take the following steps:

- press top left corner multitasking screen
- pick app to switch to or pick 'desktop' to get to a homescreen or tap again to get to app launcher
- launch or do whatever i want

on the n9, it's:
- swipe the current app away
- now, if you're at the app screen, pick the app to run (from the gigantic grid of hard to parse icons); but, if you're at the multitasking screen, pick the other open app you want to switch to. At this point, you may be done. Except...
- if you wanted to be at the app screen but you wound up at multitasking, or vice-versa, you need to figure that out and swipe again
- pick the thing you want

i hate that i get unreliable/unexpected results from this behavior. I don't know if i'm going back to the multitasking screen or the launch screen. I liked the predictable behavior of the n900.

Also, i loved arranging my launcher icons on my n900's homescreens in a way that made sense to me visually. The n9's app launcher grid of a billion colors and tiny text is just visually very confusing. I still feel like i hunt around for the camera app or the gallery, and i can't figure out how to organize everything since it's an enforced grid. On my n900, i made an 'app launcher' homescreen that was rows of apps in a pattern: There was a shape to it and i could space it out to group things together that belonged together. More importantly, if there was an app i didn't use much, i didn't need to have it on a homescreen! I'd just access it whenever i wanted from the hidden-away app launcher menu.

Finally, does anyone else find the app launching icons all sort of... Random? They all seem stylistically different, and they're too colorful. I liked the simplicity of the n900's app icons. I honestly couldn't figure out why the gallery icon isn't just a picture of a photo like on the n900 until my girlfriend exclaimed 'what do you mean, the flower makes perfect sense!' she showed me her iphone and it was all clear - the icons are copycats of that! They make less sense to me, though.

i wish the n9 would let me make my own app launching screen for the 8 apps i most commonly use and then let me tap something to get at 'everything' if i ever need to.

I feel like these two problems are the n9's biggest downfalls and steps, nay, leaps backward from the n900. I've learned to live without a keyboard, without a shutter button, without the slide-to-launch-camera lens cover... But i still can't get past the general confusion when i stare at the n9's launch screen or try to multitask.

Originally Posted by Keferen

for someone that owned a n900 from the start, i can tell you that the interface has had no physical changes over the 2 or 3 upgrade releases. out of the box it was logical and consistent system wide and remains that way to this day. it was not buggy on release as you say, and all the core apps that it came with worked perfectly and far superior out of the box than any phone to date. it was well rounded well thought through product at release, and before any feature apps were added to it.
even with 2 more years i guarantee it will still be far more useful than the n9.

the thing is, if any interface works well across the board consistently and the installed system apps work well then you get the impression you are running a well made OS, right ? no matter whats really going on behind the scenes. perfect example apple : ios.
the n9 is built on a quality OS, but swipe does not give guaranteed results and can be a little frustrating. but its quick! and gives the impression of power beneath... but the out of the box software (already mentioned) are beyond basic, more basic than android offerings although most feel like direct copies.
meego is technically superior than android by miles and will give ios a run for its money with enough limelight.

oh, and i will be sticking with my n900 for the fact (keyboards aside) everything is more difficult or non existent on the n9. even for the basics it should have shipped with considering nokia had the n900 as a resource. i guess nokia forgot about all that work they did.... i have to ask what the hell were they thinking?