I'm talking about the 300 that have the phone now.

It's been said quite a few times already. Like I said, search for it. To hear the "loyal" Nokia fans say that, that's enough to cause concern for me.

Here's a bit of proof... and I'd consider Texrat about as honest as you can get. And I'd think that he's closer to what I'd trust as a true user than the pre-production reviews floating around. As they stand, while credible, they do not really register as the type of user as I am in regards to Maemo. Simply put... I'm not that kind of consumer, not the same as they. Listening to this forum, even if flawed, the views here represent something closer to my expectations than those aforementioned reviews.

The meaning behind my statement stands until I'm personally proven otherwise. I don't mind being wrong - I'm merely sharing my own opinion based off of other, like opinions. But as far as it seems, I might be slightly more right (about 51%) than wrong. It'll improve over time, I'm sure.

I'm not patient enough to continue waiting on the phone portions. 2 years of waiting for the iPhone to get that portion right, I cannot wait another year for the N900 to get that part right.

In that case, I'll wait for Maemo 6.

At this point i'll be amazed if we even see a phone by christmas

Is there some actual poll of all 300 people who got the pre-production unit at the Maemo Summit in Amsterdam, which allows you to come to the conclusion that a majority of them think the phone functionality is an afterthought?

Of course, the people writing reviews online are mostly also the same people, developers and industry insiders, who were at the summit (i.e. amongst the 300) or who otherwise were provided a pre-production unit by Nokia.

Here are some examples of people who wrote extensive reviews for online publications and thought the N900 phone component is well executed:

http://my-symbian.com/other/preview_n900.php
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives...00-review.html
http://gigaom.com/2009/10/19/nokia-n900/
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/...aemo5-en.shtml

Gigaom even calls the phone component "unbelievably great." And Mobile-Review points out that the N900 includes some phone book features that were left out of the N97 (fully integrating text messaging, VOIP, and telephony in the phonebook application). A lot of reviews in fact take particular note of how well the N900 combines VOIP and regular telephony in one phone application.

Honestly, I can't find a review that criticizes the phone component of the N900. Many don't really discuss it (except to mention the VOIP/telephony integration), which is typical of cell phone reviews.

Only Wired magazine calls the phone component an "afterthought," but they mean it in the sense of, oh yeah on top of the bazillion things the N900 does, it's also a good phone.

I guess I trust the reviewers more. They seem to attempt to bring more of a sense of objectivity to their reviews and usually have more experience with more different phone models. Comments in forums I think can sometimes be a bit over the top. People feel more free to make off the cuff and often rather hyperbolic remarks.

Make of it what you want. But The 180 degree contrast between the multiple reviews I cite and Texrat's subjective summation of what the "300 early users" are saying is a bit striking. Obviously the reviews I cite include some of these 300 and they actually don't say what Texrat claims. And well, as I said, it seems a bit hyperbolic for Texrat to imply he knows what all 300 people who were at the Maemo Summit think. And even Texrat qualifies his remark with "an afterthought... especially on first impression," suggesting upon closer examination he might decide that the phone component is fine.

If pure phone calls is your thing then I recommend the Motorola RAZR V3 mine has served me well.

As a matter of interest, Expansys UK (from whom I purchased on a few occasions in the past as an alternative to eBay) are promising dispatch in eight days.

http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=186949

Had that phone too. Found it dreadful. Worst 2 months with that phone.

And I don't quite think that reading anything else written about the pre-production phone by users with less experience with Maemo than myself will change my opinion. If there's a need for a poll, set one up. However as it stands, all it took for me was a few, key people to say that it seemed tacked on.

I figured as much, thought it would have been... but seems like it's the case. I'll change my mind when I have a hands-on experience with the phone. I'm quite sure Maemo 5 is solid. I've been a Maemo user since Bora/Gregale.

Nothing scientific about it. I just don't find that prior information compelling. GigaOM is a Blackberry user, former iPhone user. Symbian, the phone portion was also tacked on, and I'm not a Symbian phone fan in the least.

And to reiterate, it's not just about the phone. I just have a lot less faith on Nokia delivering something in this step - 4 out of 5 - that will not end up being considered "DONOTFIX" in Maemo 5 and get fixed in Maemo 6. Burned twice already... not willing to pay for that lesson again. Too expensive.

I'm not a big defender of the N900. I think there's plenty to take a wait and see approach about. And I think you're right that, a lot of things may just get forgotten in Maemo 5, once Maemo 6 comes along as the real end goal for Nokia.

But I don't really see what prior experience with Maemo has to do with the phone application on the N900, since this is the first version of Maemo to have a phone application. Such prior experience just wouldn't speak to the phone application in the N900 as it actually is. The phone application is an entirely new thing, which effectively has nothing to do with anything that came before it.

And also, you're just assuming that the reviews I posted are by people who don't have experience with Maemo. Michal Jerz at My-Symbian has a huge amount of experience with Meamo and he provides actually the most detailed and entirely positive review of the phone application on the N900 (if you want to actually go look at it, before dismissing it).

From my perspecitve there are five people mentioned here, so far, who actually have first hand experience with the N900. One of them, Texrat, in an off the cuff one sentence remark in this forum, called the phone application an "afterthought." The other four, wrote extensive careful reviews of the N900 and dicussed the phone application in more than just one sentence, in some cases fairly extensively. And they did not hesitate to criticize the N900 in areas they felt it deserved. So if four out of the five people with actual first hand experience think the phone application is good, even excellent in some ways, and those four are the ones who went to the most trouble to explain the basis for their opinions, I don't see why I should come to the conclusion that the phone application has a problem. Or that a "majority" of users, as you first said, think it's not well executed.

I give a lot more credence to people who have first hand experience and provide testimony to their experience in their own words, than to second and third hand claims about what other people may or may not have said. And it just seems like it does a disservice to the original poster of this thread, who asked about the phone functionality, to dismiss it with an off the cuff remark based on third hand knowledge, when there's plenty of evidence that can actually be cited with links to people speaking in their own words, who claim the opposite. It at the very least suggests that there's room for debate about the phone function and probably not a huge amount of reason to worry.

Of course, the most prudent thing is to wait for the phone to comes out, which will probably be in a week, and see what other reviews say. But I think it's just really over stating the case to take an entirely one sided position based on what one person said and claims about what others said, while ignoring first hand testimony that takes a very different position.

Not really. Samsung's Iphone 3GS (not to be confused with Qualcomm's Iphone 2G and 3G) has great hardware - it's the software that's limiting it. But once you crack it, then you have a nice phone. But of course, it still won't be better than having a "real" OS at the beginning.


Many people confuse the hardware in Qualcomm's Iphones (2G and 3G) with Iphone made by Samsung (3GS), but the difference is indeed huge. The 3GS' parts are all being made by Samsung, with the exception of the screen (and the camera - which sucks - and so does the screen) - which might sound strange, since screens are Samsung's main strength. But this decision by Apple was probably made due finansial reasons.

Ironicly, Samsung's Omnia HD has fewer parts made by Samsung themselves than Samsung's Iphone 3GS. The common misunderstanding here is that people think that the Iphone's hardware is made by Apple - while in reality the only thing Apple does right now is the software. However, there are some rumors about Apple will soon be beginning to make the hardware themselves, but as for now, it's just rumors.


Anyway, the difference between the 3G and the 3GS is huge, as I previously said, but this difference is limited by the software, which makes the hardware feel the same - while it obviously isn't.

Samsung makes great hardware, and thus the Iphone 3GS has great hardware (for example, its Samsung-made GPU is twice as fast as the N900's counterpart). But the reason why people in general say that the Iphone(s) suck(s) is because of the limiting hardware - but never say that the hardware sucks about Samsung's Iphone. However, I must admit that Qualcomm's Iphones sucked in everything - both software and hardware.

To each his own.

I've stated quite enough times that I do not mind being wrong, I'm willing to wait until it comes out to make up my mind; however I'm not going to blindly follow Nokia or pretty much anybody else on this one.

Simple things like how to turn off the ringer go unanswered by these reviews and/or this forum. Not something that's exactly "faith building" in the least about the one part of the N900 that I'd like to know if my experience will be greater than other phones I've experienced in the past.

If it's great, I don't mind coming in here and eating a bit of crow. But as it stands, my suspicions have lead me to believe that it will be a tacked on affair much like the GPS was on the N810 - slow lock on plagues me to this day with that "addition".

Prior experience in Maemo was brought up by me to differentiate if the user would go into the phone aspect with the idea(s) of how it should be as uniform with the rest of the OS or if it were indeed tacked on.

And an off-the-cuff comment or two might save me another $600+ disappointment after my prior $350+ disappointment and after my original $250+ disappointment.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'll make up my mind when I touch it. But so far, Nokia has to regain my faith after locking me into a machine that will only be supported by the community (not a bad thing) and cannot be upgraded. If they do the N900 much like they had done the N810 - the CPU will be same in later iterations since OMAP4 is too far down the line, I already know that - but let's say they do it again as before. I just don't have the patience nor pocket to keep funding quickly forgotten steps in Nokia's "master plan".

If that's the case, and things feel tacked on and are delivered by the suggestions of the group(s) here as opposed to really delivering something I'd consider a superior experience that may, or may not be upgraded later down the line... I'll wait.

I don't quite get the defense of this yet to be released device and honestly I think this should be the last time I have to defend my very own opinion. Despite not falling into lockstep behind this release, I'm going to understand that this is merely step 4 out of 5 and it might not be the best fit for me, it might not get upgraded, it might feel tacked on in places, it might mean that things will have to come in the form of upgrades down the line... and I just do not have the patience for any of that right now.

Nokia has created that doubt (with me) in their Maemo products based on prior iterations suffering what I'd considered a quite usable yet incomplete user experience.

I think we both agree that the safe thing to do is wait until the phone comes out and there's more information available (although that said, I think Amazon has a pretty lenient 30 day return policy, which would allow for one to do the best thing and try it out for oneself).

But the original poster's question was, in part, to express worry about the phone function, base on a bad experience with the iPhone and ask if he should wait.

So the question becomes, if you're going to take a chance and not wait and just leap in, is the phone function an area you should be particularly worried about? The best you can do, if you want to be an early/immediate adopter, is try to come to a conclusion based on the best information currently available. I attempted to provide some information by linking to several reviews that discuss the phone functionality.

So no one is suggesting that anyone blindly follow anyone's advice. That's just a caricature of the argument that you keep asserting. Although I will say that your original off the cuff remark about what the "majority" of people are saying and you're reference to Texrat's one sentence remark, comes a lot closer to asking someone to just take your word for it (i.e. blindly follow your advice), than my providing several long reviews of the phone by people who have actually used it, so that the original poster and others can read some people's first hand experience with the N900 and come to their own conclusions.

Basically, you've decided to put faith in a couple people, try to indirectly suggest others should do the same, and as far as I can tell not read the reviews I provided, but nonetheless keep trying to discredit them with your highly general impressions of Maemo, your "suspcions," your use of belittling language like "lockstep," and just what amounts to a lot of conjecture on your part. All of which, again, to me seems a lot more like asking others to blindly follow your advice, than to give them meaningful information, with which they can come to their own conclusions. I trust that others are intelligent enough to know what to do with substantive information, once it's available to them.