I came to N900 without going through iPhone phase, and have been impressed about the capabilities in this little computer. For me the UI is not at all or not that laggy - and application performance is something that I hope time will improve, as application developers get more experience writing and using mobile applications on N900.

It is so true that essential features like search and iCal synchronization are missing in the beginning, but I have hopes up on those features coming sooner than later.

Lack of dedicated applications for sites / services X,Y and Z is not such a problem - as others have noted about browser's capabilities, but at the same time websites designed for larger screens are not always pleasure to use on N900. However with web runtime ( hopefully coming soon to N900 ) or python and qt writing these dedicated applications is not such an effort, so it could be requested and communicated to site owners to create their widgets / applications that work well with N900.

Especially the web runtime is promising - as for developers it also opens possibilities to use same code in Symbian phones. Development is done in familiar html, css and javascript combo - so should be a snap for normal web developers.

N900 is on early steps in it's journey, so give it some time and it might take you to places :-D

It takes 5 minutes. What's the big deal? Faster than waiting months for something to happen with the n900.

it seems to be a big deal to apple....

I hate when people use the browser as an excuse for no apps. Have you ever tried uploading pictures (and tagging people in them) to facebook using the iPhone app compared to the website? It's such a breeze with the app. I tried doing it on the website on the n900 this weekend and it was such a pain.

People coming from the Iphone find the home screen scrolling 'slow', or 'not responsive enough'....it`s not the smoothest but it does its job just fine.....also the resolution is 800x480 so it has to process more things at the same time...put that resolution to an iphone and it will crawl

I can't believe people are moaning about the "slow" scroll speed!

OK - the Nokia store sucks arse at the moment. I don't see that changng for the time being.

But there are plenty of free apps available right now!

You have that choice.

Just curious. Have you used an iPhone? It's probably just the difference between capacitive (iPhone) vs. resistive (n900) screens because the iPhone is a lot smoother. Capacitive screens also support multi-touch but cannot be used with a stylus.

At what point does it matter that the n900 has an 800x480 screen besides taking pictures, watching video, and maybe browsing the web? When you're at the home screen I can fit just as many icons on an iPhone as I can on my n900. I just don't see what the big deal is other than the things I mentioned above.

I have used an iPhone and the scrolling is smoother - big deal.

Would I complain about it - no it just not that important.

Would I base a buying decision on that? No.

I like the hardware of the iPhone - it's very nice.

Capacitive vs resistive argument is plain dumb.

They are just different technologies.
Capacitive screens are nice if accuracy is not important, multi-touch is nice and of course you can have a solid screen (e.g. glass).
Resistive screens allow you to use a stylus, have more accurate control and the screen needs some "flex" in-order for it to work.

Both technolgies have their uses.

iPhone is more an entertainment product and the n900 is probably more practical.

I don't think the scroll speed is tied to the touch-screen technology - it's probably more to do with OS design e.g.The n900 is multi-task system and the iPhone is "single-task".

Open one app on the iPhone and one on the n900. It's still clearly smoother on the iPhone. Open up 10 apps on the n900. Does the scrolling get worse? No. Then I don't think software is much of an issue when it comes to scrolling. And if it is, then I think we have proven once again that everything about the iPhone is what makes scrolling so nice.