Personally I just found out the n900 wouldn't be supporting portrait for key apps. This is disappointing enough to make me seriously reconsider buying what looked to **finally** be the perfect smartphone for me (call it what you want but it perfectly fits the definition of a smartphone that the rest of the world uses).

I have an HTC touch pro currently, which is a similar form factor, it also has a similar slide out keyboard, though it's a bit smaller.

A few points about single handed use:

1a. Even with the TP's smaller screen it's impossible to reach the whole screen or the whole keyboard with my thumb with the phone in landscape mode, held from the side.

1b. Holding from the bottom is very unstable and uncomfortable for accessing the screen and keyboard with my thumb. Maybe on the n900 you can reach the whole screen with the KB out, but I suspect you can't, maybe not even with it in. I think I'd get cramp in my thumb if I used it for more than about 30 seconds like this.

2. I use a huge amount of apps in portrait despite buying this device because of its keyboard. I really find it quite irritating that people are arguing that portrait just isn't needed. Frankly I suspect that most of these people have never actually had a smartphone that worked portrait only and would soon change their mind with regular use. Even if that's not the case, just because you find it ok doesn't mean everyone else does. I can state categorically that more than half of my usage of my TP would be extremely cumbersome if I had to use its landscape mode.


3. Use cases (these are real *every day* ones for me):
- a. Can't use two hands:

- Holding a bag
- Holding a support bar on the metro (very common for me)
- Smoking a cigarette or drinking coffee while on a break from work (all the time this one...)

- b. Speed of use:

- I can check an SMS that's arrived by quickly pulling my phone out of my pocket (while unlocking with the same hand) and pressing the screen once. Usually I just need to know what the message says, often if I don't have a hand free that is enough so I know if I need to respond or not, often I don't so I can just put the phone back in my pocket. This is probably the biggest problem for me.
- Same is true of email.
- Same is true of changing track on a media player.

- c. Portrait is more efficient for reading longer text:

- This is why magazines and books are portrait. I don't think I should have to say much more here. Our computer screens are typically landscape mainly for historical reasons (CRTs) so software tends to be optimised for this orientation, but that doesn't make it the best one. Try a portrait monitor for web-browsing sometime... It's amazing.
- I don't know if the Mozilla (Fennec?) based browser supports reflow like Opera mobile, but on my phone I find web pages much easier to read in portrait. Less scrolling
- Same is true of RSS
- Same is true of basically anything involving a lot of text.

Finally, regarding the keyboard. The Touch Pro's on-screen keyboard is too small to use in portrait mode really (though the Touch HD, almost same size as n900, with no fancy algorithms is fine to use), however even without using any on screen keyboard (except for phone), I still use the portrait mode for the majority of usage, as most usage is reading not writing, if I need to write I flip it to landscape for a minute, usually going straight back to one handed portrait mode when I'm done.

Thanks slight, great post from someone using a similar device.
I worry about this point a bit. Even if portrait mode is implemented in N900, will the unlock button on the bottom be a problem, thinking about trying to unlock with one hand? Is there an alternative onscreen unlock control, like on the iPhone?

You could hold the phone button on the upper edge and flick it with your thumb. Or you could just slightly open the keyboard and close it immediatly with one hand.

But i think nokia should implement some way to unlock the screen just with the touch screen.

How about using the twirling circular motion to unlock a device??

Slight; - I couldn't agree more!

Good valid points!

I currently have a Nokia N82 and a HTC Touch Pro, and my girl-friend has an iPhone.

I hope I am not forced to buy the iPhone instead of the N900 !

Luckily the iPhone is sold-out where I live, so I still have som time to decide. (See what happens with portrait mode on the N900)

I did try it. It's amazing if you don't mind constantly scrolling left and right to read everything.

Yeah, sorry, but this is such complete ******** that it is funny. Aren't you one of the five people still using microb as their main browser? It's time to get off of your high horse and start using a browser that actually knows how to layout a page.

I'm talking about Firefox on a regular Windows PC with widescreen monitor rotated to portrait mode, so how about you start climbing down your high horse before telling me to climb off mine, thanks.

The dude was talking about Opera mobile, and you're talking about Firefox on a PC?

Maybe you should re-read the part of the text I quoted again. Opera mobile wasn't mentioned in it, nor before it, only afterwards. Also I'm not aware of Opera mobile running on too many devices that find themselves attached to *monitors* on a regular basis.

What people seem to be forgetting is that web pages are created for a certian pixel width. I use fbreader in portrait mode but would never use the browser in it - first, pages are designed to be scrollable vertically and not horizontally. Second, there is no screen that allows viewing pages in portrait mode without zooming. Third, even if we had screens that had a 800-1000pix vertical, the content would be microscopic. I understand the iPhone approach - you would be zooming no matter how you hold it, so then why not do it in portrait, but the advantage of the NIT-s is/was exactly that - see web pages in full width.

As for portait mode desktop browsing, the same applies there, too - it works if your vertical is big enough - try portrait surfing with a 1024x600 screen and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not saying no site can look good in portrait or zooming cannot be reasonably painless, but landscape browsing does have a case on high-res MIDs.