Maps: Modrana.
It has routing (only online, but with help of routino it will get offline soon, too).

It pronounces routing aloud with espeak.

It can use wide range of tiles, map or satellite; it can overlay map and satellite with custom transparency; it can use OpenStreetMaps, and it allows easy correction of any errors in map data you can encounter.

It can create GPS logs and points-of-interest.

It's highly customisable and quickly evolving.


Browsers:
Opera (have never used it, not even on desktop)
MicroB (not that bad, just out-of-date and with too small number of extensions)
Fennec (quickly evolving; a bit slow due to being developed from desktop Firefox and having some memory leaks; there is continuous hunt for them; a lot of extensions being developed, though it's tiresome to update them for each new version of Fennec);
Chromium (have to install on N900 yet; should be fast; "extensions" are a joke)

And, I don't use Flash at all.

The home screen:
Is pretty customisable on Maemo, and I haven't tried to hack it yet (change size of shortcuts and bookmarks, create bookmarks with only text/only icon, etc).
And I don't use Queen Beacon widgets yet.

GMail:
I haven't tried it, but I would think there is an extension for Fennec
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/addon/216008/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/addon/162066/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/addon/53308/
I'm afraid these addons aren't up-to-date, though

Notifications
I like the way Maemo has top left corner highlighted when there is a new message

Task switching
Maemo is the best

Video chat
When will it be possible to use the main 5Mpx camera for it?
Use TV-out or Bluetooth paired screen or USB to transmit received video to another screen.

Verdict:
Improve what you have, and it will stay the best.

I did not talk the games because I don't play them (except for chess or puzzle master sometimes).
I did not talk youtube because I rarely watch it even on desktop.
youtube-dl and cutetube seem to be good applications, by the way.

Close, but it lacks the simplicity and quickness of the mobile google maps applications on iOS and Android have (GeePS is limited in that it is just a frontend to the web API, so things like turn by turn and rerouting are difficult)


This one is also close. I've even contributed $$ to the developer since it was close to being a viable replacement.

However:

1) Have you actually heard espeak? It's so offensive that I want to rip off my ears every time I hear it. It mispronounces everything, and it just..for lack of a better word.. harsh.

2) The menu system in modrana is bad, very bad. It's confusing, takes many steps to accomplish simple tasks, and the search functionality is just overkill (at least for me, i just want local search, the others never worked well in my area anyways)


If the developers of both applications had put forth as much effort into the same project, the results might have been significantly better.

I have heard espeak. I have asked espeak to pronounce "speak" while my friend tried to guess it. The prominent guess was "stick", though by increasing amplitude, slowing the pronunciation and increasing the pitch I finally made the word recognisable.
My friend told that now he knows how some cartoons characters get these strange voices.

It's not all that confusing. Though, I don't have Internet when I use Modrana, so I cannot use most of its functionality. And adding a POI really takes too much effort.
At least, it's predictable, and buttons are large enough for fingers.

are you referring to the same sun that we see up in the sky fyi, I got good result for video chat at my living room. the light level is between about 3.6 to 3.3EV as measured by the luxus widget.

cheers

People People! Easy!
It seems that some of you did not undestand the difference between an app and just a feature. I was pointing out that the NEW FEATURES from Honeycomb are OLD FEATURES on our N900.

Of course the Ovi Maps on the N900 sucks! BUT, I was not comparing the apps, just the new features of the buildings come out from the ground con Google Maps. In fact, even the guy from the video was not showing us all the Google Map app or measuring performance. What he was "just" doing is showing us THE NEW FEATURE of the building 3D and at the same time involving that NOW that's pretty possible with their new OS. Meanwhile, that feature has been on OVI Maps for long time.

FEATURE! Do you understand?? FEATURE!

In other hand, I browse the web often with MicroB, do A LOT of video chat on Skype because of my job, and so far the device does NOT need an Dual Core processor to do it, BUT, put 1gb ram and a Tegra 2 CPU on the N900 and let's make some benchmarks to see what device wins!

@JorgeFX

Just hopped over from my Honeycomb thread...

Ok I've now read your thread, and here's my two-pence. Yes it's blindingly obvious you are a complete N900 fanboy, however I don't hold that against you. I was very impressed when I first got mine in spite of being berrated by everyone at work with their iPhones.

However times move on and N900 is left behind... Yes there are many features that have existed on the N900 sooner... and yes I can go and highlight all the things Nokia has invented and been copied by the iPhone.

However all your arguments that claim N900 wins are flawed. For this reason. There is a fundamental difference between having a feature, and having a feature that works well and is well integrated.
You can be first to have SatNav feature built into your car.... it doesn't necessarily mean it's any good. The fact you have a feature and whether or not it's good are mutually exclusive. Similarly with 'features' you quote above.

Eg. Nokia have had voice dialling for a while, but who implements it better.... on iOS I can say... "Call X", it then replies, call X Mobile or Home or Work.... i say 'Work'... it repeats... calling X Work... simple and well executed...

That's the difference between a feature, and a __Feature__

Let's go back to maps as this is a key strength of Google. I've used Ovi maps and great you can use it offline but that's about it. On Android, you can seamlessly create shortcuts on your desktop alongside widgets that auto link to destinations (eg. Navigate home by foot) etc. Zooming is smooth, fast. Slick.

Searches are dynamic as you type and also location aware as I type addresses in the box, meaning after typing a few chars I can pretty much select the address. It also crucially recognises chinese addresses, and being on work secondments to Hong Kong this is a must... Ovi just doesn't cut it, and also is not accurate, places me over 150m out (GoogleMaps is much more accurate).

When I lost my N900 in a taxi I went and bought a HTC aria as a temporary phone because I wanted to try Android, and didn't want to spend too much money as I was hoping Nokia would release a Meego device. Later when this transpired to be a long long long way off, I bought a N8.

Why? Because the HTC was a toy, and the Nokia N8 is a great phone. Solid, sturdy, rugged, amazing camera, and as a phone it just works as it should... however I see so many new features and better usability in the Android OS, it's becoming hard to keep waiting for Meego or an abandoned Maemo...

However for now, I'm very happy with my N8 for many reasons, but am fast running out of patience and will hope Nokia delivers before it's too late for us all...

@dymaxion There are features and there are __Features__ :-) This is very subjective. For example on the browser front, try to compare what you get when you launch the respective default brower on iphone, n900, android phone(eg. SMS), RMS and compare to what you see in your desktop. You will find out what is missing. Is it bad or good, it depends on whether the missing stuff is critical to you or not. People from different camp(at least some of them) would claim that missing stuffs on their respective device are "work as design" so that it allow you to focus on real task at hand:-)

For the current topic of maemo vs android 3, I think it is instructive to compare how the similar features are being implemented on both platforms. I have a SGS and definitely interested in the compare and contrast.

When I look at the linked youtube by the OP, I can say that there are lots of eye-candies but most of the features shown do not differ much from the N900, IMO. Given the fact that the said demo was done on h/w that is vastly better than the old N900 in processing power; personally, I expect better more amazing thing.

A number of posts are concentrating on map/(online map/nav); what happen if you can not be online or do not want to be online. The map implementation on Android is great when you are online; but does such implementation work well in ALL situation? I hope you would not say 'Yes'

Cheers,

@dymaxion

Lets suposse that Nokia is not doing MeeGo and they are only doing Maemo. Maybe today they will be lauching a new N900 called N2011 that have a Tegra 2 dual core 1ghz processor with 1gb ram. Do you think that the new N2011 will be slow? very much slow? fast? or bloddy fast? compared to the actual N900. I think it will be bloddy fast.

If you said that the new honeycomb tablet has better everything because that tablet is faster and can do much stuff, then you are forgeting that they have better hardware and they had almost a year and a half of advantage, or better yet, you are not reading or not understand the point of my thread.

I'm not a fanboy, Today I'm gonna buy a Motorola Milestone for example to use it with N900 because I have an HTC Touch Pro 2 and for the same price in my country I can get the Milestone, so I want to switch the HTC for the Milestone and put froyo on it. Does that sound like I hate google or something? I think not. But I do think that honeycomb should have been like 10 times better than Maemo 5 on the N900 but it is not, it only have what the Nexus One have had for sometime and a few more stuff.

iv managed to speen up my n900 it now runs alot quicker them some of the new phones like the galixy s2 and iphone 4s one of my friend has a old n97 and it ran so slow he started eperimenting with it to make it work better and yes he done it. it was outdoing my n900 at this point so i got him to play with my n900 and see what he could do with it and the outcome was amazing he tweeked it downloaded things none nokia softwere iv heard the n900 was a really good phone but now its better it has proper sat nav with voice turn by turn skype youtube java i can use the front camera for taking pics and videos not the best cam though decent flash player as it would try and load it but i would give up waiting eg facebook games live webcams (earthcam) and so on some of the things might of worked for other people befor so dont know but some didnt work on mine and thats just on meamo i also have dual boot so i can pick eather meamo or android 2.2 and even with all that on it it still runs quicker than most phones. some people with the latest phones have now brought n900's and got me to make it the same as mine

in short
maemo5 is the best

use speedpatch, batterypatch, kernel-power v49, HD patch, and you will be very happy as i am