Increased clock and mobile devices is from a practical standpoint, counter-intuitive. Battery technology has not caught up. A good example is snapdragon and the 3430. 3430 is a more balanced chipset where as most of the weight of power with snap is the cpu. Snapdragons are 1ghz, but highest clocked is 750mhz and still a battery hog.

We need to see lower nm fabrication of chips to help correlate power consumption curves with battery technogy that is available.

N800 was released with Maemo 3 (OS2007) and a clockrate of 330 MHz and when N810 was released with Maemo4 (OS2008) the old N800 were able to upgrade to Maemo4 and it increased the clockrate automatically to 400Mhz just like N810 used. I don't see why nokia can't do the same with maemo5 to maemo 6.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/revi...07/02/n800.ars
http://europe.nokia.com/get-support-...oftware-update

What really has to happen is to have apps written for Maemo 5 be easily ported (if any porting is required at all - realistically no porting) to run on Maemo 6. Otherwise I think it would hold back app development if Meamo5 is a dead end for developers. There should be relative ease of backward compatabilty between major releases.

Because the 3430 in the N900 is not underclocked (unlike the 2420 in the N800). There have been hopes of a potential boost to 720MHz based on Pandora similarities, but more knowledgeable folks suggested it's a no-go for the N900 (it was unclear if it was a voltage or a head dissipation problem).

Great write-up, although I think one of statements that is inflammatory and riles people up is saying it's "better" than the iPhone, even if you're just referring to for your own use. As you stated (and I heartily agree), the N900 really isn't a good choice for everyone. That makes it DIFFERENT than the iPhone, which is a lot more accessible (due largely to some of the restrictions put on the device).

Plus if someone asks (inevitably...) if it's better than this phone or that phone and you just say "it's totally different, its more like a computer", it's like a total **** you. Either people will know something about N900 and get interested, get offended, or just think you're and ahole.

I like your post but there are a few points that you are exaggerating on. First of all you don't even own an iPhone so I don't think you're in the position to compare...don't you think? You must have used both devices for some time to make an accurate comparison.

Either way:

Surely you are kidding about this point right? Resolution is lower but I don't think this was ever a problem when using the device.

Jailbreak and you can multitask as much as you want. In fact, I do that on a daily basis. The point is correct though. You can watch the iPhone battery evaporate if you leave things open.

Except that you can install anything you want on the iPhone if you jailbreak. Let's also remember that you HAVE stuff to install on the iPhone as opposed to 2 weather widgets on the N900. I doubt any other device out there beats the iPhone at this right now.

Agreed. The screen on the N900 is pretty damn good for a resistive screen. The color temperature is extremely warm though and that might bother some people. There's also no replacement for a good hardware keyboard.

That can't scroll a page smoothly and crashes quite often. Flash is here, it works but it's not pleasant. That was to be expected looking at the hardware.

This goes back to your original software point. What can be replaced with 3rd party software as of today? Who says it will be any better? Just because you can replace doesn't mean it's a good thing. I know the phone just came out but Nokia doesn't get to play in their own sandbox. They have to play on the playground with everyone else. If they release a device that has a long list of shortcomings they will be punished by the market, not praised for advancing on their own internal roadmap.

You make some other points about how smoothly the N900 works with music etc. That is completely laughable. The media player on the N900 comes nowhere close to the iPod. Also, the iPod/Phone doesn't even flinch if you play music in the background and do something else...say browse the web, play a game...you name it.

Is the N900 better than the other Maemo tablets before it? I would say it is and by light years. Is it better than other devices on the market? I would say it excels at nothing. Lots of features, all unpolished which is perfectly fine for 'enthusiasts' but not for the reality of the market where you have the Droid, iPhone a myriad of HTC devices and so on.

sadfist - I admit, I did go for some controversy, simply in response to all the inflammatory postings comparing N900 and iPhone - just wanted a new twist to it. Hopefully the content speaks for itself, though.

Does anyone want to take a wild guess as to whether the 10.1 update for flash (if Nokia includes it in an update) will have support for the powervx GPU? Adobe is doing GPU accelated flash apparently in 10. Could help make things smoother in the future.

Yes you seem to have some sort of agenda One question has been bothering me... Why is it so important for you to make people believe in your "excels at nothing"-point of view?

Ahh he just has sand in his vag because he wasted 100 bucks getting the device early