I appreciate your effort.

This... turned out exactly as I had expected it.

jesuschristsuperstar

Some people are having problems with bugs what gerbick linked. Still I do not have missed calls but i have noticed that rotating sucks or should i say portrait mode and there has been couple of times when rotating was slow. So what i did whit my highly evolved brains?


I turned rotating off and set phone app to be always in landscape. OOOOO I'm genius! Is it fixing the issue itself? NO but so what? now phone app works instantly. Also it's quite sad to read some bug reports while you clearly can see that user has installed stuff from testing/devel. Even listing what you have installed without asking would help lot of cases. People seem to not realize that they are using desktop pc like device where they can install ANYTHING not some sandboxed or apple quality controlled apps.

I really would like to test galaxy S. One thing that interest is battery duration and screen which looks pretty good on ads and reviews.

I'm buying an iphone 4 for 800$. With it unlocked and jaibroken there are thousands of apps/games out there to be downloaded. I'll still keep my 900 on the side for experimentation purposes.

No, just a snarky remark.

To those who are offended by this and similar threads, I apologise already for adding this post which eats into your valuable time as you (for some reason) have to read it...

To others including the OP: I followed the same route, but I do miss things from the N900 as time goes on. The reasons for changing were

* the phone app issues (yes, rotation was turned off, the recommended fixes were installed and tested, no other apps were running, etc.), still flickering screen with the whack-a-mole effect, as well as missed calls, plus the fact that a single press with the finger at the bottom of the screen when you take a ringing phone out of the pocket would cancel the call...

* Email was just too painful, the faults of Modest are well documented, I used Claws, but it was not phone friendly at all as it was a straight recompile of the desktop app.

* The unpredictability of the battery...

If I should sum up the core frustration with the N900 it was that I was spending too much time *managing* the N900, rather than it being a tool that was there to help make my day easier. And I use the phone as my key tool (no land line, working full time as freelancer, etc.), so it became a real problem.

However, it is interesting to evaluate the Maemo/Android differences: Despite being a programmer and Linux fiend, I really find no need to root the Galaxy S (you can after all install apps from outside the app android market/app store. I got SSH and for the rest it is mainly a matter of using it as a productivity tool with PDA functions, web access, email (super important to freelancers, IM is not so important here), etc. So the more open nature of Maemo did not make a difference to the use of the phone as a tool (as opposed to a hacking toy), with one exception, syncing (see below).

And size matters, there are some really hard working programmers here at Maemo.org which we are grateful to, but there are far more alternative apps on Android, and yes, many are pointless, but there are for instance two fully fledged email apps (native to the platform) whereas on the Maemo there is one nascent one (Trojita). I have been able to find all the apps I needed, some I paid for, but most not.

However, there are certain gems on the N900 which, if the same care and thought had been applied to all the software, would have made it the superior phone:

* IM integration on the system level into the contacts app is fantastic. I really miss being able to Skypeout directly to a contact and use any IM to get in touch.

* Copy and paste was a lot easier, I thought it was no good on the N900 with the dragging from the left to change cursor, but the N900 way of doing it seems easier (although the first time it is impossible to find the function of course :-) ). On the Android you need to to long press for menu, choose "Select Text", then the cursor is stuck where you left it and selection goes to wherever you point... I'll get used to it, but it's not optimal.

* Switching between open apps was easier with the built in option on the Nokia, however there are some very good (free) apps that has made it as simple on the Galaxy S.

* There is no reliable calendar sync for Android if you want to use a non-Google option, apparently (according to Funambol) there is no API to access the calendar with, so no way for 3rd parties to access it. It is definitely easie to "go with the flow" and use a Google calendar.. not sure I like that, but it does work very well to be honest... and Evolution on my PC supports Google calendars directly...

(There are hardware issues here a well, like camera quality, internal storage, etc, but I leave these aside as I am more interested in the platform issues)

For my work purposes life has become much easier with the Galaxy S, my three frustrations are all fixed, and the battery, despite having background syncing on, watching a movie and using it for a lot of emailing still lasts till midnight, whereas the N900 would be a goner before 6. And I think this is what matters to most people....

Unlike many people I am not wedded to a platform or company, it's just a (smart)phone for chrissakes, but I would certainly like to see some of the good (software) engineering work in the N900 being used in a phone where there had been some QA on the usability side (and slimmer, please!)

Anyway, the N900 lives on, mine fetched 200 quid on Ebay yesterday, and who knows what will happen in the future...

That was a wonderful review! I love reading experienced, unbiased, and sober comparisons.

Thanks for the comparison OP. I'm just wondering for all the people who still love the N900 but have been switching to Android recently, why would you buy an Android phone this close to the MeeGo release?

Well, there's the announcement (not happened yet), then the release date (a few months after the announcement) then the potential delay (pretty certain with a new OS like Meego) and we're talking almost a year I think... might be wrong.

But ultimately it is a matter of whether the issues that *any* smartphone have (and they all do) are a deal breaker for you? If, lets say, the camera and speakers had been rubbish on the N900, well I could live with it, but answering calls and email, well for me a deal breaker.

Some words on wisdom on our obsession with smartphones: http://tinyurl.com/yaoj47j

I would buy an Android one because I am determined not to buy a Nokia device. I have already bought five devices from Nokia and I think that's enough. I don't trust Nokia. As has been pointed out, Nokia seems to be abandoning its devices faster and faster. I'm not interested in being part of that. If I'm going to be betrayed, let it be by another company for a change.