My second post... I am not a former or present Nokia customer, however I've been super fascinated by the N900. I love the idea of owning the first phone form factor device with a desktop class operating system. I've been salivating over it. I've been reading every news clip and article I can find since I found about the n900 about a month ago. I've been envisioning what I could do with a device with a fully hackable fully enabled OS. I was fully ready to become a Nokia customer until this thread...

I heard it mentioned in some places that USB host wouldn't be available out of the box but would be hackable. That was enough for me. I follow some walkthroughs maybe on this site and I'm good to go with USB! I can hook up my USB printer at home to it, my USB keyboard, my USB video capture device, USB hard drive etc. Hell, they have USB for just about anything.

And now I read this thread and find out I can't do any of that! Ack! I saw some early posts mentioning a use case?

My use case is that I want to throw out my laptop. I want to have a station at my desk at work with my monitor, USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB printer, etc (attached through a USB hub and then over to the n900). Then, I want to get open office going as was demonstrated on this site on the n8xx series. I want to at least try to use an N900 as my working computer, as Nokia advertised. Then at the end of my workday I simply unplug my N900 and head home and I can access all of my work information and programs on a local device. I don't need VNC, SSH or anything clunky like that. I don't need a cell signal or wireless router to get my work info.

My work around is that I'm now going to have a buy Bluetooth everything which adds another couple hundred bucks to my costs. I can barely afford a $550 US phone as it is... Furthermore, how many of the gazillion USB devices am I going to miss out on now? How long is it going to take transfer files now? Bleh, I'm pissed... I agree with some others who say it isn't worth calling the n900 a true mobile computer unless it has USB host. I among those who will now be waiting to buy until USB host can be demonstrated as working. Otherwise, I'll be shopping for the first device that can deliver that functionality.

I know the tendency is to think 2 posts and he is complaining blah blah... he's a troll, but I'm not. I just really really really want USB host and it truly is a deal breaker for me!

BTW, thank you everyone for this awesome forum. When/if I jump on to the Maemo bandwagon, your site will be an incredible resource. In fact, I've already learned a lot about the N900 through my reading here.

captainqtp: I don't think you're a troll, but I think your expectations are way too high for the N900. And I say that as one of the first guys who got OpenOffice working on the N8xx series (and has it working on the N900 too).

I think, with the N900, many of us can get rid of our laptop (no really, I'm serious, even without USB host), but I think you still need to keep a computer at your desk. There's just too many things that a handheld device can't do, even with a full keyboard, mouse and video out. The two most important problems are that the processor isn't powerful enough, the video isn't high enough resolution.

The N900, just as it is, is surprisingly useful. But don't buy it to be your only computer. This isn't that device. And I don't believe there is such a device.

I hope when such a device does become available (in 2 or 3 years?) Nokia will be making it, and it will be running Maemo.

qole: For office tasks, surfing the web, etc, specs-wise, it seems plenty powerful to replace an office laptop. After all, it isn't running a bloated MS OS. I cringed when I saw that some Win XP phone was coming out soon. The resolution for video out might be an issue, but that seems like something that might be able to be addressed by software at some point?

I would still use a desktop at home for gaming, video editing, etc. But I'd like a device I could do everything else on. Not having USB is a BIG pain in the rear end. I use a lot of USB devices for this and that.

BTW: you did that Open Office port/hack? That's sheer awesomeness.

No, that's definitely a hardware limitation. No amount of software will give you greater than 800x480.

I agree with qole on this - the N900 will be a great device, and the TV-out is a nice feature, but it would never be suitable as a desktop replacement even if it did have USB host.

that's not entirely true - if usb host was supported, there are USB video cards available, supporting SVGA etc. - sure, you can't play video thru them (because of the usb overhead), but if there is a linux driver, it would work.

even if direct video out in resolution >800x480 isn't available, it still should be possible to use ssh to forward X apps and start applications on n900, and have their windows placed on other desktop (i.e. access a kind of remote-desktop)... this of course isn't too convenient, but the following scenario should be easily doable:

* bring N900 to presentation, with own data...
* connect from (e.g.) linux desktop machine to n900 (thru wifi + ssh)
* start document/presentation viewer/browser/whatever on n900, the window shows on the desktop machine (even one of size 1600x1200 shouldn't be a problem)

this is a little clumsy example, but similar and more useful usages might be found...

however the truth is that n900 might not be powerful enough to enable convenient office work (e.g. opening more than a few browser windows, document editors etc.)...

Ah yes, I was talking about the TV out on the N900, not a USB video card or opening windows on another computer.

oh, sorry, my bad... I only focussed on the "No amount of software will give you greater than 800x480." sentence

Help me understand If you are outputting to a monitor that can support 1600x1200, wouldn't it just be a matter of rewriting the video driver ( I know, non-trivial) to display a certain number of x,y pixels at a certain refresh rate on the monitor you are outputting too?

How would you do a power point presentation to a projector? Would you be limited to the screen resolution of the n900? Video output at 800x480.

After I just wrote all that ^ ... reading specs the specs again, I see the output standard is PAL/NTSC an analog output. Is that the main issue then?

Sorry.. but it seems so appropriate that I couldn't help it:

lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!