Hi everyone,

Since I'm not planning on getting a data flatrate with the device (just 200mb/month or so), I've been wondering: How's the WiFi on the N900?

On my WinMo devices I've always had the problem that the WiFi reception was very sub-par and connecting was very annoying, so I'd like to be sure that the N900 does these things decently before shelling out my cash

So, on to my questions:

1. WinMo devices seem to only connect to WiFi when they're fully on (i.e. they disconnect every time you turn off the screen). If you don't like this behaviour. you have to change a registry setting, which causes the WiFi to stay on all the time, but in full power mode... predictably, the battery drains extremely quickly.

Is this solved in a better way on the N900? Ideally, I'd like it to stay on WiFi permanently (planning on using the N900 as my main IM device, so it should be online pretty much permanently) when a known network is in range... will it stay "online" on, say, Skype, so that I can receive calls and IMs, when the device is in standby? I read that this is the case with the older N8xx tablets, but does the N900 do this as well?


2. How's the signal strength? All the other WiFi-enabled mobile phones I've tried out had awful signal strength - seriously, in the same position as a laptop they'd be getting 1/4 bars of signal strength while the laptop has 90-95%... the only way to get over 2/4 bars was by placing the phone right next to the access point, which sort of defeats the point of WiFi

I'm hoping this is better on the N900, but figured I'd better ask before shelling out: Is it? If the signal quality is 50% on a laptop (this is the case in some lecture halls at my university), will the N900 still be able to find the signal and connect properly? My WinMo phone won't connect in this case, so I'm a bit worried


3. I know WPA-Enterprise (or WPA2-Enterprise?) is supported, but I'm not quite sure what that means for the network at my university... they use a system that required installing extra software on WinMo, so I'm not sure whether the N900 will support it out of the box.

In order to connect, you need to be able to set:

SSID: eduroam

Authentication: WPA2

Encryption: AES

Authentication Type: TTLS

Authentication Protocol: MsCHAPv2

Roaming Identity: xxxx@xxxx.xxx


The first three are clear, but I don't think I've ever had to set up the rest on any other wireless network, so I'm a bit worried that the N900 won't support all the required features... anyone care to confirm that they're available?


Thanks in advance!

Ad. 3:

I'm using my N810 with eduroam (DTU) without any problems. I would assume that they haven't broken it in N900

Awesome, hope you're right

Is the signal strength on the N810 comparable to that of a laptop? I know the N900 will probably use a different chipset for the WiFi, but I'm hoping they'd make sure that the WiFi is at least up to par compared to their previous devices

Quickly looking at my router:

thinkpad: -49 dBm
N95: -64 dBm
N810: -55 dBm

Of course, as it is with wireless, there are many factors that influence the performance. You shouldn't expect the same quality as with your laptop (my experience), however, I'm using N810 at my uni without any problems.

Well, that sounds a lot better than what I'm used to... my WinMo phone probably gets like -300dBm on your wifi

WiFi is great on the N900, and signal strength is as good as on a laptop.
With power-saving, a constant WiFi connection doesn't drain the battery much, unless you're constantly transferring data, of course.
The power-saving settings on the N900 are pretty high and you might experience problems with some WiFi routers (e.g. D-Link DIR 615), but setting the power-saving level from high to medium on the N900 did it for me. Even with medium setting a constant WiFi connection doesn't drain the battery much.

There are big differences in Wifi sensitivity even between N800 and N810. N800 has a better sensitivity probably due to different antenna placement.

So N800/N810 dbm doesn't give any hints how good the N900 Wifi will be.

Sounds good to me - does it connect to wifi automatically even when in standby? I.e. if I come home and my future N900 is in my pocket, will it immediately connect to my WiFi without me having to manually connect? Is there a user-set polling interval or something like that?


True... I'm just curious

Not immediately but within a few minutes. Put off your shoes and wash your hands and by that time the N900 should already have picked up your WiFi. Please note that the N900 doesn't have standby. It's just doing some damn good power-saving but never goes into a standby mode.

I haven't seen any, but I didn't actively look for it either.

This is good, as previously mentioned Windows Mobile is pretty useless as once in standby any applications you have running are halted. I also found when writing my own, they wouldn't come out of standby properly so would stop updating their content, annoying.

With the N900 being "always on" in every sense, that is brilliant. It means if you want to write an application that emits a sound every few minutes if you have unread messages, you can. On Windows Mobile it seemed there was no way to do that because once it was asleep, only certain events could wake it up and they would drain the battery fast. So many times I have not noticed I have a message because I was out of the room when it came in and there was nothing to remind me to check.

This was never going to be a deal breaker, but I am so glad to hear the N900 stays awake as I was hoping to be able to use it as my main IM system, so I can finally respond to messages while sat watching TV and without having to keep a distracting screen lit up wasting battery power. The idea I wont have to leave the N900 permanently on charge to do this, brilliant.