Dear TMO,

I assume majority agrees that the N900 has a fantastic browser and thus provides great browsing experience for its users.

However, I'm also sure many are curious to find out how the N900 compares to the iPhone 3GS in terms of browsing, despite reassurances like 'it definitely rivals the iPhone', 'it's good enough'. I would love to know which one is better.

Here's an appeal to all N900 owners: if you do have an iPhone 3GS or your friend has one, and a bit of time to spare, please do upload a video comparing the browsing experiences on the iPhone and N900, side-by-side.

A video would be best, but of course written anecdotal accounts are welcome too, as seeing is believing.

Known facts:

N900 has higher resolution than iPhone;
N900 has flash support, iPhone doesn't;
N900 does not have pinch-to-zoom, iPhone does not have swirl to zoom.

Hence, I'd rather have reviews to focus on the unanswered,

1. Loading times, with cache cleared, on the same connection
2. Ease (speed, smoothness) of scrolling with fully loaded page (finger vs. finger, finger vs. stylus)
3. Extent and practicality of scrolling while page loads
4. Usability when it comes to frequency of zooming (i.e. do you need to zoom in and out very often?)
5. Rendering accuracy especially when loading complex pages

than discuss the above mentioned facts.

Thanks in advance.

Check out these two posts where I compared it with iPhone, Hero and dream:

http://bit.ly/5Ck6Nl

http://bit.ly/5u6kUI

Thanks for the links! That's very good information and gives me something to think about. Considering the Hero's hardware, it's impressive that the browser runs so well. I suspect that the Nexus One or other handsets running more capable hardware would perform noticeably better.

I have to give google credit here. There have been at least three updates to Android in the last year alone providing bug fixes and significant usability improvements. If this trend continues, I suspect that the life of a handset will be extended quite substantially beyond it's release due to updated software.

I'm also a bit worried about the N900 in this regard. Based on Nokia's track record and the announced Maemo 6, I'm guessing that the N900 will not receive many OS updates, which (for me anyway) detracts from the overall value.

}:^)~

I think most of us can see the writing on the wall here.
Maemo will never move beyond being a niche OS and in 2-3 years it will be just a fond memory with those that worked closely with it -as they browse their Android-based pocket computer.

Nonsense ! Maemo 5 will be alive well after a couple of Symbian^4 phones are out. That is at least 2 years from now.

Why don't you read what Nokia has publicly stated instead of making up wild dreams? Symbian^4 will be THE OS for Nokia smartphones. Maemo will be THE OS for Nokia mobile computers. These two OS'es will converge GUI vise and application vise, but not regarding core OS. The reason is simply that Symbian is a much better core OS for phones than Linux ever will be.

Symbian enables Nokia to make smartphones that cost less than when using any other OS because Symbian can be run on less powerfull hardware with equal performance (with some added HW graphics). Nokia has been doing this for years already.

Maemo enables Nokia to make "high end" mobile computers that is easely ported to any hardware platform.

There is no confict between Symbian and Maemo.

I rarely if ever fire up my laptop outside my office anymore - thats how good the browsing experience is - I simply have no need to use my laptop to grab things from the web etc. The N900 has replaced it

Here's another test. We see different results...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tO7EaO7FrQ

That's interesting.. Can you give more details on what webpage you actually tried to access and how flash intensive/text intensive the links were?