I didn't see this posted yet, but thought it was actually a pretty fair and even review (not something frequently associated with Engadget reviews):

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/19/nokia-n900-review/

For the long and short of it, they like the potential of the N900, think Maemo is very promising, but don't recommend the phone to "joe average" users (not a surprise, really).

They also mention the potential of Maemo. I think this paragraph sums it up:

"After having dug in, we're seeing glimmers of brilliance here that give us hope. Maemo 5 isn't the polished, consumer-friendly, all-encompassing solution that Palm, Google, and Apple are all selling today, but it's fairly evident that Nokia has built itself a stable, extensible platform that can reach those levels with a little tender loving care. The company's commitment to open source and the Maemo development community is commendable -- it's something that should absolutely continue -- but going forward, we'd love to see what kinds of magical things could happen if it took development to 100 percent feature completion internally with a full round of usability testing before handing it off to the eager geeks in the field. The mere thought sends shivers down our spine."

It basically says the same things this community has said - Maemo 5 is not finished and Nokia left functionality out but it is a good base for future development.

They also question, as we have, why Maemo could not serve as the OS for all Nokia's high end phones. And they conclude with what is often heard here: "it's a computer with a phone, not a phone that can compute."

The reason it can't be on every high end Nokia phone is because it's not ready and Symbian got better support for example in the Email service side. It will be the thing in high ends with Maemo 6 time like already said by Nokia.

Not bad review coming from Engadget. Some odd bits like on the main menu you can only get back by pushing power button.... didn't know that

Chris Ziegler is the Head Editor of Engadget Mobile and has always delivered very balanced and thoughtful device reviews.

This is cited as the major reasons why both his N900 and N97 reviews took so long to publish. The man does solid work.


His blatant refusal to join in on the Nokia bashing party that the editors at Engadget enjoy and instead write factual reviews is also a reason why he is openly mocked by the *****s on the Engadget podcast.

Indeed.. could you imagine if Joshua Topolsky or god forbid Paul Miller (hes the person that single-handedly brings Engadget down to douche bag Gizmodo levels).

I don't think he did his homework:


I remember of a chinese device that runs Maemo 5 as well, that's for sale in China. An N900 copy, if you will.

Indeed. Other than the video part he makes a solid review. I guess you could say he is reviewing it as a bit of a outsider, but that's how reviews should be done.
I have seen 3-4 of non Nokiafan.org(no the site dosen't exist. Don't click it ) type of sites giving the N900 over positive review even for maemo fan like me. Talking about everything being perfect and next update having full portrait and stuff like that. That's more dangerous.

Yeah . . . no. The only devices running Maemo are made by Nokia. Anything else claiming to run "Maemo" isn't.

There two things that I noticed in the video review that were inaccurate.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/19/nokia-n900-review/
1. Minute 9:15. He's in second apps screen and he says that you can't navigate out easily. He then presses the power button and then hit the out of focus area to get to the home screen. Contrary to what he says you can hit the top or side of the screen in the second apps menu and it will navigate out to the first apps menu then you can hit the outer area again to get to the home screen.

2. Minute 18:08. He presses the power button to get to the phone and then says that it’s not supported in landscape mode. He must have the Display Orientation set to ‘Portrait’ instead of ‘Automatic’ in the Turning Control menu.

The Chinese devices you're referring to actually runs Diablo (Maemo 4.x). If it's the one that I'm thinking of, it's basically an N800 clone and TOTALLY looks like an illegal KIRF-like device.