After owning several Siemens phones, I thought: Well, maybe I just want that little bit extra.

Trade in durability for a little more functionality.
So, because BenQ never really made any good phone and T-Mobile had a good offer with the HTC Wizard I got it and used that phone for more than 2 years.

Windows Mobile reminded me most of Windows 95, but back in the days we all seemed to like it. And it sort of works too.

After 2 years I had to renew my contract and select a new phone, I hoped there would be any good alternative, but the only real phone on the market was the brand new HTC Raphael.

That phone also lasted 2 years with me and is still in fine working order, although I really need to replace the battery.

Instead of replacing the battery, I thought, maybe I could dive into the mobile Linux world.
This would mean I could choose iPhone (sucks), WebOS (what?), Android (maybe), Symbian (mehh, no) or just that one OS which doesn't void warranty if you want to get administrative rights: Maemo.

Unfortunately, the only producer of these phones is Nokia. Nokia really doesn't stand high in my regards, certainly not when it comes to build quality. Ever since I saw tons of people throwing around 3310's I knew I wanted Siemens quality.

But, luckily, they've opened up a service store in this city. It's a store where they service every Nokia for 2 years after sale.

That's something you wouldn't see T-Mobile/HTC do very soon.

Reluctantly I bought my very first Nokia, the N900.
It's a nice, very anonymous phone, which looks rather sturdy.

That is, until you open the back cover (the lady at the servicepoint didn't dare doing it, it feels like it breaks). There's absolutely nothing to keep the battery in place, the SIM/SD card locks may be good, but definitely not for beginners, there's no protective cover for the lens (under the slider) and the keyboard is ridiculous.

Which idiot designed that keyboard?
Linux users like typing, they need a TAB button, a CTRL button, numbers, a / and things like $%&*. When I look at my 5 rows of keyboard on the Raphael, that's what you need on Linux, let the poor sodding M$ users be happy with them 3 rows on the N900



Anyways... After 3 days of happy using and recharging I went to bed one night. Usually I undress before I do that and like this time, I put my pants on my chair.
When I woke up the next morning, way too late for work, I wanted to check the bus schedule on my phone. To my surprise, my pants weren't on my chair anymore, but must have slid off and fell on the ground (a mere 40cm drop).

When I tried to turn on the phone, I noticed it wasn't on (NOKIA splash screen). I put it back in my pocket and hurried for the bus, while I was in the bus I entered my phone code but it didn't ask me for my PIN number.
It started booting, michelangelo movie, Maemo desktop (top bar)... But then it tries to cram all the widgets onto one single screen, the screen flashes a couple of times and it reboots.

On my work I tried to do the little trick that always works on WinMo, do a hard reset!
Usually it means poking the stylus into that little hole whilst holding down the volume and send button, it confirms I'm not an idiot and it's back to when it first came out of the box.

This nifty little trick doesn't seem to exist on the N900, in fact... The 'ROM' isn't present on the phone, it has to be downloaded from a pc to do that.

So I tried downloading and flashing this like descibed on this site: http://thenokiaguide.com/2010/01/11/...sets-all-data/

And it worked perfectly, except that it still didn't recognize my SIM card, 'doesn't have enough memory to start' almost anything and still crashes all the time.

So after 3 days of proudly owning my first Nokia, I went to the service store. They tried connecting their engineering mode tool but of course it didn't work, 'probably because I flashed it wrong'. So I could come back yesterday to pick it up, so I went there on my lunch break and they said they couldn't find it and I should call back later.
I called back around closing time and they said it's not responding to their 'great' 'machine' of chinese engineering.

I told them that if they just hold U during boot, they could still flash it themselves... Because it just works!!!
They laughed at me and said nothing beats our 'usb cable device' and if it doesn't work on that, those puny consumer tricks wouldn't ever stand a chance!

So, now I have to wait 2~6 weeks for my phone to be sent to Bangladesh or something before they too find out their cable doesn't work and hopefully give me a new phone.

II just hope I'll get my 2GB μSD card back that I forgot to take out of my phone.

And in the mean time I'm reliving old times with my trusty Siemens SL55, that has 2 years shelf life, 2 years intensive usage and almost 4 years in my drawer just for festival usage. For a phone that's more than 7 years old, it still operates 3 full days on one battery charge.


Best phone I've ever had...

Nulla e reale, tutto e lecito, requiescat in pace

,,,,

tl;dr version of this crap:

HURR DUR HURRR N900 deeed HURR siemens DUR HHHAAHA

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Yet another irrelevant & useless thread.

Rather than closing these threads, I'd suggest to merge them into one gigantic N900 VENT thread. They clearly won't stop anyway.. they need an outlet somewhat.

Just like some cities have designated red light districts.

ps: I completely agree with what OP said about the keyboard.

pps: cool story, bro.

oh hi thar God, what's going on today in paradise?

Okay then...

Does anybody know what tool they're using in that store?

Is it hardware level (serial stuff)? Is it application level (Activestink stuff)?

well... not to start a flame war or undermine your pain... but my n900 had a 1.5 meter fall on a hard ceramic-tiled floor... guess what?... it still workslike a charm... and not a single scratch by the way... maybe i'm just lucky... but i do remember a guy making some very cruel stress test videos sometime back in november and managed to keep his phone alive... maybe he was also lucky...

well... i hope your n900 comes back working again... meanwhile enjoy your siemens...