So, I had a roller coaster ride during the last 9 months, going back and forth if I should get the n900. So many sad thing were said about Nokia, the software and the hardware. So - now that I got it - How does it compare to all I have read here.

NOTICE: This is my personal opinions and the stuff I can live with or without. For you it might be a different story.


Speed
Some things was exaggerated. Like the no smoothness of the GUI. Before I installed everything found in devel it was quick enough for me. So now that I have deleted the 200 apps I tried and didn't want I got most of the speed back. Hopefully I can clear out all the crap that has been left behind. Stay away from devel unless you know the app your getting is working alright.

Also people were complaining about how the scrolling kind of sucked. Sure, it is not as smooth as iphone, but like i stated above, when i uninstalled a bunch of crap its fine.

What a giant turd the application manager is. I am glad I am done with app installing because it is so horrible slow you will want to kill yourself. I also tried the app "Faster application manager" and managed to crash the entire installation process and program manager for a day due to "missing/wrong dependencies"

OS
I love maemo. It is right up my allay. When I customized it just right with quicklaunch etc it was perfect. But it may not be right for everyone. It is confusing at first, but when you learn it's the best thing out there that I have used.

Mediaplayer
Lots of complaining about playlists creation and missing hardware pause/play/track control and the indexing of every single pic in your phone.
There are a few headphone/controller scripts to install which solves most of that, and I just named my personal folder to "Private". In there I keep everything I don't want to get indexed. As for playlists it is easy as pie. Choose albums/artists or whatever, choose add to "now playing". Then save that as a playlist. It works for me.

No lagging when listening to music, regular avi movies straight from my computer also plays perfectly. No need for conversion there.

Phone app
I had so much fear about this one not working well. Flickering answer button, screen that goes blank, missing calls etc. None of those things has happened. I don't have it on turning control and launch it by pressing shortcut on power button/quicklaunch applet/desktop icon/desktop contacts. No problem at all.

As for grouping and individual ring tones and voice dialing. I don't use that except for group sms. And all I do then is add the same nickname to the nickname field in each contact. Then I can write that nick name when sending an sms and thus getting prompted with choosing between just those contacts.

I don't have a problem with the call history either. Installed the extended one but I have still not haven't had any use for it. For a casual caller like me the phone part is more than enough.

MMS
I left that in 1998. I use a thing call email now instead. Didn't even bother downloading fmms.

Battery life
Battery life was said to be hopeless. I have had mine lasting for 48 hours with normal use (browsing, calling, sms, email etc)
I guess some people run 3 IM accounts, check email every 5 minutes and having 10 widgets checking everything from cpu rate to weather. I have non of those. I actually hate widgets.

The fastest I drained my battery was 5 hours during which I non-stop installed/uninstalled apps, browsed, played games and had music on and customized my desktop. And rebooting once which drained about 10%. Also an app from devel caused 1% drain per minute once, so I had to uninstall it. Be aware.

Flash player
Flash player version not being up to date. That was a huge one, and almost a deal breaker for me. Now I realise I don't care. I usually watch clips on collegehumor, youtube and facebook.
Now I don't. But it's not because of the version nr keeping me out. It's because it's a hassle to watch. Pressing super tiny buttons for fullscreen and play. Buffering like there is no tomorrow and unresponsive. I say, screw flash all together. (Did I mention I'm a flash programmer for a living)

Camera quality and blue hazing
I had Nokia n95 before and that camera was awesome. This one is ok. Actually it's more than ok during the day, and during the night and at the clubs, who cares about some grain.
I don't use the video cam unless I feel the need to film someone falling on their face, so I'm fine with it.

I did notice some blue hazing when using the flash due to the blue color near the lens (why Nokia, why). Was going to go over it with a black marker but realized now that I don't really care anymore.

Amount of apps
Didn't think I would have a problem with the limited amount of apps available. But I do. Almost none are completely finished, and most have bad design. At any moment the guy making it can give it up and all efforts goes to waste.
For me, all the games and all the emulators I have tried (not n64/playstation yet) are not enough. I want modern games with nice graphics, music and not having to worry about root/terminal/dependency's etc to make them work. Angry Birds is the exception.

Resistive screen
At first I didn't even notice a difference from the Iphone. But after PR 1.2 it got less responsive I feel. If one calibrates the screen by pushing with thumbs it will probably be angled and slightly off center but you get good accuracy that way. The downside is that the stylus wont be accurate if you don't calibrate to the exact center. For me I went with stylus accuracy and are trying to learn how to hit buttons spot on instead. Quite hard and frustrating actually. But at least there is a choice and I am getting more accurate. If you sport long nails I guess you get the best of both worlds.

Another thing is that you need to press harder around the screen outlines than in the center. That's a cause for a lot of hit and misses. didnt even know this until a was drawing with pressure only to see my lines getting lighter and stop close to the screen edge.

If it wasn't for being able to draw with pressure in the awesome mypaint app, I would prefer capacitive. But I can live with either one.

Brick size
It is huge. And heavy. I still feel weird when holding it. My arms even got tired in the beginning. But since I like the keyboard so much and have loose pants It doesn't bother me to much. But expect to be ridiculed about it by pretty much everyone.

Maps
Before PR 1.2, I loaded it up, couldn't figure out how it worked and couldn't even get a GPSposition. Closed it and never used it again. Horrible application made by horrible people im sure I thought.

Now with the update it is way better and actually suits my needs. There is no turn-by-turn or route recalculation from what I have heard but I don't use that so I don't care. Don't even have a car.

Browser
It rocks in every way. I don't even browse with my computer anymore. Dubbel tap zoom is not working so good but everything else is. I use regular gmail and facebook. Even the facebook chat on the site. Portrait mode is missing a keyboard. Luckily for us, Opera Mobile provides that for us along with turbo mode and tabs. Nice!

Other
Why on earth did they put the charger on top and the unlocker at the bottom. These two should have switched places. No you feel like you have a giant antenna sticking up when talking while charging. If switched you could have unlocked with your finger instead of swiping the screen. Also, the feel of the keyboard slider could be nicer and the kickstand seems fragile just like the battery cover when you try to remove it, feels like you are going to break it.

You cant charge your phone from a "dumb" source using only a usb cable. That means most external battery packs, car chargers, usb wall outlets and such. However, there is an mini usb to micro usb adapter with on off switch you can buy from brando for this. I shall order it now and hopefully that will work. Nokia provides an adaptor converting old school charger to usb micro. That does the trick also but is not a good solution when on the road.
Charging via a computer or wall socket is fine.

Speakers are not to loud but ok for a phone. Keyboard is truly awesome but i wish they would have made the ctrl button as the shift/fn button. So you can press control and release it and then press "c" for copy for instance. But instead you have to keep it pushed in with one finger. Not so practical.

Don't think it was fair to market this as a computer or a geek phone. It is a smart phone and it is awesome. I still haven't used terminal. Don't need it. Hardly know what it does.
To me it is like DOS in windows. It is there, it is geeky, its unused. But It doesn't make either my laptop or me a nerd.


Wish list
For me the n900 is awesome in almost every way. It's just that it isn't polished. There is a hidden half baked portrait mode that show it can be done but Nokia is to lazy to do it. Its small idiotic things like that in the software/hardware and stuff like the crappy ovi/app store that makes you kind of hate Nokia. It truly is a chubby jack of all trades but a master of none. I love my n900 so much and there is not any alternative out there for me. I am glad I made the choice to buy it (for 350 euro). I just wish the company logo on the phone read something different than Nokia.



So all in all, I am super happy. I can live with the flaws that is there. I have gotten used to them by know. The phone is aging and on its way out now after a year, which one has to accept as it is how life work. I do hope for a last bug fix from nokia with portrait mode/keyboard for conversations/email/browser. If nitdroid (android clone) and meego gets fully functional I will for sure try them, but mainly for the apps and portrait mode.

Next up for me is experimenting with transition control for faster transitions in the GUI and perhaps overclocking. With that, and if the playstation emulators gets revived I am all set.

EDIT: Transition control now tested. I changed app openening time, launcher times and menu times. Feels faster to handle now. Nice!

I'm sure everyone will have an opposite opinion and to everyone who wants to argue my personal opinion wrong - let me spare you some time. Just imagine my answer as "Interesting. But this is how I perceive my own experience, with my own phone. You are welcome to do the same. Perhaps in a thread of your own"

Very comprehensive and objective review. Deserve a good thank. ^^

I get your point, but it is a master of one thing. The one thing you felt you didn't need

If only everybody could be as objective, frank and thoughtful with their views here - a pleasure to read so balanced a piece.

Thanks to the great outdoors!

Sooooo... You bought the N900 just before its succesor is [meant] to be released?

Any new device will be expensive (ie poor value for money) when launched. Plus it will be unfinished and full of bugs (Nokia is learning from MS). So maybe it is better to go with the devil you know - N900.

Guys samsung has copied N900 to the core & come up with a device called Samsung Galaxy Tab.

http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/

They have copied the features of N900 to the core and the looks from the iphone.

Wonder what made them think that they can even match up to the Nokia.

Why not? There is always something new around the corner.

Outdoors: I want to echo (almost) everyone else here and thank you heartily for a great review! I'm going to wait and see if this "successor" is any good before deciding what to do next (I've waited longer than you, right?).

I also have to echo the terminal thing: you must be a m$ guy as well as a flash guy.

Vivek5000: You have no idea what you're talking about--the Samsung Galaxy Tab is an Android tablet. Android is a cut-down OS, unlike Maemo which is a full-blown Linux distro (which makes the N900 a full-blown computer in a handheld package). Maemo also doesn't require jailbreaking, whereas even most supposedly "open" Android devices require some sort of work to write and install your own apps. (Though of course it's still nothing like wormy apples.)

Mike

I just rebought it. After spending $450 or so in may, I couldn't justify the hassle when my blackberry was working fine. Back then, I told my wife that for $450, it was too much money to be wary of ever charging it for fear of the USB port falling out but if it was $200, I could easily see it being worth the heartache every time I plug it in.

I seriously doubt the N9 will be a) free of defects or b) $200.

I've missed it and am glad to have it back -- fear of charging and all.