The Competition: Nokia Goes Maemo, Announces N900
Nokia has announced a new, Maemo-powered N900 which our good friend Matt Miller of NokiaExperts.com is beaming about in an iPhone and Palm Pre competitive sort of way:
I have to say I have not been this excited about a Nokia product for quite some time and with the T-Mobile USA 3G support I will definitely be picking one up as soon as I can. The N900 fixes all that is wrong with the N97 and then throws on a slick Maemo UI and feature set that should have most any geek drooling.
32GB, OpenGL 2.0, ARM Cortex A8, 800×600 screen, 5mp camera… Pretty clear that Nokia is doing their usual hardware magic, many specs closely mirroring the iPhone 3GS, in fact (though what’s up with 1GB of application memory?!) And Maemo 5 UI…
Does this mean Nokia is abandoning Symbian on the high end for this hot new Debian Linux-based OS? Will they be able to really come up with a user experience that can take mind share away from the iPhone and Palm Pre? And will this device finally give them some sort of presence in the North American market?
August 27th, 2009 at 9:03 am
While it looks very ****, the keyboard is not.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I guess I won’t be buying the n97 n e more…
August 27th, 2009 at 9:40 am
The question of the 1 gig of application memory can be answered by multi-tasking.
Unlike the iPhone approach that maintains performance through limiting open applications (core apps +1 for the most part) the nokia appears to have been designed around acting more like a computer than a iPhone. They claim to allow dozens of apps to run at one time. Though whats the value of running 10 or 15 applications at once – seems to be more wasteful than anything else…
Also with such a nascent platform “ovi” wont be able to supply more than a few hundred apps in the first few months.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:52 am
can not stand the layout of the keyboard cool looking phone just not my thing. wonder if nokia tweaked the ui and put their bloat ware in there. the whole multitasking things i dont understand however i would like to respond to a text in a pop up window instead of having to go to messages then back.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Phone looks awesome.. Hope the next iphone has a little different look to it then the current model.. as.. well, its getting old on my eyes.. still love my phone, just a little tired of the look(which was helped a little with winterboard.. but not much)
August 27th, 2009 at 10:01 am
It looks cool and all but what’s with the tiny keyboard?
August 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
It would take me ten minutes to type my name on that P.O.S.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:48 am
when will. Appke change the look of the iphine…atleast release an assortment of colors…
August 27th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I like the way it looks! If I didn’t have an iPhone I’d get it. The keyboard does look really small but I’m sure I’d get used to it eventually. The specs are really good too. 1gb of ram sounds great!
August 27th, 2009 at 11:31 am
OMG…I wanted a N97 but was hesitant because there was no T-Mobile 3g support…butthis is going to be the best phone ever….Nokia has always been good!!!!
August 27th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Ick. That keyboard is raunchy. Right side located space bar, no thanks and that top row looks cramped against the screen. I’m a virtual keys kind of guy though so some might like that.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
The next iPhone model will top this:
-Redesigned looks. -1-1.2GHz processor (possibly Apple-made, optimised for iPhone OS). -Hi-resolution OLED display -HD video playback and recording. -Multitasking -32/64GB memory -Enhanced voice-control (controls app launch, search, UI change) -Adaptive home screen UI (depends on the time of day, “mood”) -One more thing!
Here it is.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I posted in the forums about this last week.
There is an extensive review about it here: http://tinyurl.com/l24qrj Its far more detailed than Nokia Experts review.
And kids, please stop whining about the keyboard ok? Get old after a while.
It has an on-screen keyboard as well so you can continue to ignore spelling, paragraphs, punctuation, and everything you ever learned in the 6th grade, just like you do when you post from your iPhone.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Not as old as the nine whining Google Voice threads.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for correction my typo when you quoted me.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
What’s the screen size?
August 27th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
The first link in the story tells you that.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Why are all the iPhans hating on the keyboard? Isn’t having one better than none at all? Its an optional input method, not the only one.
BTW, although the N97 isn’t stable enough to do so as of today, I routinely ran 15+ apps at once on my N95 8gb and N82. I’m pretty sure some of you guys have that many windows open on your PCs or Macs, so what’s so hard to understand about multitasking? Why is it useful on the desktop and wasteful on the mobile? I couldn’t make it without it!
When you’re streaming music from Skyfire, browsing via the default browser, chatting in Nimbuzz while exchanging files, downloading torrents with SymTorrent, P2P sharing and downloading via the Symella Gnutella client, copying text from emails into my wordpress app, and uploading photos to Ovi, all while tracking your movements with sports tracker at the same time, you’ll begin to wonder why the iPhone wastes its hardware for a serial app platform common with featurephones.
Catch up with the times! Its not a phone, its a portable mini PC.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
@christexaport
“Why is it useful on the desktop and wasteful on the mobile?”
Battery life and/or processing power….or lack there of. My buddy’s Pre runs dry in a matter of a few short hours if he’s heavily multi-tasking not to mention bottlenecking.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I have to admit good specs. Apple could add 5 MP camera but knows it’s useless without a bigger lens. I do LOVE the screen resolution though. I think apple will next year add a 480 and 720 models. (2 different models and prices). That would be AWESOME. And those models with a 1 and 1.2 GHz processor. Maybe even two cores?
Btw. 1.2 GHz is the same speed as the low end Dell adamo (LOL!) and apples about to top that with a phone within 8 months!!!
August 28th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
800×600 screen…(though what’s up with 1GB of application memory?!) — I know this is not a Nokia centric page and mistakes happen, but please don’t post wrong specs when they are not misquoted anywhere else:
The device has a WVGA screen (which makes it 800×480) and 256 MB memory which can be boosted to 1 GB by up to 768 MB of virtual memory. Nokia should not have mentioned this at all as it is misleading at best.
August 29th, 2009 at 12:48 am
now this is the true internet and pc in your pocket not the iphone which cannot multitask and HTML internet. It’s a PC and a phone and more than a smartphone. It’s not for iphone “kids” but for serious gadget users. You can do anything a computer desktop can do on this. plus good camera with flash! and debian linux!
August 29th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Yeah iphone will come out with something but at that time nokia will come out with something better! Again silly fanboys…. iphone future versus nokia now. chicken and egg thing. apple is still behind in camera and battery technology. they are just good in software GUI!
September 1st, 2009 at 8:58 am
N900 beats iSheep in every aspect. Nokia FTW
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
It looks great but I’d love it if it had a radio and an 8 megapixel camera. But those are minor complaints.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:12 am
bon caleter d’image ,
Le Nokia N900 prétend remplacer un PC miniature. Pour la première fois, il fonctionne avec l’OS Maemo 5
http://mobile-news-2009.blogspot.com/2009/08/nokia-n900.html
November 16th, 2009 at 11:59 am
It has a Radio and a Radio transmitter..