N900 through the eyes of apple maker

Intro

I will make a reservation right away that this article is about my subjective impressions of the transition to a radically new device. In my report, I do not pretend to authenticity, justice or any neutrality. Moreover, in this review I will try to get away from dry numbers and describe personal feelings.

What for?

More than a year I have been going through with an Apple iPhone 3G, to which I still have no complaints. The phone is convenient in everything that is required of it: it is easy to call, just write messages, it's nice to surf the Internet.

By the way, before the iPhone, for almost ten years, I had only Nokia phones (with the exception of brief forced periods with Motorola and Sony Ericsson), and only Apple made me to have the obvious superiority of mobile OS X usability to the then already archaic Symbian. When I parted with my latest Nokia (n82), I promised myself not to return to the brand until the company found a more progressive platform.

Therefore, when in the summer I saw the first mentions of an unknown Nokia device then codenamed RX-51 Rover with the tempting-looking Maemo Linux OS on board, I was extremely interested. The interest was further strengthened because the newly released iPhone 3GS at that moment did not boast anything significantly superior to 3G.
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Since the beginning of autumn, all the rumors about the upcoming release of the RX-51, which had already been renamed the N900, were growing. Rumors reached their peak with the release of the device in late November. Then I decided to buy.

First impressions

I experienced the very first positive emotions already by opening the box with the device: Nokia always knew how to beautifully represent devices. After inserting the SIM card pulled out of the iPhone into the N900, and then finding the battery in the box and placing it in the device with trembling hands, I closed the lid, pressed the power button and waited. To my unpleasant surprise, the first message received was a SIM card rejected. Googling, I learned that there was a problem with the only operator in the world, the British Three, whose subscriber I had by accident and unlucky chance. The device can not read data from the sim of this operator. (By the way, this bug is already internally fixed and everything will work in the next firmware version, but more on that later). However, I do not think that this problem is relevant for Russian users.

In spite of the annoying bug, I continued to monitor the system load with undiminished interest. Having set the language, region and time, I finally got to the Maemo desktop.


this is how the desktop looks after customization

Needless to say that the animation of switching to another desktop was impeccable. I was also pleased with the possibility of adding widgets and bookmarks to the desktop.


However, I needed to transfer contacts from my iPhone to the new N900, where the second trouble was waiting for me: at the moment, under OS X there is no way to establish synchronization with the device. PC Suite is only available, actually, for PC, Ovi Suite too, and the guys from Nokia have not bothered to write a plugin for iSync. Nevertheless, I remembered a similar problem with Gray with his N97, and decided the situation with the help of Google Sync.

Screen

Not one dozen copies was broken in holivaras about resistive and capacitive screens, but I can only say one thing: the iPhone screen is really friendlier and easier to handle. It took me a few hours to fully adjust to the N900 screen.

However, the screen itself is different - high resolution, good color reproduction. Some complained about the lack of brightness, but the current one is enough for me.

By the way, the device comes bundled with a stylus, which is sometimes required for more accurate navigation through web pages. About this below.

Dredging device

Browser

Having read a lot about the built-in browser on the Mozilla engine, I decided to check whether it’s really as stunning as they say. I will say right away: the rendering speed hit me, Habr completely rendered in less than 10 seconds. However, here I was waited by a new quite fair nuisance: having tried to increase pinch & zoom, I remembered that it was not an iPhone in my hands :) Double tap on the screen solved the problem.


Then I decided to test the flash and went, of course, to YouTube, where I noticed that if the page was not pulled, the video played without any complaints, and if I also deployed it to the full screen, then there were no problems at all. But this can also be done on an iPhone, right? So I went to vpleer.ru (no advertising, just a good site) and, naturally, without any difficulty I started listening to the composition.

The main problem of the browser is at the same time one of the problems of resistive screens: I had to literally run a finger to click on some links. Here the stylus comes to the rescue, but the sensations are still not very pleasant: this did not happen with the iPhone.

Then I remembered that I didn’t have time to download music to the device and, having lamented the impossibility of using iTunes (I really like it), I began to copy manually. By the way, the device has quite standard MicroUSB input today, so even if you lose the supplied cable, you won't be hard pressed to find a new one.

After copying the music, I immediately decided to try out the media player. Needless to say, in terms of convenience in this aspect, the iPhone is objectively better several times. I did not like a few things. First, unlike the iPhone, the N900 separates the artists whose tags are recorded in different registers. That is, I have two different cells - one with the Portishead, and the second with the portishead. Of course, the tags must be kept in order (which I subsequently did, and it also calms me), but the developers of the media player at Nokia could have thought of this simple thing. Secondly, if you do not have a2dp-headset, then switching to another application, you can not control the music playback. To do this, you need to go back to the media player or use the player's widget on the desktop. Thirdly, when you tear out the headphone cord, the music begins to play fun from the speaker, unlike the iPhone, where it pauses, which can sometimes cause an uncomfortable situation in public places. All these problems could be solved quite simply, there is some lack of thought. However, no matter what, the built-in player is quite possible to use, which I do, having become accustomed to its “features”.

Multitasking

There is nothing to say, the Finns have tried. A clear advantage over the iPhone, which has never dreamed of it :) I experienced a true geek buzz when I simultaneously listened to music, downloaded torrents via Transmission, posted on Skype and read Google Reader, which I also tweeted at that very moment with the N900. I do not know of another phone that could cope with a similar task.


it reminds me a little of Makovsky Exposé

Third Party Software

One of the main advantages of Maemo according to some is the openness of the platform. And in fact, all you need to run the program you need is to go to the Application Manager and search for it there, without forgetting to add repositories from the official site maemo.org. Want VIM? You are welcome. Transmission? On health. And if something is not found, you can always use the SDK to recompile Linux software for the processor and voila! Everything will work. Yes, seriously, Maemo is running software from desktop Linux with almost no changes.



Moreover, all you need to get root access to the device is to install the rootme package from the official repository. Everything! Then simply write to the terminal (which, of course, is the default) sudo gainroot and do whatever you want with the device. Packages for SSH access are also in the official repository. To do the same on the iPhone ... Yes, by the way, you yourself know.

Services

I would also like to say a few words about the usability of services on the N900. Skype is integrated directly into the device so that at first it is not even noticeable. You can call directly from the standard telephone application. Googltok / Jabber is also right out of the box, you can use them from the standard Conversations. Plugins for other services like ICQ are available from the repositories, and after they are installed, the services are also seamlessly integrated into the system.

For twitter there is a client Mauku. I did not find another, but this one did not cause any complaints. You can tweet, you can read other people's tweets in the tape, you can replay it too. More, it seems, nothing is required.

Autro

That's probably all I can say about the device at the moment. There are certainly bugs, some of which are quite noticeable; With the active use of the device, the battery barely suffices for a day. I already mentioned above that many are waiting for a new firmware, the output of which, by the way, is already delayed, despite the fact that there is no specific date. I hope that it will come out soon and eliminate most of the problems.

I would also like to reflect on the future of the platform as a whole. The fact that Nokia began to experiment with the new platform is definitely encouraging. Some complain about a modest set of applications, but it’s quite enough for me. And then, as I said, you can always port them yourself.

Unfortunately, the Finns still have to work on the usability of the platform - it is by no means perfect. They also need to decide on whom to orient the platform: to stay with geeks or to finish it for the mass user? In the current state, the second option is impossible.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the problems and shortcomings, I am extremely optimistic about the device in particular and the OS as a whole. The fact that an apple like me began to use an “alien” device speaks volumes. The main thing that Nokia did not stop, but continued to move in the right direction.

Finally, some photos:












PS I will be glad to answer all your questions and conjectures in the comments. If there are a lot of those, I will later draw them into a separate post.

PPS I hope I did not tire you with an abundance of text. I myself did not expect so much to happen.