The latest addition to the Nokia family is the first device running Maemo 5, a new OS that takes the best of Nokia's internet tablet range and stuffs it into a phone-sized chassis.

Featuring a huge 3.5-inch screen and full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, it's also packing a seriously strong engine under the hood to power things along. Will the N900 shed the ageing image of Symbian and bring Nokia to the next level to match the likes of the iPhone?


I HAVE INTENTIONS OF BUYING THE PHONE ON GETTING THERE I WAS GIVEN TWO CONDITIONS:
1. THE PHONE DOES NOT CARRY A NOKIA WARRANTY HERE IN NIGERIA

2. ONE CANT LOAD RECHARGE CARDS WITH IT HERE NIGERIA, BECAUSE IT HAS NOT BEEN OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED HERE.

SO I TOOK A TIME TO GO BACK HOME TO CONTEMPLATE, BUT NOW I DECIDED TO PUT ALL THAT BEHIND ME AND GO FOR IT COS I LOVE THAT MACHINE.

HAS ANYONE HERE BEEN USING IT, PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR EXPERIENCE.

take a look!!!!!!

Properties

General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100
Announced 2009, August
Status Available. Released 2009, November
Size Dimensions 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, 113 cc
Weight 181 g
Display Type TFT resistive touchscreen, 65K colors
Size 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Full QWERTY keyboard
Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone Yes, with stereo speakers
- 3.5 mm audio jack
Memory Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Detailed, max 30 days
Internal 32 GB storage, 256 MB RAM
Card slot microSD, up to 16GB, buy memory
Data GPRS Class 32
EDGE Class 32
3G HSDPA, 10Mbps; HSUPA, 2Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
Bluetooth Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
Infrared port Yes
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Camera Primary 5 MP, 2576x1936 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Dual LED flash, video light
Features Geo-tagging
Video Yes, WVGA(848 x 480)@25fps
Secondary Yes, VGA
Features OS Maemo 5
CPU ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz, PowerVR SGX530 graphics
Messaging SMS (threaded view), Email, Push Email, IM
Browser xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
Radio Stereo FM radio (via third party software); FM transmitter
Games Yes, 5 + downloadable
Colors Black
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support; Ovi Maps

yes have been using it for almost one month now and am even thinking of selling it cos it is a waste here in nigeria, unless i travel back to the state that is wen i need it more, but it is a cute phone

I think i ill have to make up my mind on buying it, i ill put all that limitations behind me! i ill go 4 it.

but i remember back in the days mtn especially used to have this voice response recharge thing, i think 181, not too sure sha

for that u follw the voice prompts and enter the pin no, is that not working again?

cos that shld solve the recharge ish,

Last year, maybe, but with the Nokia N-8 around the corner, why would you buy this?

i prefer this one to nokia N8 but leme check the coparism!, i will have to use my second phone to recharge it whenever i need to recharge it,

The latest addition to the Nokia family is the first device running Maemo 5, a new OS that takes the best of Nokia's internet tablet range and stuffs it into a phone-sized chassis.

Featuring a huge 3.5-inch screen and full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, it's also packing a seriously strong engine under the hood to power things along. Will the N900 shed the ageing image of Symbian and bring Nokia to the next level to match the likes of the iPhone?

Been using the N900 for close to 6 months now, got the phone in december, before that I was using the Nokia N810 which I got after selling the Ipod Touch I had then. The N900 is not an IPhone/Ipad touch alternative or replacement. But device have different target audience.  The IPhone is for the consumer who wants a locked down phone which works for this their limited use case. The N900 is for people who want a device with a endless open  possibility. I found out I get to do much more with the N900 than even my friends who use the Iphone but that is just in respect to my use case 

I HAVE INTENTIONS OF BUYING THE PHONE ON GETTING THERE I WAS GIVEN TWO CONDITIONS:
1. THE PHONE DOES NOT CARRY A NOKIA WARRANTY HERE IN NIGERIA\

You are spot on with that, But I was able to get slotlimited to give me their own in house warranty since every phone there sell is covered by a standard one year warranty. (well there honor the warranty? seriously I dont wanna find out)

2. ONE CANT LOAD RECHARGE CARDS WITH IT HERE NIGERIA, BECAUSE IT HAS NOT BEEN OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED HERE.
No you can not recharge or check your balance (or infact use any ussd command) because ussd is not supported on the phone. This situation has been fixed in the forth coming PR1.2 firmware which among other things fixes many bugs on the phone and adds much needed features including system wide portrait more support and ability to make skype video calls .
however as the power of the N900 lies in the open endedness of the device members of the maemo community have already written a work around the issue. you can always get a work around that by clicking here http://maemo.org/downloads/product/raw/Maemo5/ussd-widget?get_installfile this would install an application which is actually a widget from where u can check your balance and also recharge your phone. There is another app called ussdpad which is available in the unstable software repository of the N900. I have managed to get it to install on my phone and would write a guide on how u can install it on your N900 without much hassle. Once u have that you would be able to use all ussd functions easily

SO I TOOK A TIME TO GO BACK HOME TO CONTEMPLATE, BUT NOW I DECIDED TO PUT ALL THAT BEHIND ME AND GO FOR IT COS I LOVE THAT MACHINE.

  the problem many people have with the N900, there see a cool looking device, have little understanding of what its for all what it can do to improve their life as long as its big, looks nice and its expensive ,  u have a deal. I have seen alot of people with the N900 so confess they just use it to make calls. and am thinking why pay soo much when all you use it for is to make calls?

Here is what I use my N900 for

-- fm Radio: although its doesnt come with the device, the device hardware comes with an phone radio module and thanks to the openness of the phone community members where able to write a very cool fm radio UI for the device 


Internet radio: I also love the internet radio functionality I have been a fan of the BBC since I was 13 year old and hardly a day passes without me listening to the world service, with the N900 I have been able to do away with my cheap clunky chinese word services sw radio

email: I know this is a feature which almost every phone has nowadays but still I love the way its implemented on the N900. I know many people regard the blackberry as the king when it comes to emailing. But the lack of support for standard email protocols like Imap is a big downer for me. with the N900 I get the best of both worlds I can either setup standard gmail imap account. or use nokia mail (their bb like email services) I also love the fact that email is integrated through out the device allowing me to send any of my files via email very easily.

Mutimedia : currently there is no device anywhere which comes close to the N900 when it comes to multimedia powers. This devices plays just about anything any video I through at it,  avi, xvid, dvix mp4, DAT (VCD files) and even VOB (DVD files) and plays them all out of the box, no need to encode or instal extra packages. There all just work. On the audio side I get support for all the usuals (mp3, acc, wma) and even ogg (through a codec) add the 32gb hard drive to the 16gb mmc which I added to it, and my N900 becomes my mobile cinema ,  If I want to watch things on a bigger screen I just connect the phone to the TV and get a bloated version of the movie. Infact  atm the N900 is what I use with my 21 LCD TV because I don't have a dvd player so I just connect the phone to the TV and play my favourite metal sounds from there ,  seriously it doesnt get better than this

Full web
This is one of the strongest areas of the N900. the web browser is called microB and it has full support for javascripts, flash and just about everything u have on a laptop browser. It is based on mozilla gecko engine and by far the best web experience on a mobile device. Infact the N900 is so far on top with the web experience that there is no second place.  as if this is not enough Firefox google chrome and opera have all been ported over to the N900

IM and messaging
When it comes to IM no one does it better than the N900 like seriously no one even comes close. Like with the phone I have full contact integrated support for yahoo, gtalk, msn,aim,icq,facebookovi and skype ,  and all my buddy list show up in my phone contacts in such a cool way that if I need to chat with someone I just open my contact search their name and start the chat. Also I can merge a persons connections (faceboook, gtalk, email etc) into one contact which makes it easy for me to engage them in any way I want another thing I love about the msging system of the device is threaded sms which is not unique to the N900 but still its a really cool functionality.

Linux,  Free and open source: This may not mean anything to the average user but for me its a huge deal. The fact that the phone is made of free and open source software and based on debian linux allowing me to get down to the gut to get things down and tweak the device as I want is something which is so huge I cant describe the feeling. The ability to open a terminal and run apt-get install? or tweak the tracker settings so there dont see my podcasts audio files as part of my music,  or the ability to use ssh to and from the device? or use vi or use nmap? or even wireshark? I mean seriously the feeling is one of orgasmic pleasure (if not close). Open source also mean I get to file bugs for things which I would like then to add and already 2 of the bugs report I filed have been fixed and would be part of the latest fw release, 

There are many things I love about the N900 and in many ways it does add value to my life, with it I feel very connected and I can do just about anything I do on my laptop. Podcasts management, fm transmitter, weather widget, 4 home screens, the phone is like a swiss knife to me

NB I forgot to add the fact that I can skype is built into the device and I can make skype calls or chat from just about anywhere. even gtalk has ability to make video calls and video call is coming for skype soon.

oh oh and I forgot the awesome calendar support which allows me to setup mail for exchange and have a 2 way sync with my google calendar, and google contacts. what this means is that my phone contacts and google calendar are always in sync.  and if I add an appointments to my google calendar from thunderbird, this appointment shows up on my phone immediately vis a vis. plus there is an app which takes the birthdays and avatars of all my facebook and skype contacts and add their birthdays to my calendar which then shows on my google calendar and is the first thing I  see when I open my thunderbird mail client on my laptop. vola I start remembering friends bdays and calling them, 




Seriously There is just so much to say about this device,   Oh I missed out multitasking,  well not even google android beats the N900 when it comes to multitasking. I mean real multitasking not make believe. every app running in the background and u can easily get live thumbnail previews


Is the N900 now for everyone? No Its not. Its a great phone but still its not yet complete. Its not meant to be a final device for the masses. Nokia calls it the stage 4 of a 5 step roadmap towards a consumer ready maemo (now meego) device. I only recommend the N900 to those ready to thinker and take full advantage of the open platform and participate in the community. If you are looking for a iphone like phone, then there is nothing here for u, move along

I have got a fan here too! THANKS @BIGBROVAR, i think its exactly what you did with slot am gonna do!
on my way to vacation i ill settle with the device its a machine not a phone!

then as for the issue is recharging and checking of airtime , i got to understand that the problem will be solve based on firmware update

presently one cant recharge or check balance (or infact use any ussd command) because ussd is not supported on the phone. This situation has been fixed in the forth coming PR1.2 firmware which among other things fixes many bugs on the phone and adds much needed features

thanks buddy! i ill keep u updated when i lay my hands on the machine!

I LIKE IT!

nice one guys, thsi phone sounds superb, most especially with all the rav ereviews it's been getting on Yomi Adegboye's mobilitynigeria. anyway with the Nokia N8's 12 megapixel camera i think i'd look that way. has there ever been a Nokia phone with that high megapix or even near?

yes! i mean u have got to see pics i took with d all mighty n900, its superb like a cybershot camera,
anyway the major thing here is i have finally ran the update on maemo5 successfully and my n900 is doing virtually everything a fone shuld and even beyond, pls pal keep me updated with any new apps on the Engine, its morethan a machine,

hmmmmm
N900 vs E72_{. . . . . which 1 should i go for,}

lynxnoon:

hmmmmm
N900 vs E72_{. . . . . which 1 should i go for,}

it depends on ur pocket, i would prefer n900. guess u no n900 is a mini computer so the choice is urs

speaking of which, who sabi config the TOR on N900 abeg

i need am gaaan ni!!!

4llerbuntu:

speaking of which, who sabi config the TOR on N900 abeg

i need am gaaan ni!!!

where u dey stay?

where is bigbrovar?

hey one mumu like that just uninstalled his kernel. actually he went and installed developer tools without any knowledge of what they were for.
uninstalling them ended the fone in a loop when booting. it shows up the nokia logo, then reboots


im thinking a hard reset, im downloading the emmc and firmware for it, just wondering if its possible to get out of the loop without much-ado

engrhamid:

it depends on your pocket, i would prefer n900. guess u no n900 is a mini computer so the choice is urs

N900 = 90k

E72 = 49.5k
hmmmmmm na wah oh!!!!

Hey Bigbrovar! Your review of the N900 is quite helpful i must say. Could you please give me a step by step breakdown on how to reset the N900 to an out of the box state? Would really appreciate as i currently want to sell mine.

I use a macbook pro laptop and i dont quite appreciate the compatibility of my laptop with the N900 so im thinking of switching to iphone. Interestingly, isync plug in was recently released but i still dont seem to be able to seamlessly sync my mac and N900. Neways, pls help with the step by step instruction on factory reset (out of the box state).

And if anyone is interested in my N900 (with all accessories still intact) please contact me asap for a good deal!

twittsa:

Hey Bigbrovar! Your review of the N900 is quite helpful i must say. Could you please give me a step by step breakdown on how to reset the N900 to an out of the box state? Would really appreciate as i currently want to sell mine.

I use a macbook pro laptop and i dont quite appreciate the compatibility of my laptop with the N900 so im thinking of switching to iphone. Interestingly, isync plug in was recently released but i still dont seem to be able to seamlessly sync my mac and N900. Neways, pls help with the step by step instruction on factory reset (out of the box state).

And if anyone is interested in my N900 (with all accessories still intact) please contact me asap for a good deal!

Install Windows 7 in Bootcamp. No big Deal.

--- Steve

Thanks for this but i use a macbook pro, any suggestion with a mac compatible software? Thanks!

The N900 is an awesome piece. However, you'd find a way of doing majority of the things mentioned on the BlackBerry. Perhaps, I should do a part 2 of this review: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria?topic=459690

@Twitssa;
I have a Macbook Air, but I hardly use it for any RIM related operations. But is there anything you've tried to do on OS X that you haven't been able to? Or why don't you install Bootcamp (should come with your PC depending on the OS version) and dual boot with windows 7?

@ Ralvy: Thanks alot but i think you missed the point in that i havnt ever used my mac system with RIM, i dont even own a BB! My difficulty with the N900 actually is that it doesnt seem to work with isync in mac. I have the latest firmware version on my N900 and also got the isync plugin on my mac but yet my N900 doesnt not sync with my mac. This is a very important feature for me as i like to have my information updated across devices. My Nokia E63 is able to do this seamlessly.

Can you recommend (from your experience) some of the best apps for the N900 please. Thanks.

My bad, thought you were referring to a BB. I think you should get windows running on that mac first, it's intel right? Are you in Abuja?

As regards apps; have u tried to scour the OVI store for some great maemo apps? I can't recommend apps for you 'cos our requirements probably differ, and loading up your phone with apps you don't use isn't a very smart thing to do. However, you should still find plenty recommendations online, I just googled and somany came up.

Thanks all the same. I've been able to get it to almost factory state (all contents removed, etc) by clicking on "clear device" in the menu part of settings. So no need to reset for now. Im based in Lagos and yes i've just gotten some good apps on ovi store as well. Thanks bruv!

twittsa:

@ Ralvy: Thanks alot but i think you missed the point in that i havnt ever used my mac system with RIM, i dont even own a BB! My difficulty with the N900 actually is that it doesnt seem to work with isync in mac. I have the latest firmware version on my N900 and also got the isync plugin on my mac but yet my N900 doesnt not sync with my mac. This is a very important feature for me as i like to have my information updated across devices. My Nokia E63 is able to do this seamlessly.

Can you recommend (from your experience) some of the best apps for the N900 please. Thanks.

And YOU are missing the point. The easy way to solve all your issues is to either install Win 7 using Bootcamp on your Mac, or use VMware or Parallels to run a virtual Win 7 installation from within your Mac OS. That way you solve all your issues in one swoop.

@texazzpete; I think 'ts rili his decision to make, he might not be needing windows for anything besides the sync which is something I believe can be resolved with some patience.
, and running windows as a guest OS might be viable but we don't even know his specs,

Ralvy:

@texazzpete; I think 'ts rili his decision to make, he might not be needing windows for anything besides the sync which is something I believe can be resolved with some patience.

I never said it isn't his decision to make. I'm assuming he may not be conversant with his options for running another OS on his macbook pro. Either way, he's brought out a problem, i've provided a quick fix, relatively painless solution which i felt he had been overlooking.

Ralvy:

and running windows as a guest OS might be viable but we don't even know his specs,

*sigh*
Your comment would have been valid if he was using a Toshiba laptop of unknown make, but he's using a Macbook Pro. And macbooks have standardised specs. At the very least, even a 2008 macbook pro will still come equipped with a Core 2 Duo processor, more than enough to run Win 7 in Parallels, VMware or Bootcamp.

texazzpete:

I never said it isn't his decision to make. I'm assuming he may not be conversant with his options for running another OS on his macbook pro. Either way, he's brought out a problem, i've provided a quick fix, relatively painless solution which i felt he had been overlooking.

Sorry, I guess. I just didn’t see it necessary to continue to stress the installation of Windows when you had already made the point. Moreover, assuming he isn’t I.T inclined enough to google “install windows 7 in bootcamp” and follow on screen instructions, is yet another unnerving statement.

I’m well aware of all the options available to him; I just don’t endorse one of them (parallels/vmware). Bootcamp might be a vialble alternative, I use that. I just hate parallels because you are forced to run Windows in an emulation program which disapprovingly limits the clout of the guest OS.

texazzpete:

*sigh*
Your comment would have been valid if he was using a Toshiba laptop of unknown make, but he's using a Macbook Pro. And macbooks have standardised specs. At the very least, even a 2008 macbook pro will still come equipped with a Core 2 Duo processor, more than enough to run Win 7 in Parallels, VMware or Bootcamp.

Now don’t get me wrong, but how do we even know he’s on a supported (or 2008) MBP? I’m not trying to go off beam here, but I was a ‘Support Specialist’ for a professional grade software package and used to get tons of support inquiries; we (the Support Team) came across lots of perplexing inquiries and periodically, we complicated things far beyond necessary ‘cos something as basic as a “version #” wasn’t provided.

My Point: In almost all cases, at least specification of the machine should be taken into account prior to providing any solutions.

-[n3rve]

Anyone heard about the N9, a successor of the N900? I think I'd wait for this one

nokia-n900.com/nokia-n9-successor-of-nokia-n900/