Nokia N900 Review
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Rolled out in 2009, Nokia N900 is the first handset of Finnish phone maker, which is running on the Maemo 5 OS. The smartphone delivers fast Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity with powerful processor and excellent browser. It's of course not a loss if you've to suffer from occasional battery drain with so many impressive specs set to lure your heart.
Design and display
From the first very look, the Nokia N900 is not a slim handset with 110.9 x 59.8 x 18mm chunky size and heavy 181g weight. But, you'll feel it perfectly positioned in your hands with great stability. Its QWERTY keyboard smoothly slides out providing fast and accurate inputting. It contains larger keys than that of N97, but the lack of space between them sometimes irritates.
The 3.5 inches TFT resistive touchscreen is not too much responsive compared to capacitive screen. But, it lets you pan and zoom via web pages on fast speed. Accelerometer and proximity sensors work behind this screen making it a nice one on the Nokia handset.
User Interface
N900 carries along with it Maemo 5 OS, which provides simplistic to use system with single menus and wide home screens filled with icons. Thus, you don't need to go through a large number of menus just to set an alarm. It seems, that company has combined this Maemo with the best parts of Symbian to deliver the best.
The ARM Cortex A8 600MHz processor lets you switch between the applications without any jitter. Power VR graphics enhances the appeal of screen, but screen is less responsive than the capacitive.
Internet Browser
The browser of N900 is designed with Mozilla tools and take on the rivalry with iPhone, when it comes to speed, easy use and performance. Further, it also outshines the HTC Hero with its excellent Flash video. Although, the pinch and zoom options seem to be taking cue from the iPhone and HTC Hero, it's slightly modified with finger twirling action for zooming in.
Network and connectivity
We found ourselves much impressed with the connectivity on the Nokia N900. We couldn't find any dearth to be filled. It supports all the network essential while on the move. Even though, sometimes we also experienced a bit of jitter, but overall the data connectivity is reasonably good. The device supports the GSM, HSDPA, HSUPA, Wi-Fi, microUSB, Nokia PC Suite 7.1, Ovi Suite and GPS.
Applications
Unfortunately, N900 doesn’t support the Ovi applications store because of being based upon Maemo. Hence, you need to check out the Maemo.org yourself to find out the suitable apps from a huge treasure trove instead of meticulously categorized and suggested apps. But, we found the inbuilt applications pretty good including RSS reader, games and many others.
Camera
N900's 5 mega pixels camera can capture pics as well as video shoots with good color reproduction. But, it produced blurred images. Dual LED flash is excellent for illuminating the dark setting, but with harsh light. The 800x480 pixels video resolution is excellent. With simplistic camera interface, you can easily share the pics through emails and social sites. But, the camera doesn't match with that of Samsung Jet.
Multimedia
The handset is the music-lovers' delight with a splendid music player and standard 3.5mm audio jack. The media player enables you in appreciating to choices of music, viewing the videos, using internet radio or shuffling the songs. There is also ample space for the music and pics with 32GB inbuilt memory further expandable up to 16GB via a microSD card. The WVGA scree is perfect to show the fantastic video. The video player supports the MP4, WMV, AVI, RealVideo, Xvid and DivX codecs.
Calling and messaging
The tricky dial pad doesn't allow you simple dialing by just pressing the green key. But, instead of it, you've to open the 'Phone' icon after going to menu screen. The dial pad doesn't support smart dialing, VOIP with Skype but call to IM contacts. Alternatively, you can get the list of names just after entering the contact name through QWERTY keyboard. We were satisfied with the fairly good call quality and faced no any call drop.
Messaging with QWERTY keyboard is comfy on N900. The device supports the Mail for Exchange and enables you in setting up multiple email accounts. But, sadly, it doesn't provide threaded messages as in Windows Mobile.
Battery life
The battery life on the Nokia N900 is average due to push email and speedy Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Although, the same 1350mAh battery is also fitted in less powerful Nokia X6, but it renders lesser life in this handset and requires daily charging.
Specifications
• Dimensions 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm
• Weight 181 g
• Colors Black
• 3.5 inches TFT resistive touchscreen, 65K colors and 800 x 480 pixels
• QWERTY keyboard
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
• Primary Camera 5 MP, 2576x1936 pixels, autofocus, Dual LED flash, Carl Zeiss optics, Geo-tagging
• Video WVGA(848 x 480)@25fps
• Secondary VGA Camera for video calling
• Sound Alert Vibration; MP3 ringtones
• Loudspeaker with stereo speakers
• 3.5mm jack
• Maemo 5 OS
• ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz, PowerVR SGX530 graphics
• SMS (threaded view), Email, Push Email, IM
• xHTML, HTML Browser with RSS feeds
• Stereo FM radio (via third party software); FM transmitter
• Games Yes, 5 + downloadable
• GPS with A-GPS support; Ovi Maps
• Skype and GoogleTalk VoIP integration
• MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ music player
• MV/RealVideo/MP4/AVI/XviD/DivX video player
• TV-out
• PDF document viewer
• Photo editor
• Adobe Flash Player 9.4
• Li-Ion Standard battery 1320 mAh (BL-5J)
• Stand-by Up to 278 h (2G) / Up to 250 h (3G)
• Talk time Up to 6 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 4 h 30 min (3G)
• Music play Up to 24 h 30 min
• Memory Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
• Call records Detailed, max 30 days
• Internal 32 GB storage, 256 MB RAM, expandable with microSD Card slot up to 16GB
• 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• 3G Network HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100
• GPRS Class 32, EDGE Class 32
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP
• Infrared port
• USB v2.0 microUSB
Pros
• New operating system
• Huge internal memory with option of expansion
• Good keyboard
• Excellent VoIP and IM features
• Good camera
• Speedy and simplistic user interface
• Fast web browsing
• Supper to Flash
• Snappy 3G and Wi-Fi connection
• 3.5mm headphone jack
Cons
• Thick design
• Unresponsive resistive touchscreen
• Inadequate number of apps
• Average battery life
The bottom line
Nokia N900 is beyond doubt a powerful device with superior connectivity and acclaimed as Nokia iPhone slayer. The comfortable navigation, superb multi-tasking, Flash support are some other key attractions, which deserve the accolades. But, we also accept that the device needs to pick up the battery life and support the MMS. The handset also is a perfect buy considering the cost factor.
