Nokia N900 review – A beast

There have been lots of big wigs in the cell phone market but none of them have come even close to Nokia when it comes to market reach. Nokia has made phones which caters to a large audience, right from high end phones to ultra budget ones. For the latter, I still remember 1100 series which gave superb value for money. It was made for people who just want to talk on the phone and nothing else. Such was the popularity of that phone that it became ubiquitous in the market. But this review is about N900, another N series product. So lets check it out.

N900 is still based on S60 which been around for quite a while. Nokia has just been issuing update instead of coming with a totally different system. I am not complaining here but there are other smartphones catching up fast so Nokia has to do something about this.

Franky speaking, Nokia N900 is a beast. It has everything that you’d want in a smartphone. I was also impressed that Nokia managed to cram in all these features and yet manage to keep the device thin. I am not saying it is extremely thin but considering all that the phone contains, it surely is surprising.

Nokia N900 is  based on a slider design for toggling the standby mode. The power button is located on the top. Next to that, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack (which as also used a TV-out), volume rocker, micro USB port and camera button. Since the display is resistive, you have a stylus on the sides. The design isn’t mind blowing but I still the phone is sexy.

The display on the Nokia N900 is not that brightest I have ever seen but it is quite good. The phone is supposed to have ambient light sensor but it never seemed to work when I tested it. I don’t care much about that since I always have a charger close to me if I am traveling for days. The screen is bright enough and it is easy to read it. I was a bit disappointed that Nokia used a resistive display for this screen, why didn’t they put in a capacitive one? It would have been as good as iPhone. Resistive touch screens need firm presses, you can’t just flick the screen. Also you are better of with a stylus when it comes to resistive screens as the finger touches are not that accurate.

Underneath the display, you are greeted by QWERTY keyboard which is really roomy. It is made up of three rows and looks just like your computer keyboard. Also, I was pleased to see spacing between the keys. You normally don’t see this in phone keyboards as the space is quite limited and hence everything is cramped. The phone slides just 40 percent to the side though, and it is much less than the Touch Pro2 which slides 75-80 percent when stretched fully. If Nokia had given more liberty to the slider, we would have had a four row keyboard. My only gripe here is that the top half of the phone is really bulky so you have to apply a bit more pressure to slide the phone on the sides.

Nokia N900 comes with a 1320 mAh lithium ion battery lasted for all day when I tested it along with Wi-Fi and 3G. But if you are a heavy user, you might not be so lucky. The  phone has BL-5J battery which is quite easy to find and you can also charge the phone by connecting it to the microUSB port.

Nokia N900 is based on Maemo 5 platform and it is the prettiest I have ever seen from Nokia to date. N900 is also Nokia’s fist Internet Tablet device and may be this is the reason why Nokia beautified its UI. The platform is not perfect though, it comes with some flaws too. The status bar which houses the signal strength, time, etc. tends to disappear and I missed it bitterly. I was also glad to see that the N900 supports portrait mode. It was absent on the N810, N800 and 770.

Skype support is another highlight on the Nokia N900. In fact, this phone has the best Skype support I have ever seen on a mobile phone. All you have to do is add your account on the N900′s control panel and you are connected. Now you can make VoIP calls just like you standard GSM calls.

Pros:

Powerful Web browser, lots of storage space, five megapixel camera, excellent display, can handle multitasking, call quality is good, the handset has GPS, Bluetooth, 3G and Wi-Fi.

Cons:

UI isn’t that intuitive, does not sync with Exchange Server 2003, handset is bulky, all the apps don’t work in portrait mode.

Outcome:

N900 is a very powerful mobile device, its browsing capabilities are excellent and I was impressed by the customization options too. But the UI is a bit unintuitive and there are other few limitations which will make it hard to compete with iPhone.

Specifications:

• 2.4 inches wide, 0.7 inch deep, 4.4 inches height and 6.4 oz weight
• Technology – GSM/WCDMA (UMTS)
• Band – WCDMA (UMTS) / GSM 850/900/1800/1900
• Slider design, Internal antenna, vibrating alert, polyphonic ringer, call timer, call conference capablity, voice recorder, speaker phone
• Wireless Interface options – IEEE 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, IEEE 802.11b
• Speech Codec – AMR, FR, EFR
• Additional Features – Built-in stereo speakers, Built-in FM transmitter
• Operating System – Maemo 5
• 32 GB memory
• Supported Email Protocols – SMTP, POP3, IMAP4
• GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates For Global Evolution), Internet Browser, Video Call, JAVA applications, HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access)
• Data/Messaging Features – Macromedia Flash support, PDF support, RSS feeds, XHTML Browser.
• Playback Digital Video Formats – XviD, 3gp, H.264, H.263 video and AMR audio, MPEG-4, WMV (Windows Media Video)
• Downloadable Content – Themes, Games, Screensavers, Ring tones, Audio files, Wallpapers, Video files
• 5 megapixels camera
• CMOS Optical Sensor
• Still Image Resolutions – 2584 x 1938 pixels
• Still Image Formats – JPEG and EXIF
• Lens Aperture – F/2.8
• Video Recorder Resolutions – 800 x 480 pixels
• Digital Video Formats – MPEG-4
• GPS System – GPS Navigation and GPS receiver
• Nokia Maps software included
• Organizer features – Alarm clock, calendar, calculator, reminder.
• 3.5 inch TFT LCD display with 800 x 480 pixels resolution
• Display Languages – Dutch, Czech, Danish, German, French, Polish, Finnish, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Norwegian.
• Supported Digital Audio Standards – MP3, AAC, WAV, eAAC+, and WMA.
• Internal flash Memory 32 GB
• Connector Type – Headset jack – Mini-phone 3.5 mm , Audio/video out and Micro-USB
• Included Accessories – Stereo headset, cleaning cloth
• Video cable included
• Lithium ion battery, talk time up to 540 minutes for GSM and up to 300 minutes for WCDMA

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