Review of the Nokia N900
First announced at Nokia World back in August, the Nokia N900’s roots stretch much further back to the Nokia Internet Table range, a series of devices optimised for web browsing but lacking a sim card slot and the ability to make calls. The N900 rectifies these two omissions whilst sticking to the core values of the internet tablet range. What this in turn means is that rather than sticking to the tried and tested Symbian operating system as seen in numerous Nokia smart phone offerings (and some non-Nokia hardware too), the N900 runs on the relatively unknown Maemo OS as seen in its tablet ancestors. The Linux based operating system is definitely the feature of the N900 that grabs the headlines as we’re all eager to see what made Nokia eschew Symbian; a platform the manufacturer has poured money and resources into, in favour of Maemo.
Symbian is not without its critics and when comparing Nokia’s current flagship devices with the likes of the Apple iPhone 3GS and phones running Google’s Android operating system such as the HTC Hero and upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Symbian does start to look its age. Not in the functionality stakes where the OS can hold its own against most if not all of the new comers but in areas such as user interface, ease of use and available software, it is in these increasingly important areas that Symbian fails to compete. Maemo has a considerable advantage in this area as it has always been designed with a touchscreen interface in mind and supports customisation in numerous ways letting users create an experience that is right for them. Maemo promises to give the N900 firm foundations but as any mobile enthusiast will tell you, the operating system is of course only half the battle and Nokia will need to focus just as much on the hardware and additional features.
The N900 sports a candy bar form factor with a slide out QWERTY keyboard that slides out when the phone is held on its side in landscape orientation. When closed, the N900 sports a minimalist design with the front lacking physical buttons of any kind. What we do find is a Nokia logo in the top right corner and N900 in the bottom right, a light sensor and video call camera in the top corners and the earpiece in the middle. On the right side the volume/ camera zoom rocker sits next to the power and camera key whilst on the opposite side we find nothing but the stylus. On top of the device we find the Micro USB Port (which doubles as the charger connection) and the first of two stereo speakers and at the bottom we get the second speaker, a sliding screen lock mechanism and a 3.5mm audio jack. Flip the phone over and we find the camera which is protected by a sliding lens cover, a kick stand which flicks out to prop the phone up and a Nokia Nseries logo.
Hold the phone in landscape and push up to reveal the full QWERTY keyboard. The slide mechanism on the N900 locks into place with a reassuring click and closes similarly. The keys themselves are nicely sized and spaced with a good level of feedback and a quality feel. The slide mechanism on the N900 is flat (rather than the arced style as seen in the N97 and N97 Mini) and this helps to give the N900 a more solid feel. At no point do you feel uncomfortable sliding out the keyboard and nor should you. This reassuring feel is echoed throughout the design of the N900. At 181 g with the battery inserted, the phone could definitely not be classed as light but due to the premium materials used in its construction, the overall look and feel of the phone is one of prestige rather than that of a bulky, cumbersome device. The top half of the phone (the part that slides out) is surrounded by a strip of black metal which not only looks great but feels great in hand too. The border that surrounds the display is made up of a glossy black plastic that sits behind one seamless glass display. The bottom half is made of a matte plastic that does an excellent job of avoiding fingerprints and general grubbiness. The same can’t be said for the front but then this is a touchscreen phone so we come to expect this. Overall the design of the phone works well. The solid construction and premium materials help to deliver a device that feels just that; premium. At 18 mm thick (the rest of the dimensions are 110.9 x 59.8 mm) those expecting a slim 5530 style phone should look elsewhere but most will appreciate the quality and overlook the slight chunkiness.
The N900 sports a 3.5 inch display; the same size as the best in class iPhone 3GS though the Nokia phone does manage to pack in considerably more pixels than Apples offering. This makes for one of the sharpest displays we’ve ever seen on a mobile phone with images sporting crisp edges and bright natural colours. The screen lends itself naturally to web browsing and video playback as it’s big enough to display content comfortably and the increased pixel count means you’ll rarely find yourself squinting to read text. The touchscreen display on the N900 uses resistive technology meaning it reacts to pressure on screen, compared to capacitive technology which responds to the heat in your finger. Resistive technology does have its pros and cons. Whilst it has been criticised in previous phones for not offering the same level of responsiveness as a capacitive display, resistive does allow for more accuracy, especially when combined with a stylus which, due to its reliance on heat, a capacitive display cannot support.
Despite criticisms of responsiveness looming over resistive touchscreens, the N900 features the best resistive touchscreen we have ever used. It’s as simple as that. Rather than requiring firm prods like many of its predecessors, the N900 reacts almost instantly to light touches letting you smoothly sweep through menus and navigate web pages effortlessly. Very rarely did we find ourselves having to repeat our commands as the N900 nearly always picked them up on the first time of asking. A small vibration helps in this department, acknowledging your on screen activities with a light buzz. The only real instance where you notice that the phone is lacking a capacitive display is in the absence of multi touch. Whereas various other phones offer such navigation methods as pinch to zoom, the N900 unfortunately lacks such a feature and this is the only real area that lets the touchcsreen experience down. Nokia have thought of some rather inventive ways to get round this such as a neat swirling trick when in the web browser. Simply swirl your finger clockwise on a webpage to zoom in and anti-clockwise to zoom out. It’s a nice touch and adds to the overall touchscreen experience. The N900 is easily the best example of a touchscreen Nokia has to offer with some great additions and good overall usability. The addition of a stylus will also please tablet fans though the frankly huge stylus (it feels more like a pen) that slots into the device itself prompted us to stick to a solely finger led method of navigation.
As we mentioned previously and you were no doubt already aware, the Nokia N900 runs the latest version of the Linux based Maemo operating system, specifically Maemo version 5.0. As the operating system has its origins in internet tablets and handheld devices other than your everyday mobile phone, there are certain quirks that do take some getting used to. The first of these is the orientation of the operating system itself. If the position of some key buttons on the side of the phone didn’t give it away, Maemo on the N900 is designed to run in landscape mode save for limited applications such as the phone interface for making calls. Whilst this is by no means a bad thing it certainly does take some getting used to and can be more than a little daunting at first. Nokia had promised a powerful desktop experience in the palm of your hand so you didn’t expect this to fit into a portrait screen did you? Upon firing up the N900 the first thing you’re presented with is a rather sparse home screen populated only by a few icons and shortcuts. The first of which is a sort of catch al status bar that includes the main menu icon which takes you into the main menu and a sort of status bar that shows the time, battery life and network signal strength as well as any data connection you may have running. Clicking on this lets you change the time and set alarms, manage wireless connections, change profile, activate Bluetooth and change the volume. Opening this status bar acts as a sort of pop up – your content is still visible in the background but is blurred out of focus letting you concentrate on the task at hand. Clicking on the blurred part of the screen takes you back a step to the last menu; in this case the home screen. This is a nice stylish addition to the OS and one that features regularly throughout.
Below the status bar you’ll find the main bulk of the home screen which is fully customisable with, well just about anything. To add or edit content on the home screen simply hold your finger down on an empty space on the screen and you’ll be able to do so fairly easily. A small ‘x’ appears in the corner of all content already on the screen which will allow you to remove content as you see fit. Adding content is just as easy as a tool bar appears on the top of the screen in the editing view. Simply hit ‘Desktop menu’ and you can add shortcuts, widgets and bookmarks, change the background or theme of the device and manage views. Add your desired content, hit ‘done’ and the N900 will add it to your home screen. At this point you may wonder whether your home screen might get a bit crowded once you’ve added more than a handful of shortcuts but Nokia and Maemo takes this into consideration by letting you add multiple home screens. Similar to the experience found on the HTC Hero, simply swipe your finger left or right to switch between multiple home screens. The status bar in the top left corner is the only ever present icon leaving everything else up to you. We found the perfect set up having a home screen set up for web access with a few links to our favourite sites and a live web feed to a certain social networking site, a screen for multimedia with an MP3 player short cut, a screen for messaging with contacts and push email and finally a screen for navigation. Navigation was our favourite page as it provides one touch access to Nokia Maps and best of all, once you’ve minimised the app, a miniature map of your exact location appears on the home screen. But by far the best thing about multiple home screens is that no two N900’s will be the same, everyone will be able to create an experience that is just right for them.
It’s not just in its multiple home screens that the N900 flexes its smartphone muscles as its equally capable when it comes to the must have feature of the moment; multi-tasking. Yes the N900 can run multiple applications at once but then so could the N97 and N97 Mini along with numerous other Symbian phones. However, what makes Maemo so special is the ease with which it lets you manage open applications. Once you’ve opened and then minimised an application, the dashboard icon will be added to the status bar on the home screen. Tapping on this will open up a view similar to that found when customising your home screen. Open applications will appear as scaled down tiles. From here it’s simply a case of tapping on the tile to open the application or tapping on the ‘x’ icon to close it. Simple. To exit the dashboard, its simply a case of tapping on the blurry home screen that is still visible in the background. We had around eight applications running in the background at once and noticed absolutely no slow down when both navigating the home screen and in the apps themselves. This is in part down to the excellent ARM Cortex A8 processor which boasts a clock speed of 600MHz which keeps everything running with commendable zip. In addition to the dashboard icon, users can also press the power button and are presented with an ‘end current task’ option.
Whilst not that easy to pick up due in part to the fact that we’ve never used a Maemo device before, the learning curve for Maemo is spot on and challenges you to really explore and get the most out of your smartphone. Adding content to one of the phones many home screens is simple and effective and just one of many great features this OS has to offer. Not only is it great to use, it’s equally easy on the eye with the blurring technique just one of many stylish touches that really proof this is a cutting edge operating system. And if you think it looks good, just wait till you hear the sound effects that accompany some of your on screen commands which sound like they’ve come straight out of a science fiction film. The only area that could potentially let Maemo down is its third party applications because, at time of writing, the app store was not yet up and running for Maemo. Set to have its own designated area of the Nokia Ovi store, for the time being the N900 is supported by the Maemo Select download site which currently offers around 50 free downloads. Nokia have already pushed out the device to key third party app developers in time for the handsets launch so we’ve no reason to believe the N900 won’t launch with a full quota of all sorts of weird and wonderful apps but for the time being we’ll have to wait and see.
The N900 boasts a web browser developed by Mozilla, the people behind the Firefox browsers that many of you will use on your desktop PC’s and laptops. This aims to deliver a web browsing experience like no other and we’re inclined to say they’ve achieved this with ease. Firstly, gone are the days of Nokia’s of old where simply entering a web address meant navigating two to three different menus. Opening the web browser presents you with a list of your bookmarks which you can simply tap on to navigate to or an address field at the bottom which lets you punch in the exact web address using the N900’s keyboard. Once loaded, you’re the full web page without borders or icons obscuring it. Navigation is handled by a combination of dragging up and down (or left and right) and swirling to zoom in and out. Tapping in the bottom right corner calls up the tool bar with, from left to right, a bookmarks shortcut, an option to add your current page to your bookmarks, the address bar displaying you current page (you can add in a new page and the browser will take you there), a back arrow for navigating back and the tool bar icon. Hitting this again lowers a tool bar at the top of the screen which lets you minimise or close the browser using the status bar.
Next to the status bar, we find a description of the page you’re on and tapping on this presents you with several options including reload, find on page, downloads (letting you view and manage current downloads) and best of all new window. Yep, just as on your PC, the browser on the N900 lets you open multiple windows and navigate between them just as you would any other app on the phone using the dashboard interface. The other area that mirrors a desktop experience is the N900’s support for online content, specifically its flash support. Embedded YouTube videos play flawlessly in the browser rather than opening up a separate player in a YouTube client and sites with flash content can stream audio and video content just as if you were sat at your desktop PC. Only you're not, this experience is taking place in the palm of your hand and can go where you go. There are some minor teething problems. In its current form there are certain types of Flash content that won't play nicely with the N900 but both Nokia and Adobe (the people who bring us Flash content) are working on updates which will be released via firmware upgrades. Due to its internet tablet heritage and landscape screen orientation, the N900lends itself perfectly to web browsing on the move. Pages load correctly and in full widescreen without the need to scroll left and right and the innovative swirl to zoom feature gets around the lack of multi-touch nicely. Quite simply, the N900 offers the closing thing to a desktop web browsing experience on a mobile device we've ever seen and really can replace lugging round a cumbersome netbook or laptop.
As with previous smartphone offerings from Nokia, the N900 sticks to a tried and tested 5.0 Megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED Flash. Accompanying this spec list we also find some (admittedly limited) camera modes including the default automatic set up, Macro mode and Portrait, the option to tinker with settings such as White balance, Exposure and ISO sensitivity and some limited Flash settings including red eye reduction. And that's about it. The resulting photos come out better than expected. In good light conditions with the flash turned off and the camera mode set to automatic, the N900 captures good crisp images with little in the way of noise. Colours aren't too saturated and the autofocus feature is quick to focus on objects both close up and in the distance. The camera key also has a reassuring click to it letting you push part of the way in to focus and then the final click to confirm the capture. Once you've captured an image the photo remains on screen for around 10 seconds giving you a list of options of what to do next. Fail to select any of these and the N900 will automatically take you back to the camera viewfinder and allow you to carry on snapping.
It's in the options once a photograph has been taken that the N900 comes into its own. Nokia are keen to get people Geo-tagging and the feature has never been easier than on the N900. For the uninitiated, Geo-tagging lets you tag a photo with details relating to where you took it. Selecting the Country, City and even Town is simply a case of tapping the relevant icon on screen. A certain town not available? Well, simply add it to the list and it will be ready to select in future. The N900 also lets you add tags that relate to the subject of the photo including pre-sets such as Birthday, Christmas and Travel which are then used when you upload your photos to sharing sites. Uploading photos to file sharing sites is just as easy with a few taps taking care of business. At present only Ovi Share and Flickr support is available but more sites are set to be added in the near future. All in all, while it won't replace your stand alone digital camera, the N900 is more than capable when called into action, capturing good sharp images. Our only real criticism is the lack of extras such as Face detection, touch focus and other such features that are now common place in camera phones.
Video capture on the N900 is slightly more basic. Video is captured in WVGA resolution (848 x 480) at 25 frames per second which results in nice smooth videos that can keep up with whatever's happening on screen. Sound quality is equally impressive and the dual LED flash doubles as a video light when recording in low light conditions. You do also get to tinker with the ISO and White Balance but that's about it when it comes to additional features. It would have been nice to see some fast or slow motion video capture included and HD video capture shouldn't be completely out of the question but for now at least the N900 keeps things fairly simple. Once videos are captured, you'll be presented with the familiar review screen and given the option to tag, share, view in gallery and delete as required. The aspect of the N900 that makes video capture shine is the huge storage capacity which lets you record for as long as your memory will hold out. When we started recording, the phone indicated that we had 99 minutes remaining.
The N900 boasts a built in GPS receiver aided by A-GPS (assisted GPS). These two combine to give the N900 an incredibly quick response time when opening the Ovi Maps application. Upon opening the app, the N900 pinpoints your location almost instantly and despite being inside a building (which can hamper the GPS signal) found our location correctly almost to the meter. Setting up a route is simply a case of tapping the icon in the top right corner, typing in your destination (by address/postcode, place name or point of interest). Once set up, the N900 will quickly calculate a route and mark it with a thick red line on the map. The accuracy comes into play here as you can follow the map to the very smallest detail. Ovi Maps also lets you swap from a traditional view to a satellite view which helps when travelling in inner cities as you can recognise buildings and landmarks. In our test we were unable to try out voice guided navigation but the phone is expected to ship with a trial version with the option to sign up for the full version via a subscription (for which you can set the duration). The vivid display would make the ideal platform for an in car SatNav application so if Nokia can get the likes of Tom Tom on board to develop an app for the device it could be hugely successful.
Due to the N900's 32GB internal memory (expandable by a further 16GB using a memory card), the phone is a viable alternative to a dedicated MP3 player and as such it is important that the built in media player hits all the right notes. Tapping on the media player icon in the main menu brings up four sub menus; music, video, internet radio and shuffle all songs. After opening music, the default setting is to sort music by album but this can also be changed to sort by artist, genre, playlists and all songs. The N900 supports album art which displays all music using album covers. Once you've clicked on the album you'll be taken to a list of all the songs in the album. Select a track and you're taken to a player interface with the album art dominating the screen. Options at the bottom include skip and pause controls, a volume key and the track timer which shows how far through a song you are and lets you skip through to a specific part of a track. Sound quality with the supplied headphones is excellent but thanks to the 3.5mm audio jack you also have the option to use your own headphones.
Just as with Ovi Maps, the media player is one of the widgets that can be added to the home screen. From here you are given options such as play, pause and skip and a miniature copy of the album art acts as a quick visual aid. The widget works in a similar way to the minimised version of Windows Media Player on a PC or Laptop and is excellent for keeping music playing in the background while you get on with other tasks. With up to 32GB available you really can load your phone with thousands of tracks and when you take into consideration the ease of use and nice touches such as the home screen widget, the N900 really does become a feasible alternative to an iPod. Video playback on the N900 is equally impressive. Whilst the player lacks the music players home screen support for obvious reasons, watching videos on the 3.5 inch display is a joy. The picture is crisp and sharp and using the kickstand to prop up the phone really does make for the perfect viewing platform. You really could imagine yourself watching a feature length movie on the phone, it's that good.
From our time using the N900 we were completely won over. The new Maemo operating system does take some getting used to, especially if you're coming to it from a Symbian device, but invest the time to learn all the neat tricks and extra features and you will be handsomely rewarded. Multi tasking is handled excellently letting you switch apps with ease and also cancel off those that aren't being used to conserve battery and processing power. The web browser is also excellent; where as with other phones you do get the impression you're looking at a watered down version of the internet, you never get this with the N900. Pages load and behave as they should and just as they would on a desktop. Away from the operating system, the phone itself looks and feels great with a responsive touchscreen and tactile QWERTY keyboard. One niggling factor is that we feel the front would have benefited from at least one physical key, like that found on the iPhone or Palm Pre, but this was our only gripe when it came to the design. Build quality is second to none. The N900 gives an impression of raw power, both inside and out.
There are of course a few areas that could do with some work. The fact that the operating system only runs in landscape will be off putting for some though we understand Nokia are working on a portrait version that will be available via a firmware update. The camera is also slightly under supported when compared to rivals on the market. Nokia have never been known to overload a camera with features but simple additions such as face and smile detection and a Xenon flash would have been welcome ones. The other problem we had, though this isn't really a criticism of the phone, is that we were unable to try out the applications store. Apps are increasingly more important to a smart phones success so Nokia will need to get this right when the phone and accompanying Maemo Ovi Store launch.
All in all, the N900 marks a welcome return to form for Nokia. The operating system is fresh, intuitive and begging to be explored and really does succeed in putting a desktop experience in the palm of your hand whilst the device itself is well made, well designed and loaded with features that will come in handy for both work and play.
Dan, Mobiles.co.uk
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