N900

Nokia N900 is currently my primary phone. Excellent device that suits me perfectly. Best thing is that it runs on Maemo, of course. Since there is actually Linux under the hood of Maemo, I can use most of the applications I am used. Most of tools are familiar. You even have terminal (command line).

And first time I have a phone that actually works smoothly and fast. 32 GB internal memory and enough processing power guarantee that multitasking works as it should. You can have several applications open simultaneously. There can be lots of constantly updated widgets on desktop.

I am also quite impressed with Maemo UI. It is quite intuitive to use. This was surprising since I have always found Nokia phone interfaces quite unintuitive. This, of course, is a matter of taste.

You also have quite a lot of applications to download and use. You can get them from Ovi Store and Maemo.org.

Although you can install all the tools to use Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc, and N900 is fairly easy to use, I would not recommend it to everybody. If you are a linux user, software developer or system administrator… go ahead, N900 is for you. Since N900 is basically a miniature (unix) computer, you have tools for remote administration like ssh and VNC, plus some advanced options. If you are technically oriented blogger, who wants to publish on the road, then maybe. Keyboard and processing power make blog updates easy. You should also note that N900 comes with cables to connect it into tv or video projector. Otherwise… well, there are cheaper phones with many social networking features.

Structure
Thing I like most is that N900 is sturdy and robust. It looks and feels like something that has been built to last everyday use and wear. Sliding keyboard is sturdy and does not wobble like Xperia X1 keyboard does. Keyboard also has a good feeling. Only thing that is odd, is that keyboard has only 3 rows of keys and they have been crammed into quite small space. This is because keyboard slides out only 2 cm, when Xperia X1 keyboard slides out 3 cm.

One thing that I also like is the physical sliding lock button to deactivate and activate touchscreen.

Camera
Camera has sliding cover which is used to activate it. Camera has Carl Zeiss optics and double led flash. 5 megapixels is something that can be considered as a replacement for basic pocket camera. Picture quality is generally good. Panorama shot option is not available by default but there is a free application available for that purpose (with non-free pro version also).

TV-out
Interesting and useful feature is TV-out. Good thing is, that you even get the cable to connect the phone to any tv or projector with audio-video connectors (red-white-yellow plugs). This is handy for anyone, who has give e.g. presentations. You can allways transform PowerPoint or OpenOffice presentations into pdf-format and then show them using pdf reader on phone. Because N900 also has lots of processing and 3D graphics power, you can play your games on tv screen. There are not that many native N900/Maemo games, but there are some emulators available, which means that with little effort you’ll be able to play some old games.

IR transmitter
Some might consider it totally useless, but infrared (IR) transmitter has several uses. Many manufacturers have dropper IR transmitter from phone designs, but luckily N900 still has this feature. Now you can use N900 as a remote controller for camera, tv etc. There is a handy application available, Irreco with large database of remote controllers. And with little know-how, you can design remote controller yourself. This was really valuable, when I understood, that I can use it to hack USB features on LG LH3000 series TV sets.

FM transmitter
N900 has FM radio receiver and also transmitter. This means, that you can broadcast audio stream on frequency of your choice and listen that channel from car radio and audio system, for example. There are car audio systems with connectors or bluetooth for this purpose, but they are not always available.