Nokia N900 – The new Empire

Introduction

Yes – This baby is on Pre-Order with Nokia (please hurry up nokia or anyone who wants to give me one [stop it !] ). A lot of people have asked me why I’m even considering leaving the Blackberry camp so here it goes:-

Well before we get into it I’m amazed at the reluctance of Blackberry users to consider anything else other than a BlackBerry. It REALLY is as if I’ve transgressed the secret convent. As if I’M not allowed !!!! We’ll I’ve always said that I will use the device that’s right for me and as “my daddy doesn’t own RIM” and I “haven’t got any shares in RIM” then that means “I’m outta here” (unless RIM want to bribe me with copious amounts of money *wink* *wink*, then I really will find that elusive DELETE key, real FAST). Damn, back to the plot.

I think the world of RIM a strange place as outlined in my previous post. Here’s what attracts me to the Nokia N900 opposed to Blackberrys at the moment without just drilling down into every specification and details of the device, as I really don’t enjoy typing that much (joking):

Specifications

The extensive list of features includes:
• 32GB of internal storage
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• Dual-LED Flash
• 800 x 480 video recording
• A-GPS with Ovi Maps
• 10Mbps download, 2Mbps upload HSDPA for super-fast browsing
• Quad-band GSM
• 54Mbps data transfer over Wi-Fi
• 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor
• 1GB application memory
• OpenGLES 2.0 3D graphics acceleration
• Superb Web browser with built-in support for Adobe Flash 9.4
• Maemo 5 operating system
• TV-Out
• Media player supporting the following formats and codecs: mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp, H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263
• Music formats supported include .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
• FM Radio

Large screen

It doesn’t matter what you do on a Smartphone or Internet Tablet (as Nokia will insist you call this device), a larger screen does make a difference. Web browsing, Contacts, Instant messaging, wherever you need the touch screen. Now I was a bit nervous about this point as traditional resistive screens (like the HTC Touch Pro 2) are crap due to them not being sensitive enough . Whilst scrummaging through the net I’ve yet to find anyone to say anything bad about it. Amazing, I know.

Full web browsing

I love browsing the web or should I say I love the desktop browsing experience. Now one of the claims of nokia that is yet to be refuted is that this device does give you the desktop browsing experience. I would love to repeat this several times, but I know I would just bore you and then you would start looking at the screen in a very dazed manner.

Flash Support

Flash 9.4 Web browser support for integrated flash support. So now, you can watch YouTube properly etc etc. I know this does rightfully belong in the full web browsing section, but mobile flash support is something that the mobile industry has been struggling with for years, and I’ve almost got it (wipes single tear from face). Yes Blackberry, I know your working on it, now shush and get back in the corner.

Fast Processor

You gotta love speed. Man loves speed, Cars, boats and yes even phones. So you can open programs, watch movies faster, pictures, multitask, basically anything on the phone.

Accelerated graphics

This is brilliant for the UI as well as the games, movies etc. Also gives you little thing called “Flick Scrolling” or also referred to as kinetic scrolling. Most people on a blackberry will not know what this is as they have never officially been given it !

Storage capacity

32Gb onboard and plus I can add another 16Gb MicroSD card (potentially a 32Gb card once they become available) ….. Is this right 48Gb of finger licking goodness ….. oh baby !

Native DivX Support

Being able to play your movies on the device without first converting them to the right screen size in order to play them. I just want to test this out, because a part of me still doesn’t believe it.

Linux based OS & the Maemo community

(Linux = FAST)  + (MaemoCommunity = Nice guys)  = WIN WIN situation.

So far the Maemo community seems very receptive to comments / ideas and hopefully as this is an Open Source OS this all should get amalgamated into a sleek device that caters for its users

Its a Nokia

Some people love ’em and some people hate ’em, but if youve ever used one the call quality and the Radio built within the device is usually excellent.

Threaded SMS

Right off the Bat we’ve got threaded SMS. Ive recently started using this feature on my Blackberry Bold and I really really love it.

Skype

Or the final straw as I call it. When I saw this baby already has it installed on a N900 in a video that I watched, then that was it, game over. Blackberry still ain’t got this sorted and if they ever do it it will not be pure data. Most likely you will have to dial a landline number first before you connect to the skype network. Whats the point of that ?

Change presence on all IM clients

Just a quick little thing that I saw in a video but if you change your presence status in the device, then it changes your presence everywhere else such as Windows Live Messenger / Skype / Google Talk. Nice feature and it shows that this device is looking forward and not just sat on its arse picking its own nose.
God knows what

Today I saw an article that showed it emulating a Acorn OS. LOL. Lovely. And obviously everyone has seen it controlling the graphics at onedotzero. Whats else will come out, God knows, but I think it will be good ;-)Remotely accessing file systems, Controlling your TV, Remote control for your PC, possibly for your PS3, all these are all things that it should be able to do relatively quickly.

The reason that I called this Article the new empire is that Maemo can possibly be the new empire in the mobile OS world as it brings brute strength (good for OS domination) and promise with it. I’m still playing the waiting game, but slowly with every dawn, we come closer to the release ……….