You miss the point of this.

The point is that if you're an early adopter for a new platform, you *will* face teething issues, and you *may* have a hard time or some missing features. That's the way of things.

On the up side, you get geek kudos for having a new toy before anyone else.

I understand perfectly that this may not be what you want, but in such a case, I'd suggest skipping the N900 for a few months, or all together. It has (and will) have teething issues.

Well, you know that, I know that, but everybody does not know that. Does it say so on the package?

You're a Finn, right? Read the threads on whatever kauppalehti and taloussanomat and ilta-sanomat etc. about this phone. Do you think everybody there who says they're getting this really know about the step 4/5 thing? I doubt it. Nokia has been pretty quiet about this thing lately but at first they were clearly hyping it as the next "big thing", OPK included. I think they got a bit carried away with it themselves too and are on purpose not claiming it to be the flagship anymore (if they ever did, it certainly sounded like Maemo is the next great thing from Nokia for a while). It does not come with a disclaimer of "this is beta hardware, don't buy this unless you know how to use Linux etc." When it gets to the stores, it'll be sitting there on the shelf alongside all the other phones. No disclaimers or warnings. The mobile computer terminology stuff is nonsense, the N95 was marketed as a mobile computer too. This is a phone (with more/different extra functionality than some other smartphones) that perhaps got a little bit more mainstream publicity than it should have at this point of development, I agree. My personal opinion is that they should either stop talking about the 4/5 stage plan stuff, the phone is released now and development of next version is underway just like every other platform, or just released this as an Internet tablet with an optional beta-type downloadable "phone-functionality ugrade pack" or whatever if they're really this insecure about the N900 being a competitive phone. Then it would've been clear it's not a "fully commercial product", now it just sounds like excuses for not blowing the competition away and leads to these issues when people are disappointed that it's not better in all aspects than phone A, B or C.

But anyway, it's out there, sold as a phone, and full heads-on comparisons with other "smartphones" are fair game. To be clear - I don't think the N900 has anything to be ashamed of even in those comparisons, frankly, in my mind it's one of the top 2 or 3 devices phones available at the moment, but the fact is that it is sort of "unimpressive" in certain aspects compared to other top-end phones, and many "normal consumers" could care less whether they can drop down to a root shell or not (most would be afraid to do it anyway). I don't know about the home screen lag, really, but it looks sort of twitchy to me in the videos. Again, it's not a big deal to me, I'm just noting that "yes, I see some lag too in the videos". That is not the thing keeping me from getting the phone: the stage 4/5 talk is. As an owner of the N810, abandoned by Nokia too soon in my mind, it's painfully clear to me that Nokia will only fix a few of the worst bugs in this one before turning their full attention to the next version. "Fixed in Harmattan" whatever. No thanks, I'll wait.

401 posts is enough really, so i'll keep this brief:

- love the display, that's what's going to keep me using this thing

- fantastic reception. I am coming off an e75 for this and the e75 in the two offices where i spend most of my working days would drop off and on the 3.5G link constantly. At both locations this thing just stays connected. This is a major plus for me.

- lack of apps for a while is going to be a problem. No Nimbuzz being the most painful

- the scrolling really is no good. It's better with the stylus though

- hated the 97. The case felt cheap - this one doesn't, feels like a quality brick

- dunno what all these issues with it working as phone are that people are talking about, works fine for me and has the features that i would normally use

- battery life is awful but given a choice of less power for a longer battery, i'd say no. With mains charger, car charger and USB, the times when i can't give it juice for more than 4 hours are going to be rare

why do you need Nimbuzz (except that there is currently no msn supported integrated like gtalk or skype)?

I love the integration of IM right into contacts, no separate app to do chat..

I live in the UAE where the local carriers block Skype to an extent. Here, you can run Skype, do Skype-to-Skype calls, but if you try to use Skypeout you get cut off as soon as the other end picks up. Hence, you'll see users in places like UAE, Oman and other East and Middle East countries using Nimbuzz. Somehow, Nimbuzz makes it possible for Skypeout calls to connect successfully.


The alternative is to run a VPN and then use the integrated IM which I agree is very good. I am just starting to look at the best way of running a VPN so if anybody has any tips or can point me at relevant material I would appreciate it.

I'm sorry but I don't think that is acceptable at all. Everytime a new device is released you can't hide behind its short comings by saying another similar device had issues for 2 or 3 years. If you released your device 3 years later then you should have had time to study what was missing/wrong in the other device and fix them before releasing your device. Especially if that device has already fixed those issues. Otherwise your device is always going to be 2 or 3 years behind which obviously no company would ever want. This is not about iphone v N900 by the way. Just in general. technology moves forward very quickly and you can't just release something which has 3 year old problems that have now been solved elsewhere.

For example if you buy a blu ray player today you don't expect it to be missing features that blu ray players were all missing 3 years ago but are now standard today and say well give it two or three years since previous players did not have them until now. People would look elsewhere.

Back to the N900 and iphone now. I have seen on this site many times that N900 is not a phone, this device is for geeks, this is not Nokia's flagship device, or this is not intended to be a mainstream device. All these are used as excuses for us to excuse some of the N900s short comings. Does Nokia want to sell more or less of these devices? Obviously they want to sell more. Recent reports show that Apple is the most profitable in the phone busines despite selling far fewer phones than Nokia and being in the business for a second compared to Nokia.

Nokia is clearly a company set up to make as much profits as possible. They cannot be pleased that a company that has profits from elsewhere (itunes music downloads, sales of mp3 player, computers) and that is new to the phone business is making more profits than they are. The high end phones (let me say high end devices since N900 is not a phone) is clearly where the big profits are made. So Nokia wants to sell as many N900s as possible whether or not Nokia or the public say it is not a phone, not a mainstream device, the device is for geeks, etc. Unfortunately this just is not going to happen if it has flaws that are 3 years old.

By the way before someone gets the wrong impression I am not an Apple fan. I am a massive Nokia fan and in 10 years of owning a mobile I have only ever had Nokia mobiles. On the other hand no one in the world hates Apple more than I do. Broke the screen of my Creative Zen M and needed a new mp3 player. Bought an ipod touch 32gb because Microsoft smartly decided not to release Zune HD in Europe and Creative had lost their way in the mp3 business. But I couldn't live with myself having an ipod and had to sell it at huge loss after a few months. Now I have no mp3 player. Plus my baby son spoilt my N95 so now I have no phone (using my old N80 now). So I need a new mp3 player and also need a new phone.

So my rant is because I want Nokia to succeed because I love the company and I also want to have a great phone. Unfortunately, it seems that neither of these things are going to get to the level I was hoping for. We are likely to see reviews from the mainstream media which suggest even looks aside and ignoring limited apps the iphone is still the better choice simply because the N900 has three year old problems and this would surely hurt sales (which would surely hurt Nokia irrespective of whether people on this website do not want the device to go mainstream so that it can be their geek phone). I will also not be getting as great a phone as I would want because it lacks things I took for granted in my 50 year old N95.

But you can not escape the fact that N900 was never meant to include many of the things that are missing compared to S60 or whatnot. Not at launch anyway. Maemo 5 was never meant to be a full-on consumer release in the Nokia roadmap.

You can ignore their intent if you so choose, or hide behind Nokia's vague PR, but that does not change the fact that from Maemo roadmap perspective the N900 has a particular function - and that is not to be the flagship smartphone.

One can argue this is a stupid move (or that dealerships and mainstream websites confuse the issue, even Nokia's own PR people), or that it is a smart move, but the intent of the N900 is very clear when you look at Nokia's plans for Maemo. It is not a secret what N900 would and would not be...

...and I am an Apple fan. And this wasn't a secret even for me.

Is Nokia late with Maemo?

Of course.

And N900 is just a mobile computer (good mobile computer!) with some phone functionality, to introduce Maemo to a wider range of developers in a nearer-the-consumer edition kind of way, because Nokia is late. N900 is a tool for people to get creative and crakin' on Maemo.

But Nokia being late does not change the fact that N900 was never meant to be a complete, flagship smartphone.

Blame Nokia for being late, but don't blame N900 for being something it was not meant to be.

Just because it's more than one person still doesn't mean it could be a defect issue. But your right, we'll have to see if OS updates fix these problems to identify if they are hardware issues or not.

There are lots of people happy with N900. Don’t be afraid and buy one. It’s amazing.