A week after getting a Nokia N900, I still don’t miss my iPhone. Not one bit.
I’ve always been an iPhone fan. And before all of you Apple-lovers raise an eyebrow and wage your comments war, I want you to take a deep breath and try to put yourself in one of these two categories: The tech enthusiast who loves to be in control or the music enthusiast who can’t live without iTunes.
If you’re the latter, your iPhone killer is the next iPhone, and the one after that till death does you part with iTunes. Geeks, read on!
Let’s get on with it. What does it take to ‘kill the iPhone’?
1. Web browser
iPhone’s Safari supports multiple pages and desktop web shortcuts. And don’t tell me that browsing at 480×320 pixels is enough. If it were, we wouldn’t have mobile versions of websites.
The N900 sports a fast Flash Player 9 plugin, multiple pages, desktop web shortcuts, RSS feeds, importing bookmarks and opening local HTML pages. Browsing at 800×480 pixels is astounding.
This is how the screens compare (click for a real-size sample):
iPhone's Safari
Nokia N900's Browser
[UPDATE] 1:1 screen comparison (click for a real-size sample):
iPhone versus N900 screen resolutions
2. Installing Apps
iPhone’s App Store features tons of apps sorted in various options, search, instant purchase, app sync, updates.. the best app store yet – as long as the apps don’t modify the core OS or interfere with how Apple runs their business.
The 1-month old device already has over 1,000 apps (if you know how to get your sources setup) and that doesn’t include the Ovi Store which has not yet launched for the N900. Apps do everything from enabling screenshots to adding twitter support into contacts and messaging. The list of apps already present is extremely impressive and the fact that it’s an open source platform means more will come at a very fast rate. Notification of updates is also very well-managed.
3. Contacts
The iPhone doesn’t do much with contacts apart from calling, texting and emailing with basic support for contact groups and syncing.
The N900 Contacts app offers all of that and serves as a consolidated social networking, instant messaging and VOIP contact list. This is an extremely interesting way of approaching contacts by letting you forget about the medium of contact and jump directly into who you want to talk to. You can also filter by medium and availability status.
4. Media
Apple’s iPod app is great. I love it. It syncs seamlessly and just works. Plays all music and videos (in the proper formats) and is the best thing since sliced bread.. but it only syncs over a cable and the 1-device sync is starting to get to me.
I was extremely surprised to see my Windows Media and Sonos appear on my N900 media player window the minute I loaded it up. And it streamed all the files (including MKVs! – third party support) instantly. Yes, it doesn’t sync with iTunes. Yes, Nokia Music sucks. Its name sucks. DRM sucks. Windows-only sucks. Syncing sucks. But I get to be in control. The interface is quite sexy as well:
The N900 Media Player
5. Messaging
iPhone’s messaging app is restricted to text messages (and MMS) and sorts the conversations in a chat-like approach. Thanks to recent updates, we can now forward messages and delete parts of a conversation. Big deal.
The Nokia solution to messaging was as interesting as their approach to contacts. One consolidated Conversations app including text messages, Twitter @replies and hashtags, IM and VOIP messages and any additional modules you enable. Absolutely amazing!
Nokia N900's Conversations App (contact names have been replaced with conversation type)
6. Photos
The iPhone camera is crap. Photo management lets you delete a photo or share it. Nothing else. And if you’ve synced your photo albums, good luck getting rid of that embarrassing photo while away from your machine.
The N900 camera has a gorgeous 5MP Carl Zeiss lens and flash. The photo management provides, in addition to sharing options, cropping tools and image modification functionality.
The N900 does not support multi-touch and is quite bulky, I agree, but the full QWERTY keyboard, video conferencing, 32 Gigs of built-in storage and additional SD-card support are way too cool. Heck, it even supports a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Why? Because it can!
Let’s face it. Apple needs to stop being stubborn and start looking at what we really want. They have, hands down, revolutionized the mobile industry. But they need to start evolving again. People need multitasking. Proper multitasking. Seamless integration of social networking is a must. And for god’s sake.. If we want to change the way our phone works.. even to the point of breaking it, can we not do that without playing a cat and mouse jail-breaking game?
go, and never come back
hi dear u have to grow to use iphone…………nokia is the first phone for new comers ..just like maruti 800.. for new car users……..iphone a new technology u have to lear lot …..its a mac platform dear….have u heard about mac ?
I heard that the iPhone gets frustratingly slow when jailbroken. I don’t agree that iPhone does things better, it might be faster or easier or more eye-candy but most of the things the iPhone does N900 does better (what’s better is subjective though) and the N900 DOES A LOT that the iPhone doesn’t even dream of!
hi guys i have finally got my hands on the n900,i love it but it needs appsa lot of them i think nokia is yet to get the n900 ovi store i am looking forward to it.i am from india i got the phone frm america and it waorks fine and easy to use only one thing i really really really hate is the baterry life max 7 hours also get too many cals i am allways connected online
WOW. I’ve been a Nokia loyalist ever since I’ve been using cell phones (for last 7-8 years now). I’ve just used Sony Ericsson once (P1i) but I chose to switch only because Nokia didn’t have a phone with qwerty keypad which appealed to me. I’m back to Nokia with a E71 for about a year now. I’ve been contemplating to switch to E72 which is just aesthetically a little better than E71 BUT after reading this post I’m surely going to delay the purchase. Moreover, I’ve always liked iPhone as a product but it comes across more like a toy and less like a phone. At least to me. Can’t wait to try N900. any idea when is it coming to India?
Manish Ahuja :)
How is the reaction speed of the applications and user interface ? That’s the reason I left Nokia phones For what they were and never looked back.
the problem is that the iPhone scales down the entire page. If you want to see a 1:1 comparison, check this: http://thenextweb.com/files/2010/01/screen-1-1-sample.jpg
Erm, no. The N900 records video at 20-22fps. It also drops handfuls of frames every few seconds.
You have captured the essence, Apple needs to stop being stubborn and start evolving. iPhone was great 3 years back, but with all the great devices that are coming up Apple has some serious thinking to do. Read my thoughts on similar lines at http://truvoipbuzz.com/2009/11/why-apple-cannot-sit-back-100000-apps-opinion/
Application installation IS actually a few button presses, nothing more.
The beauty of it, is that the sources aren’t just from one central, controlled source.
By default the “official” Retail channel is available. You can choose to add additional sources, beta and development level sources for applications that are still being worked on and you can help test them, but only if you so choose.
The iPhone had a number of broken things, out of the box. How quickly people forget that. They still haven’t fixed Multi-tasking. ;)
You should have given the screenshots of the same website. It would have been more helpful to compare the differences due to resolution.
go todd! woot!
n900 best phone ever, do some research and you will see, n900 is between a phone and a laptop it combines a great touch sceen with a full qwerty keyboard. linux based systeme with xterminal and everything, u can even talk on skype and put ur webcam the front cam in the phone, it has voip and amazing other features, support java and full website browsing, firefox is the default browser in n900 much better than firefox, it support a lot of extension, 32 gb of internal memory can be upgraded using a 16 gb micro sd suported in the phone, can even plug an external hd to it. suport for 3g and gsm networks, bluetooth infra red, 256 mb of ram up to 1gb virtual memory. 1000mhz processor very powerful, you people got to do some research and see whats out, iphone is a toy, and the iphone 4 is the best example to pruve it.
Multi touch is just ‘polish’
Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean that is what is truly needed. People confuse popularity with the “right” or “best” thing all the time.
Apple is all about marketing and over charging the customer for a polished experience using pre-existing technology or software. They don’t innovate, they polish.
That’s what makes them a great company here in the US, because most US citizens are sheep doing what they are told is good for them. Globally however, is another concern entirely and if Apple hopes to ever mean something to the world, they need to realize strong US sales do not mean anything.
I wish for Apple’s polish and Nokia’s forward thinking. THAT would be an awesome phone!!!
Err, Maemo is a Debian Linux derivative so there there are thousands of apps that already work, and countless others that can be easily ported:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo#Third-party_applications
I compared some HD videos on Youtube. The 3GS quality seems to be lower than the N900 from what I saw, although there is one point open for Frame drops on the N900.
Only better than N900 is Samsung i8910 (720p)
Also I compared the photo quality from pictures on Flickr between N900, Samsung Jet, SE Satio and 3GS. It’s strange, for the 3GS you hardly find any pictures that are not worked out by any tool. But under the line all 3 top camera phones are similar good, the 3GS is behind. Low resolution and too dark. With my 50” TV every camera problem is visible quite well.
So for me, iphone no thanks. Only for that single reason.
I’ve had N900 for a while now and I really disagree with your opinion about the UI. It is really intuitive and makes multitasking a breeze.
After using it a while I also started to like the resistive screen. It makes browsing great, I usually never have to zoom. The accuracy of resistive screen + stulys makes surfing great, because you can take advantage of the high res. Even when using with fingers I rather use my nails because my huge fingers cover 1/10th of screen at a time. I will really miss this if all future Maemos come with capacitive.
clearly you don’t know what your talk about, the screen on a n900 is excellent. its not the screen technology its the software behind it. Even my mum could tell you that. Just get a grip will you and stop talking if you don’t have the facts..
Years and years people bought windows pcs much more than any other system – really nobody said “windows rocks” because of sales statistcs. Your approach is too simple.
Apple always focussed on elite: look at their prices. Anyone who actually thought about things the iphone doesnt do gets attacked by the fanboys of apple.
And please remember: the biggest sales over all are done by Nokia. There are coumtries where the word for mobile phone is “nokia”.
Uh… Dude. You need to learn about things before you speak. What you’re posting are 3G maps, not GSM signal maps. Look up GSM maps for AT&T and T-Mobil and you’ll see you can make GSM calls coast to cost.
GSM/EDGE is voice and low bandwidth data in one frequency range, just like CDMA. You can’t use voice and data together because one radio does one thing at a time. Real 3G is data only, on a separate set of frequencies, so you can do both at once. The maps your showing are for data-only 3G coverage, NOT general voice call or mixed voice/data coverage.
GSM coverage is much more wide spread then GSM/3G coverage, even in Europe. Verizon doesn’t differentiate the two because it’s technology is all in one radio band, you get a signal for voice AND data, or nothing. GSM providers have two maps, one for voice and low-bandwidth data (which covers more than Verizon btw), and one for high-speed data, which is what you’re posting.
Good try, but please, get your facts straight before posting BS about how inferior GSM is in the US. It’s not… I know, having been on GSM in the US for over 5 years now.
awwwgg!!…stupid, blind I-phone pussy users!…I-phone is a toy i wud give to my half dead hamster..or my old mom who knows ABSOLUTELY NOTING about tech….she cant even replace a baterry..the iphone wud be PERFECT for her…simple,user interface..made for simple creatures.
Well compared to the iPhone you’ll obviously need more clicks to get to some places but in return you get DESKTOPs to utilize: like show active contents etc. just like on your PC.
Maybe you are just too used to the iPhone?
Nice talk, todd. But if you have been into IT you would know how important is multi platform technology. You need to be able to develop applications to run on multiple platform and your device should be able to run apps developed on other platforms. This is not happening with Apple. They restrict us to their proprietary apps, web browser, players and so on while other devices allow for third party plug ins, apps, browsers and so on. The day I would never forget was when it was time for do a web presentation of a web application, and had iPad and iPhone with me; these stupid things couldn’t display my apps and the web wouldn’t display correctly. Bad enough. Well, turning to Nokia n97 was very great and my audience could view with their n900, saamsung, HTC and even Acer. can u imagine that?
With Apply, you must browse web the web with safari but other devices use third party apps like firefox, opera and so on.
Nothing what you mention here adresses the user experience dimension of using a phone. It seems very unlikely (and reports by friends who have had this phone given to them for free confirm) that Nokia has managed to fix their experience.
App installation: WTF is “if you know how to get your sources setup” about? If it doesn’t work out of the box, the phone is broken. If installing an app is any more difficult than clicking an URL on a webpage, the phone is broken.
But then again, a phone that allows me to background the Spotify app (I don’t use iTunes anymore), would definitely get my attention when my contract is up in six months. But by then a lot may have happened, so let’s wait and see.
A solid writeup, but there’s one part that I don’t get: you mention several times that you have more control, but never say what that control amounts to, especially when it comes to the music player.
> Let’s face it. Apple needs to stop being stubborn and start looking at what we really want.
Right. That’s pretty funny, especially given the sales of the iphone. To paraphrase, Let’s face it. Apple is focussed on what the most people want, not the technically elite nor tech journalists. Very few people who own an iphone sit around thinking about what it doesn’t do, unless they’re bloggers. Instead, they just use it like no other phone before it or since. The sales numbers and satisfaction ratings tell much more of a story than the posturing around an ‘open’ phone, and that is that they want something that rocks and works. And that’s it.
> Apple needs to stop being stubborn and start looking at what we really want.
No they don’t. Why? Because Apple are selling plenty of iPhones and will continue to do so because people will happily lock themselves into an iTunes-based world.
@Inacurate is right. The 1,000 apps are achievable ‘if you know how to get your sources setup’.. otherwise, you’ll have less apps.
I’m sorry tot wake you op from your non-american-dream, but It’s not just the USA, you forget western Europe, Canada, several Asian Countries.
Go back and lock yourself in you well sweet small little stuffy country…
Russia is the biggest country in the world
How much did Nokia pay you for this article?
Reading “iPhone camera is crap” pretty much tells me your views about the subject mean nothing. The iPhone camera, specially the 3gs is very good, being affected by lack of flash. Video quality is probably better than n900′s
Regarding the n900, I too had oportunity to test it. And it’s not all that. Resistive screen doesn’t cut it in an expensive device on 2010. No mms. UI has some great ideas, but it’s not way easy to use. And if you think maemo will ever get the level of app support seen on android or iPhone. lol.
Well for one, iPhone doesn’t have flash… 3MP vs 5MP & Carl Zeiss optics. The Macro mode on N900 gives really good pics.
N900 also does video recording with 800×480 resolution.
My opinion is N900 has lot better camera. Here are some examples of good N900 pics, haven’t seen nothing as good from iPhone
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=38660
As you know, Fawzi, my N900 will ship beginning of this week and I’m even more looking forward to it, after reading your post.
My last week’s rant about Android’s many flaws provoked a storm of comments from Google fanboys trying to help me understand, why 25 years after the invention of the IMAP protocol, the Android platform’s email app still does not support folders.
I have to admin, I still don’t understand it.
From what I’ve seen and heard so far, the N900′s operating system (Maemo 5?) must be a pretty decent smart phone platform.
The one thing I really start missing on my iPhone after a couple of weeks with the Motorola Milestone is multi-tasking. The ability to quickly switch to Twitter while the browser finishes loading pages in the background.
I sincerely hope that iPhone OS 4.0 comes with true multi-tasking and the next revision of the iPhone hardware with an updated screen (higher resolution/greater size).
Apart from that I’m glad that Apple woke up the entire industry to finally start dropping old habits and start thinking again about end user experience and integrated capabilities.
While I do not see Android delivering really well with respect to these two aspects, I generally believe it’s a good thing to enter a phase of “smart phone platform wars”.
Side note: The tech blogosphere is a buzz about the upcoming Nexus One. Do you see anything revolutionary here, that would justify the noise? To me it’s just another HTC device running a slightly tuned version of Android that ships unlocked for US$500. No multi-touch and nothing else which sets it apart from the Droid, Milestone and others. So why the buzz? Simply because it has got a Google sticker? (You can get a factory unlocked iPhone 3GS in Europe for less than US$500 and run it with whatever carrier you like.)
preload is in devel repo now. install it and it will speed app launches.
I’m with Antonioj I’m afraid. When I read “iPhone camera is crap” it starts to ring alarm bells… The stills camera on the N900 is only slightly better than the iPhone 3GS and video capture is in fact considerably worse.
I appreciate that the N900 is a better phone for you. But to suggest that Apple “stop being stubborn and start looking at what we really want.” is quite bizarre. You are aware that Apple make more profit selling iPhone’s than Nokia make on their entire Nseries device range?
People are prepared to pay good money for a device that empowers them without the faff that is normally associated with mobile technology. The iPhone is solid proof of this.
Antonioj, the iPhone 3GS camera records 640×480 at 30fps while the N900 records at 800 × 480 at 30fps. The Carl Zeiss lens also makes all the difference in low-light conditions.
Thanks Dom for the clarification.
mj, multi-tasking is also unforgivable. I’d rather run my apps simultaneously than pinch to zoom in. Signing you out of your IM to read an email and being stuck to the push notifications is ridiculous.
Video conferencing over 3G works great.. and it’s been years since that has been around and I agree, iPhone not having one is why it hasn’t picked up.
I have video conferenced on the n900 on USA Tmo network 3g from a park. no wifi needed!! smooth video in and out!! I love my N900
Hey , I just want to make one point here.
If you iguys from US think that Iphone of other apple products are best and they are number in world then you are in wonderland. Get a life.
World is not USA, world is far bigger place.
And Facts are facts, Nokia is still way ahead of apple. Even Samsung, LG are. I really laugh when people say iphone has better camera. In fact ifans has also got same argument against features?
For flash-they will say who uses it?
For Fm Radio – Who uses it?
For proper Blutooth- who uses it?
For flash in browser – who uses it?
I can list number of such things and I can say may be Americans dont use these but remeber world is not American. World is not dumb to take luxury i-items and use it. Thats why you see so called huge number of Macs selling in world :) so is about iphones. They wont ever sell to Rest of world, including India, China.
Sid
1. Yes it does support flash 9.4 fully and Java and CSS, etc… just like your desktop browser
With the latest release of Firefox Mobile on N900 you get the FULL DESKTOP firefox browsing experience(tabs etc…) and flash 10.1 too. You can play any flash games in your browser just as on your desktop PC.
2. Search for “N900 bounce evolution game HD” or “N900 Quake III Arena multiplayer”
4. Simply Drag & Drop of your music & video library onto the phone’s memory in USB mass storage mode.
6. I have a feeling that the N900 does a lot out of the box that you need an APP for on the iPhone, but that might just be me…
Yeah bring on iPhone 4th iteration, Maemo6 and all the rest next year.
With a lot of choice only we customers will be better off :D
Hi rbonini,
1) The matter isn’t heavy or not heavy flash site, but flash 10 and more site or flash 9 compatible site. The sites which wipes the flash 9 support don’t load (for instance, cnn video – and only video – as mentionned on a later post). I just remark 2 or 3 sites which don’t work at all, and some functions unavailable on some other sites (less than 10). YouTube, for instance which is a heavy flash site works very fine.
2) There are two different worlds which can be compared on one point: the n900 is quite in the same position the iPhone was when just launched. An outsider. Even if the apps catalog is just at his begining, some apps are truly appealing: a universal remote command (beta), ftp, http, p2p clients, asterisk and web server… ebook readers, twitter client, there are 3 web browsers proposed aside the native (and excellent) microB, you can use the usb port as master port (yes, you can connect a hard disk to your n900), a gateway between Contacts and your social network friends and so on. The breeze of openness is shining on the n900 catalog even if at his very early begining.
About the UI design, I feel it’s a opposite approach to the Apple one: when I began to use it, I find the apps where quite basic. With more experience, I discover some very clever and useful way to use the phone. For instance, I discover step after step the phenomenal potential of the “Communications management” which is quite well described by Fawzi. I just add some precisions: when you chat or speak with somebody, you can instantly initiate a new communication. You just have to click on your correspondant avatar, and all the available communication channels are proposed. More, you don’t need to close the call, you can have the both communications in the same time (chat and call), but you also can share a shot or a video as you are speaking. The only limitation I found: you can have just one wifi connection active.
You also keep all history of communications (and the content of chats) for each contact serparatly!
Last point: you can configure more than one account by channel: for instance, two SIP accounts, two gmail (or google apps) accounts and so on. By activating a specific disponibility profile, you can instantly change your n900 in a private or a professional device. Well done Nokia!
3) I’m not sure I understand this question. In my opinion, it’s a huge improvement to know in a single look the way you can join somebody: each communication channel is displayed with the disponibility (except for phone of course).
The approach of Maemo is person-centric, not channel-centric. In my life, I want to communicate with persons! It’s hard for me to understand the problem to have all communication channels unified.
4) The n900 is DLNA compatible: you don’t have to install anything and there is no need of apps. If your devices are properly set, they appears in the Media Reader of the N900. The DMC (controler) and DMR (renderer) don’t seem to be present. The port from Maemo4 isn’t achieved.
5) Perhaps a try would convince you of the huge interest of this approach. I don’t understand what you mean with separation between real and virtual world: everything is virtual and connect you with real persons!
You can create as many Disponibility profiles as you want to fine taylor your disponibility and activation for each account (Notification>Disponibility), included a complete desactivation of all services, except gsm. You also have the possibility to disconnect separately wifi and bluetooth directly from notification bar).
6) Ovi and flickr and proposed by default, facebook is added as an extension to the default share function (no additional UI and App, just a new profile which can be set up in the default sharing application). There is also a plugin for twitter to tightly integrate the channel in Contacts and Conversations.
About multitasking, it’s really an amazing possibility. Pick an information on a web page, copy it in converstions and so on, very quickly (I remark some slowdown in not yet polished apps, but the multitasking works really very well and change from an app to other is really quick).
But remember, it’s just the begining of the journey and I enjoy it more and more after some weeks of practice. Sure, all isn’t perfect (you can’t take a shot during a call, for instance, no way to record a call), but the foundations are strong and it’s not the first change in Nokia strategy.
I hope they have improved on the N800 which they released, supported poorly and then abandoned. But there are some fallacies.
“The list of apps already present is extremely impressive and the fact that it’s an open source platform means more will come at a very fast rate. Notification of updates is also very well-managed.”
Very fast and Open Source? Does not compute. Nokia will have to put a little more into it if they want to catch up.
“The N900 does not support multi-touch and is quite bulky, I agree, but the full QWERTY keyboard, video conferencing, 32 Gigs of built-in storage and additional SD-card support are way too cool. Heck, it even supports a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Why? Because it can!”
OK, it’s not multi-touch – which is pretty unforgivable these days. They’ve had over two years to figure this out.
Being quite bulky – that’s not a problem, it has a nice screen.
Full QWERTY? No it doesn’t. It has a chiclet keyboard which happens to be laid out in QWERTY. Now the ability to attach a Bluetooth keyboard is an advantage. This is welcome considering the rubbish support they had in previous versions of Maemo.
32 GBs. Bleh. I have this. Additional storage support? Not really necessary. Video conferencing – great – though lets face it it’s only ever going to be worth it on WiFi and, like on the N800, is pointless if other people aren’t around to video-conference with you. It was pointless on the N800 even though it could do it.
I’d consider the N900 if I didn’t feel so shafted by Nokia with the N800. Bah.
You’ve got me on the MultiTasking (though WWDC last year revealed some secrets regarding that). Shushhshhshshs.
I guess I’m just not convinced about video conferencing yet. Yes, if iPhone had it then it would probably be everywhere but I’ve had three VC-capable phones (prior to iPhone and my N800) and never used it. I do use it every now and then on iChat though.
I just don’t think that VC is ready for prime time. And I’m not looking forward to the excuses we’re going to get from carriers.
They won’t, they develop Maemo since 2005.
It’s not like they have just pulled it out of the hat and if it doesn’t work they ditch it.
Nokia’s plans are clear from 2010: use the new 3-4 times quicker, feature rich but resource light symbian in the lower/mid range devices while use the sophisticated Maemo platform in the higer end devices(it requires more CPU-power).
Good review.
1. How does the N900 support very Flash heavy sites?? Can you play Flash games etc??
2.How do N900 apps compare to iPhone ones?? How is the fit and finish?? Do UI designers aspire to the Apple-esque UI paradigm that has made iPhone apps so successful (and so user-friendly)?? Is there the same range of apps that the iPhone app store has?? the ones that are completely off the wall brilliant??
3.I agree that Contacts need to be updated soon, but I don’t like the inclusion of all services contact lists. There are apps that will work with your contacts. And if you use Gmail Mobile Sync, youc an manage your contacts on line and have that synced to you phone.
4.I’d be very glad to be rid of iTunes. My itunes library got borked and its a pain to rebuild and re sync etc. Not the first time either. However, I’m not sure moving to something thats even worse at syncing is a good idea. While there are no apps for Windows Media devices, there are certainly apps for Sonos and AppleTv/iTunes for the iPhone. If you are all Apple devices in the home, this is no problem.
5. I’m not sure I like the idea of all in one messaging. I typically like to keep the real and online worlds separate. Can you turn it off?? Customise what services appear?? Custimise whose updates from online appear??
6. Yes, the iPhone camera needs an upgrade. And yes the shareing options are limited. But you completely ignore the role of apps here. there is a breathtakign range of apps that work with your photos, adding effects, cropping, panoramas etc. Apps will share you photos on twitter, facebook, posterous, etc.
Finally, I think we need to see what will be in iPhone 4. There will be a new camera no doubt.
Push notifications are an acceptable alternative to multitasking, but i’d take performance and battery life over real multitasking any day of the week.
And i argue that once ap developers have figured out how to bring Push to thier social networkign apps, we will see some amazing integration. But even now, there are loads of social apps in the store.
I’m not sure you’ve sold me on the N900.
I see your points, but I can easily see a document called “6 reasons why I’m dumping my Nokia N900 for a iPhone”
I do think that Apple needs to attract the World again when they launch the iPhone 4. It better have a front side camera!
I used to be a Nokia fan until 5th edition let me down. I got a 2″3gs and let me tell you it’s hard to go back to a phone where you have to install everything thru the pc. The ovi store sucks. And people complaining about no multitasking, jailbreak it install proswitcher. Problem gone. About the n900, it looks awesome but the Nokia needs to stick to one platform at that’s it. You never know when they will pull the plug on Maemo.
I had a BBQ on the weekend with 4 friends. 3 of them had iPhones.
I tried speaking to them about Apple’s app store approval process and Google Voice etc… didn’t mean a thing to them.
You know what they wanted? 1. A phone, 2. The coolest phone 3. A cool phone with games and Facebook.
> Let’s face it. Apple needs to stop being stubborn and start looking at what we really want.
They are. You can cast me aside as an Apple Fanboy as much as you like, but people aren’t interested in the ‘best’ phone, just the best phone for them…
In actual fact… People don’t really care that much. They have lives, jobs, friends and family. The cut and thrust of the mobile market isn’t even a smudge covering the blip on the radar of importance.
Nokia N900 vs iPhone 3GS vs Blackberry . who is the winner?
Vote here http://bit.ly/8TNWYd
Thanks all
Having been basically a Nokia user for many years (with a brief foray into Sony Ericsson land a couple of years ago) I know exactly what you’re talking about – my E71 is awesome, and although I think the iPhone is pretty sexy and I seriously evaluated it when I bought myself a Macbook Pro for the first time ever this Christmas, my research confirms exactly what you’re saying – iPhone users don’t realise what they’re missing. Functionality I take for granted on the E71 they don’t even consider on the iPhone (and unfortunately that’s true to a certain extent on OS X as well, particularly when it comes to integrated messaging/PIM).
In response to Masa’b Samara’s question of N900 vs. iPhone vs. Blackberry, I’d personally eliminate the Blackberry on the basis of it being too proprietary – it’s designed for a particular category of that user, and if you fit in that category you’ll probably love it, but for 90% of regular people it’s too restrictive.
the iphone 3g was an amazing peice of equipment. not life changing, but excellent all the same, i liken apple to blizzard, world of warcraft is not new, it’s not revolutionary. but it’s polished, and it’s the best of other people’s ideas put into one polished article, it’s the same with apple. I still have my 3g, i didn’t want to sell it, for some obscure reason i wanted to keep it. I’ve also had my N900 since the 5th december and i haven’t put it down, i always want to find out more about it, i’m always searching the web, always going to maemo, i’m also astounded by the limitations that i had before on the iphone. needless to say i haven’t picked up my 3g since. I’m not here to bash the iphone, or here to defend the N900, they are both completely different things, and should in all fairness appeal to different people, we can sit here all day and argue about what’s better and what’s not, but my opinion is, i tried it, i liked it, and now my head is turned and i’m back in the nokia camp. should apple release something better (in my opinion) i shall have no hesitation in returning to apple. morale of the story. don’t knock it till you tried it
Good review. But here’s the problem, it’s still another comparison with the iPhone.
When the iPhone was launched it wasn’t a Nokia, or Motorola, or Samsung killer. It was just the iPhone. You’ve lost half the battle when your survival depends on you nitpicking with your competitor.
I’ve never tried the N900, so can’t comment on your points. But referring to your last para… without the iPhone we wouldn’t even know what we really wanted from a smartphone.
I’m waiting for another phone which doesn’t have to compare to the iPhone to survive. I’m guessing, I won’t see one of those until the next iPhone. Sadly.
what’s the real score here? i’m getting more confused with conflicting views about the camera and video of this phone? 4+/2- ????
Wait a sec… are you saying that a phone that is sooooo simple to use that even a half dead hampster or an old granny have no trouble with it is a bad thing? fuckmesister thats the stupidest thing ive heard for a while. Maybe thats why Apple is popular? Dahhh.
Just be happy with whatever phone suits you. Im perfectly happy with my SE Vivaz, i know its on the very low end of the scale compared to the iphone or N900 and symbian is a bit of a dog, but it does all i need it to do and do you see my sucking SE’s dick and bashing other mobile companies? Nope
Well I just ordered my N900 and for one thing I believe it will be worth every penny. I do believe it does bring a great innovative device to the forfront why? What is the purpose of a phone anyhow? So we can communicate to each other for the main reason. I’ve had a chance to use an iphone & itouch which are both nice but i’ve always been a person of saving $$$ and getting the most bang for your buck. I have to say though what the N900 offers is by far a step ahead of the game. Why? It’s because they partnerd with Skype which was an excellent choice already built into the phone no need to install or download plus where I live I have a mobile data plan on a 4G network that gets 3-6mb download speed & speed burst upto 10MB down. So I got a constant mobile wifi connection. So I just connect with my N900 and now I got unlimited data plus a phone for calls with skype and with skype you can get a premium set-up for UNLIMITED US,Canada for $2.95 a month unlimted to cellphones or landlines so AT&T sorry bud you bite the bullet on this one. It doesn’t make sense to buy a phone on a drop call 3G network and be paying $100 plus a month for when you can cut your bill way down with N900 using Skype plus multitasking as well. N900 gets my props :)
I have owned all three iPhones, 4 Android devices including the dext and droid, an N800 and N810, and have had my N900 almost 2-months (one of the first to pick up at the NY store because I pre-ordered on 9/3.
I was 1/4 way through your post when I started wondering if you actually have one. This is the most inaccurate posting I have seen yet. Bluetooth keyboard support? Absolutely not. Many bugs and enhancement requests have been closed on maemo dot org with Nokia’s official statement of “it does not and we will not provide bt keyboard ability or support.” Period. There is an upstream effort going that I am close to and it’s not even close to being ready.
1,000 apps? Huh? Unless you have chinook, diablo and all devels repositories on and ran out of rootfs free space long ago while playing Russian roulette with the N900, you are flat wrong. Not to mention the majority of people shouldn’t be messing with testing and devels repos for a thousand reasons. And, NO, you can’t simply bring in x86 debs. What in the world are you talking about?
Video doesn’t shoot at 30 fps and it’s not any better than the droid, dext or iphone. While the camera is 5MP, the quality is sub par and iphone pics easily beat N900′s (it turns out a very low quality jpeg – why do you think you get a 5MP pic in a 100KB – 500KB file??).
Your description of messaging is way off. Twitter? A community project just hit devels a week ago for this and while sounds like it’ll be good, it is far, far from even hitting testing.
N900′s entire PIM including contacts is abysmal including very bad EAS client implementation that won’t synch with Exch03, barely with Google (Nokia/maemo on record saying they won’t support Google), a mess with Nuestro – just a mess period. No SynchML support either. All of this is documented, has a lot of complaints and countless bugs/enhancement requests on maemo’s site.
Multi-tasking is nice, but with nearly 200MB of procs running after starting up, it can really slow it down when you hit swap h*ll. Should have come with 512 physical RAM or much more optimized.
I could go on, but my most important point is you need to be accurate and not mislead people. Some of this is easy to find in the specs, other is a matter of using it a few days. Some is flat wrong. The most fascinating part is much of what you mention have volumes of complaints, bugs and enhancement requests.
Frankly, I’m not sure what N900 you got, but sounds like something no one else has seen.
No, I’m not an iphone person, I just test/rotate a ton of phones and still own all I mentioned at the beginning and many more. I will say this, at least the iphone has portrait mode.
BTW – the browser is good, but not a huge deal if you compare it to android plus the version of flash is outdated, which causes a problem on several (not all) sites. Try using the browser over 30 mins and watch the N900 come to a crawl until it finally requires a restart before hitting an hour (amazon, yahoo, cnn, marketwatch are all good sites to do this with).
Hey Fawzi,
I too noticed my Media player showing my pc and its library but it shows me as empty, could you tell me what network settings were set such that you could browse media. I use windows 7
thanks in advance,
Regards
Jackie
Thanks for the good comparison iPhone and N900 software. I like N900 and I’m going to buy it soon. But I worry a bit about frame quality. I know at least two cases when the plastic surrounded keyboard was broken like that – http://im.ly/d1b78/. So, my optimism about N900 is not so strong now :)
I used iphone for one year before it broke (for my fault).
So I decided to switch to this new nokia n900.
It is definitively better than iphone.
Camera is better (resolution is higher than iphone).
OS is better (real multitasking).
Software is better (totally opensource and virtually you have access to every opensource soft in the world).
It has a full qwerty keyboard that I use when chatting on MSN leaving the entire screen to visualize the messages (missing in iphone).
It has a FM radio transmitter, so I can realize my radio station and transimit the content to the radio of my car (and again this is missing in iphone).
I installed emulators for old consoles (like sega master systems, game gear, snes, coleco) and I played very nice and funny games which are missing in iphones.
Furthermore new 3d games (like quake3 arena) are excellent too.
The browser seems much better, and it can play flash videos, and I did not find one page not rendered correctly in n900 (instead many pages did not appear neat in iphone).
MY friend helped me to set up an external keyboard and mouse (you need to install another program (here is my criticism, why did not nokia include this program in the phone directly?)), and I used the phone connect to the TV with a real keyboard and mouse.
It was like using a REAL PC DESKTOP. AMAZING!
On youtube I see videos of people using the phone like a tv-commander. I am looking forward to experience this.
More important, the phone has more memory (ram and disk) than iphone, and it has also an microsd reader if you wish to expand the internal memory.
My only compliant is the lack of multitouch.
But the touchscreen is good (only slightly worse than iphone).
The best phone on the market
You can use iTunes with N900 easily, just use a third-party syncing software.
This one works well:
http://www.salling.com/MediaSync/mac/
You can use iTunes with N900 easily, just use a third-party syncing software.
This one works well:
http://www.salling.com/MediaSync/mac/
It uses the official sync API in iTunes so it works great.
the mobile versions of websites doesn’t exist because the screens are to small! it’s a question about the low data rate for mobile technology!
I’m lucky enough to own an N900 and I would concur with most of the original piece.
I had an iphone which I loved. For me the ui and the app store set it miles apart from anything else.
However, it broke if you looked at it, the battery was rubbish and the camera may as well not have been there.
The N900 is big and bulky, there are no apps yet, the battery runs down quick. But…
The ui is amazing, as close to a computer as I’ve experienced, web browsing is second to none (much better than the iphone I have to say) the media player is superb, the touch screen totally responsive. It just feels like a really powerful piece of kit. I watch films straight from the phone onto my TV screen with brilliant results and have proper conversations with my contacts now without ever closing any windows.
It takes a day or two to get used to but I wouldn’t go back now.
The only unfortunate thing is that I miss a lot of the great apps. I’m hoping that gets sorted soon.
I have to say I find the response to the article by some iphone users (of which I am one) bizarre. Why would people so fervently deny something they clearly haven’t tried.
It’s got its faults as I’ve listed but it’s a really good bit of kit. First thing Nokia have produced at the high end which can really give us a conversation like this.
The htc Hero also covers all of these requirements off with ease, as well as fully syncing with your Google Contacts and Calendar (as well across social networks).
My Google calendar is now all setup across facebook events and my outlook calendar (backed up on the web) – likewise for all my contacts.
Wouldn’t swap it for an iphone if you paid me!
LOL tons of Apple Fanboys i see. It may succeed in ur country like the Motorolla RAZR back then
but the rest of the world is more tech savvy then u ppl. iPhone has no place in our hearts. it just..lacks everything
i got my N900 about a month ago. The best thing that thing for me that no one seems to mention is that the applications, being open source, are free. Ps I cant compare with an iphone as I have never owned one, but this phone is the closest I have yet come to replacing my laptop. Have just been on leave for 3 weeks and switched my laptop on only once – I used the N900 – as a computer – every day.
Simple! AT&T covers most of the cost of the iPhone and gets a minimum $60 a month for two year subscription. They are not playing ball with Nokia because their phones allow you to use features and services that are not billable.
Great review. I’ve been a Nokia Maemo fan since the N800 came out. I have two, love them.
But, N900 is useless in America outside huge cities because it only works on tiny GSM systems:
http://tinyurl.com/3gUSAmap
Other coverage is horribly SLOW, useless. GSM phones don’t even make phone calls in lots of America. Verizon/Alltel does! Until the N900 has an American CDMA/EVDO/WiMax model…it’s as useless as the 3G GSM coverage it connects to.
…and I want one REALLY bad!
I wonder why the iPhone does so well in the USA then?
I enjoyed your review. The iPhone – although the best option available to me at the time – is rapidly losing it’s appeal. No multi-tasking is a pain.
However, claiming the music enthusiasts should love it due to iTunes integration made me rather dismissive of the rest you had to say (initially).
The problem is that iTunes is a piece of crap, and I have no idea how anyone can think it’s anything different. It’s buggy, slow and feels like a regression from using Winamp 2 over a decade ago. It also fails at multithreading… this along with no iPhone multitasking makes me think that Apple don’t know how to program threads.
MediaMonkey is the only music software that really holds it’s own these days. Which is sad, because it’s only for Windows.
The way I see it, if you want an iPhone go get one, if you want a Nokia then go get one of those. But, to compare the Nokia to the iPhone just confirms that the iPhone is the standard to be beaten by other touch screen phones.
I don’t want my phone to be ‘like a computer’ I have a laptop for that, I want to be able to ring someone, text someone, read my emails and do some light web browsing. I can do all of that with the iPhone, I could probably (I’ve never used it) do it with the Nokia and I can certainly do it with the Palm Pre that I have.
Apple have the brand image and advertising to sell you anything, make it look like you can’t live without it and charge you over the odds for it. Nokia could achieve the same if they start to look at what the majority of users want, a phone that works, Facebook and Twitter.
If they have achieved that then great, if not then they still have work to do. If you want one buy it, don’t compare it to another phone to justify how good it is.
guys i liked qwerty keyboard, open OS with command prompt (press ctrl+shift+x, best thing for hackers), very powerfull hardware and connectivity options, i,m confident this is going to be hackers phone for some time to come
Good points, I think I will definitely subscribe! I’ll go and read some more! What do you see the future of this being?
The N900 is a sleak device, but it’s not an integrated solution like the iPhone. Yes you have more freedom, yes you have more control and yes you have a full open OS. But the downside: a lot of clicks to get anywhere in the phone. It’s so bloody inefficient. Then I thought iPhone’s battery was bad. Wohahahahaha. The N900 is even worse. Great camera, great keyboard, brilliant screen, good resolution.
It will not replace my iPhone, but it will do okay as a second phone.
CapitalT: the only problem with that logic is that the N900 is nothing like the iPhone…
The N900 is an Internet Tablet with phone capabilities with a FULL desktop OS under the hood with a mobile optimized Graphical User Interface on it.
So you say that Nokia’s never innovative? Right are leading the mobile industry since it started, they have started gaming in mobile phones, touchscreen internet tablet/smartphones, etc… long ago.
Have you heard about NGage or the Communicator series? Nokia used to be the king of the designer phones, the high end phones, the smartphones and the simple easy usable phones.
Apple haven’t invented much, but made the smartphone experience easy for the average Joe’s, the mass market basically.
Get your facts right fanboy.
Oh and for the record I always hated the Nokia phones but the N900 got me by surprise and I’m buying the phone when my contract is up next month or so.
Is there a N900 app / shortcut for vaious media such as the NY Times, TIMESONLINE, Bloomberg, Financial Times, BBC, etc?
These are the most important apps to me beyond telephone and messaging.
Thanls for your help.
the truth is they all have similar interfaces to the iphone, they’re coming out now, not when the iphone came out…. Apple innovates, if the nokia is better its because it had the Iphone as a yard stick and asked how can we make it more accessible. Nokia sales are massive overseas because they’re the nokias I had were simple to use.. cheap…. but never innovative, Ive worked in the graphics industry for 12 years and i dont want cheap I want quality and forward thinking… apple has been that all along…. I bet they revolutionise something else while everone else is bust copying them….. like the Tablet.
The iPhone is the Average Joe’s phone who cannot handle a “complicated” device. Thanks I’m half decent human being who can handle more complicated things than a Fisher Price toy and don’t get confused by having a desktop and multiple apps running (scaaary :D) lol, so yeah N900 or android for me pls! Cheers!
the price is right compared to apple
i have both the n900 and the iphone 3gs. I must agree with you on the point of the camera quality, but everything else the iphone does better and faster, and when jailbroken the iphone is light years ahead…..
N900 is light years ahead of iPhone.
It's just a matter of promotion & I agree Apple is ahead in that, whatever crap it makes.
“If it doesn't work out of the box, the phone is broken”
“Out of the box functionality” is a marketing term that means the target demographic is stupid.
stop misguiding people dude :( and get a life !!!!
You're right, the Iphone is the new Motorola Razr. People want it, and now they have it. Grats to you.
I ditched the iPhone for a few months for the N900, but seriously dood, you are making a bad mistake. I am now switching back and selling my N900 (email me if you want to buy it). I used the N900 for around 5 months (of pain)… Here's my review.
http://nokian900reviews.blogspot.com/2010/01/re…
You will find everything in your review is wrong.
1. The web browser on the iPhone, for me, was more usable in mobile situations. When you are sitting at your desk, the last thing you want to use is a tiny little device to browser the internet. So the iPhone's interface wins for me.
2. The apps just don't work.
3. The contacts don't 'link' across different applications (can't send text messages from your phone history, for instance). It is really surprisingly annoying having to navigate all through your phone to do small little tasks.
4. The Media doesn't recognize MP3 tags correctly, I uploaded 30 GB of MP3s, just to get a complete mess in the N900.
5. iPhone messaging was fine for me, I don't use twitter or do anything the iPhone didn't do.
6. The N900 phone has some weird Linux bug in it, I can NO LONGER take pictures!!! At least the iPhone never had bugs in their core applications.
Ugh. Save yourself.
So right, exactly my thoughts :) I'm a half decent human being, can I have multitasking and desktops please JUST AS I AND EVERYBODY ELSE EVEN MAC USERS HAVE ON THEIR PCs!!!
there goes the logic :p
There are many exaggarated / made up faults in your blogpost. If the N900 isn't for you and you were completely satisfied with your iPhone why on earth did you get the N900 in the first place?
And also where on earth did you get the 5 Months figure? It was only released 1.5-2 months ago! If you had a pre-pre-pre release prototype version then put up with it. But I just think you made the whole affair up really it just shows from your blogpost.
My girlfriend have one iPhone 3GS 32GB and I have one Nokia N900. I can use and compare both anytime I want and my conclusion is…
iPhone sux, like Zoltan said, is just like a toy… good for girls maybe. You know guys, the interface fancy eye candy cute cute and bla bla bla. But in the real world, when you need a REAL mobile computer – N900 is just the best.
Cya
Exactly right Joel! And the iPhone 3GS 32GB is SOOO MUCH more EXPENSIVE than teh 3G or the N900! I cannot see why is it worth paying £180 for the 3GS on an expensive contract when you can get the N900 or the 3G for FREE on a better contract!
Also fanboys keep saying because the 3GS is the best you can get, but that's just plain wrong! The 3GS is the BEST for people who don't know how to use a smartphone and the very simplistic approach of the iPhone makes is a usable smartphone for these masses like my wife or my mother… It's nowhere near THE BEST for MEN who are at least half decent and are not scared of HAVING DESKTOPS on the phone and PROPER MULTITASKING! lol :D
If you can handle a PC with multiple tasks running and desktop then why wouldn't you be able to handle it on a phone???
My pal got a Nokia as it was a good price and had FM radio. It suited him. People will buy what suits them for example getting the iPhone if they want to be seen as trendy and having money to burn
Average Joes would have a Nokia because it is in the price range of the average Joe.
iPhones are for people who wish to distinguish themselves by showing that they can pay more for their phone
lol that just tells it all doesn't it… So a lot of them don't actually buy the iPhone because it's “the best” but because it costs ridiculusly lot to show off that they can? Ouch…
The n900 is a lovely bit of hardware, you have to admit!
I thought our generation had moved on from gender assumptions. The right phone for you depends on your needs, whatever gender you may be. A female who runs two businesses like me would need a more intuitive interface and greater filing capacity, with little use for media functioning. Perhaps more up-to-date thinker would understand. This is the 21st century isn't it?
well i have a n900 and its awsome it dual boots into mameo5 or android 1.6 and i can download and use the android market apps .when ive booted in to maemo5 i can run windows 95(not watered down but actual windows 95) its got a playstation1 emulator aswell as snes sega ect .ive got a 8gig mem card so all in its 900mhz arm cortex processor (overclocked from 600mhz)40gig hdd (inc 8gbcard)1gig virtual ram so all in awsome machine will be hard to beat .ive had a ngage n95 n958gb n97mini so i am nokia fan but shit my first pc had less spec than this
also the guy who put 30 gb of mp3 is full of sh*7 as when my n900 was new 28gb was available for storage i assumed the system used the rest
I thought our generation had moved on from gender assumptions. The right phone for you depends on your needs, whatever gender you may be. A female who runs two businesses like me would need a more intuitive interface and greater filing capacity, with little use for media functioning. Perhaps more up-to-date thinker would understand. This is the 21st century isn't it?
Hi All,
Can anyone provide a comprehensive comparison between N900 n Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro?
Am a bit confused which one to go for…Am a CEO n i need to be intouch of my emails,skype/AIM IM’S…check my outlook and loggedin other business networking sites..
Any suggestion and advice will be appreciated
Thanks in advance
the difference is iPhone is a phone AND N900 is something that can replace a laptop
n900 it's like mini laptop. luv N900 luv voda
the most important question that i am most concern of is, will it lag??? i have seen quite a few comments that says that , 'oh, this phone lags', 'there are some basic features that lags'… and more similar comments. so, is it true?
Any idea if u can watch sky mobile tv on the N900 and when will Ovi's apps increase on the N900?
144 comment :D
I have been the proud owner of the N900 for nearly a month now. I also own an HTC Magic and think the N900 is a far superior phone. I am a Linux user (Linux Mint and Sabayon) on my computers and love how open this phone is.
I am still playing with the phone and learning but am getting to grips with it. I have added the testing repo which has opened up a lot more to play with.
Look forward to chatting to all the other N900 users at http://www.NokiaN900Forum.net this really does feel like an enthusiasts phone, not just another run of the mill handset.
the nokia n900 is the best phone out i so want 2 get it on my new contract
Thanks for a great break down of your views.
I am a sucker for Nokia and I’ve waited very long for a descent new one. Today I just bought the N900 and although I havent got it yet, I trust I’ll be pleased with it.
I am not too geegy despite being at home with in IT stuff etc
Currently the thing I use the most on my N95 is the camera, texting, calling. If a phone does that, I am happy but the power included in the N900 is an added bonus. FOr music, I use an ipod so dont really need another MP3 player.
THe main clincher is the best quality camera anything else like apps and geek this and geek that is a bonus.
I am a Nokia fan :)
i totaly agree. my little brother gots the iphone… and he's always on my phone (N900) :D
when i try out his iphone it allways gots stock and what not… n900 is much easyer to use and got more :D
Bought the n900 3 days ago after using an iPhone and iPod touch for 3 years.
1. Browser comparison: mobile safari renders pages much faster and in a much more readable manner than the default microb browser on the n900. Zooming in on pages in mobile safari renders much more readable text than zooming in with microb (which is done with the volume rocker instead of finger gestures). Zooming in on form inputs with microb is done by double tapping the input as opposed to automatically zooming in on focus on mobile safari (read further for my point on the touchscreen sensitivity). Firefox on maemo taxes around 90 seconds to boot, and I can't say how it is in terms of rendering and features, except that it's slow as hell.
2. As maemo is based on debian it uses a package manager based on apt for software installation and updates which is much, much slower then doing it from itunes app store on the iPhone, if you have jailbroken an iphone and used Cythia you would know what kind of dog slow software I'm talking about. Further, most of the maemo software I've tested is so buggy that required a reboot to get the device back in working condition.
Points valid for n900:
3. The fact that enabling any IM accounts puts all the contacts from those accounts together with my phonebook accounts in “contacts” without the ability to filter only the phone book contacts (you can only filter by IM account, but no option to show only the phone book) is annoying to the point where I was twice prevented by someone fom break the n900 against a wall.
4. Audio playback quality is bad to put it simply. Further, trying to do anything else while listening to music produces annoying jitter in audio playback. Run top in terminal while playing back audio you will see enormous CPU utilization numbers.
5. The way the IM message notifications get in your way while using the device, makes me disable/enable my IM accounts often.
6. Photo quality is bad compared to a cheap compact digital camera as is to be expected from a phone with a built-in camera.
7. Touch screen is resistive as opposed to capacitive and is dog slow in receiving input. Precision is just not there. It's comparable to the touchscreen of a 2001 Compaq ipaq PDA.
8. OS UI is plain confusing and full of inconsistencies, not to mention slow and unresponsive and not up to powering a handheld device.
9. Battery life, or should I say battery death is around 10 hours or less, comparable to some laptops.
If you have an iPhone 3gs I'd be more than happy to swap my 3 day old n900 for that.
N900 is the best in the market now. :D
only problem with your reasoning is, N900 can do all that, and more, at a lower price. So i guess if you want to pay more for a less competitive product… be my guest?
I got my N900 last month here in the Philippines and I am enjoying it.
I agree – absolutely!
i phone doesnt even have a bluetooth
its like soooooooooo ewwwwwwwww to buy an iphone
me i like the n900 its
WONDERFUL !!!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105242629…
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105242629…
I really like what you've said and I agree! after I saw the n900 I forgot about any other phone!
but I am kind of hesitated between the n900 and the blackberry. if u have any experience, would you please tell me which is better.. cuz Im gonna EXPLODE!
I would really appreciate a reasonable and clear answer! thank you so much for this site and Im convinced about the iphone.. now I need help to choose between the BB and n900!
waiting for a reply! and plz make it ASAP! I need to choose aleady!
thnx!
This is an excellent read. I wrote a blog post and referred to the article above. My husband bought me an iphone (which I loved at first touch) and he just got himself an N900 and swears that it is better. So we have had lots of back and forth debates which forced me to do research on this and stumbled across your article. it is by the far the best one written on the differences and comparison between the two phones. I personally don't think you can compare the two. Each one has enough good points to work for different people. It does boil down to preference.
Rim is bigger than Apple in Canada. United States of Apple be damned, Canadians like their berries!
I'm sold!!
Wickedly informed, well thought out and thoroughly helpfull =]
my first wish list. Hope can get it.
i cannot type on iphone, i have long fingernails and iphone doesnt pick up if you use finger nails to touch it. therefore texting is completely usless for me on an iphone..
yuk, i disagree with you on every point.
iPhone are not only multitasking anyway, but OS4 allows developers to build it in too. Face it this nokia thing is nothing in comparison
iphone has had bluetooth since the 2nd generation you noob
Great post / comparison… Unlike you I've been a Nokia fan for years and a smartphone addict in the past 3 years (N95, N97,5800 and now the wonderful, the brilliant, the incredible N900). Nothing beats it and it's by far better than the iPhone / iPhone 4.0… in terms of what it can do.
the iPhone is not integrated in any way or form? The fact that you can't multitask means your freedom is less than that on a N900. On an N900 you just open the application you want, and when you are done, you leave it open. On an iPhone you have to close it down and open the next thing, close that down to open the next application and so on and so on….
On the N900 you can open media player, want to surf the internet, open up a browser, want to check back on that song, one click and you can be back in the media centre, a twitter alert comes through, you can one click and flick back to twitter, in fact opening multiple applications, games, browsers is possible. Facebook, flickr, Evernote, twitter, picasso, skype, msn, yahoo chat, gtalk all combined in your address book – now that is integration. It's insane to think you even want an iPhone for a 1st phone when the N900 can do everything and more.
Tell me how integrated an iPhone is. You can't do any of that.
Nice piece of info here and thanks.
Just to check, is N900 a multi-touch device?
thank you for your insite no this, i used to be an iphone user, n was looking to buy da nokia n900 … with your review i am now sure im gono get da nokia n900… THNAKKK UUUUUU ….. great report
hahaha, yes Mr Robert answer sid
n900 sucks…
its too slow and apps sucks..
iPhone RULEZ!
Dont tell such shitty stuff!
iPhone runs MacOS X…
N900 a buggy version of Debian…
AppStore = Nothing else is so good then that store.
OviStore or whatever = Buggy, overpriced apps.
iPhone is not an average phone.
It's the best phone in the world!
Lie.
ahahahahah. bravo. exactly. if you have a country full of brainwashed and completely intellectually dependent citizens, you can easily take advantage of them but pushing pretty, shiny, inferior products to the masses…also, it helps if you have a world-class marketing program….which, of course, Apple excels at. Hence, dominance of apple in U.S. market…while rest of world ifascist = FAIL. ahahahahh
congrats. mr. jobs thanks you for sucking his balls. have fun with your o so shiny, pretty ifascist…too lazy to think for yourself so apple's marketing team will think for you… and take your money… typical intellectually dependent american.
too lazy to think for yourself so apple's marketing team will think for you… and take your money… typical intellectually dependent american.
i agree with u my friend with everything u said about the N900 because i own one but the only thing it SUCKS of it is the lack of MMS oh! yes n being able to change the aspect ratio in videos, n yes also modify songs info. adding one more thing to the list is that nokia took away the ability to customize your contacts with ringtones like in the 5800 which i like alot. but anyway it is a very cool phone or computer or both n hopefully there will be some firmware in the near future to update this little issues.
take care.
How on Earth…….Nokia, didn't have that MMS aplication??? Jesus Christ….Wat they was thinking? And why? I my self couldnt get any answer!!!!
But gotta say…..so far…..the fon rocks!
the n900 is a piece of crap. Sorry, only vaguely inoffensive word I can thing of. Firstly, MfE doesn't work – for a piece of kit for work, I need exchange compatibility. It crashes reuglarly; battery life is attrocious (less than a day); it doesn't sync properly on W7, even with the latest version of Nokia PC Suite. Could be a great phone, but it just don't work.
Wow, nice job keeping an argument. “Dam” You mean “Dumb”? This is first grade spelling!
Shodi is right…also YOU are dumb …lol…I am using Nokia Communicators since first one was relaased and would never exchange Nokia for a “kid’s toy” (read iPhone!) I am just in a transition into N900 since it looks like it is time for an upgrade :D
do you realise how DUMB you are! you cant spell dumb ahhaha
just buy what u like…respect what other says..dam or dumb no need it in here mate. thx
Great article which I found very interesting.
I used to be a Nokia Fan until I bought an iPhone. Then I realised what I was missing out on, the whole user experience with the iPhone is on another planet, all other phone companies are now copying the iPhone because they cant beat it.
Nothing comes close to the iPhone
Some of the comments are wrong, the iPhone DOES have bluetooth.
I use my iPhone both for Business & Pleasure and the camera & video are excellent in daylight conditions
THe iPhone is MORE than just a phone its the best gadget in the world ever that you can carry in your jeans pocket.
eww
I have experience with Apple products dating back to the IIe, including the original iPhone, 3G, and 3GS. I got the phones for the same reason everyone gets them: They look cool and have a few great ideas that was never really refined into something usable before the iPhone, oh and their huge marketing campaign.
Sadly, the iPhone paralleled the same experience as I’ve had on all of my Mac products – once it loses its luster, you’re left with an over-simplified and under-powered shiny toy. Yes, there is jailbreaking, which was great until I had to start restoring my phone every month because it couldn’t handle a moderately high workload and crash on me. The apps are great too, until I had to start running FreeMemory every 10 minutes of using them. Well, at least there’s good engineering behind Apple products, right? The logic board on my iPhone 3g failed in less than a year.
I’ve made the switch to the N900 for the same reason I gave my MacBook Pro to my parents, because I stopped associating pretty flashy easy stuff with quality.
Linux. Mobile. Genius. Posted on Ubuntu.
any 1 explain me how i play mkv file nokia n900
hi man.
you know what?!… i totally agree with you,”WHY”?……In my opinion,most of people who are using the Iphone are just attracted or even you can call it “blinded” by the powerful and gorgeous effects of Iphone and nothing else !!
Yes! it has a wonderful effects but that not everything, as you know Apple Co. knows its way to its customers.
I am a stupid brazilian average joe who’s going to Germany next July to work, and I spent a good part of my day today deciding: iPhone or N900 (I wouldn’t care to buy the N8 if it had been released…).
But after watching videos, reading maaaaany reviews and articles I deicided to go for the N900.
I had one analog nokia (TDMA – 1997) 5120, 8260, and then a nokia 6600 (my first symbian), now I have a 5530 and a N95 8GB.
There were many reason why I deicided to purchase the N900, but the most important for me was apple’s stupidity in selling the damn thing only through AT&T, I’ve been abroad…and WE DON’T HAVE IT HERE IN BRAZIL!!
So what should I do? Should I go ahead and spend something like 100USD just to unlock it and use its internet services only when I’m in a WiFi hotzone (prices in Brazil for data services are very abusive)?
Or should I buy a phone, not a contract?
I’ve choosen the phone, not only by its features, apple has to make up their minds if they want to sell phones or provide services.
Oh, I 4got…N900!! Of course…(I’ll still check out the N8…lol).
Later…
Hey this is a great comparison and to be honest you have made it too easy for me to make a desicion. No doubt after reading this review and comparison, I have made my mind to go for NOKIA….its the best…thanks buddy
Faiz Alam Khan – Kabul Afghanistan
got both iphone lot easier to interact with n900 does more iphone easier to carry n900 like an extra bulge in your pants also n900 tends to crash more frequently so ive chose to let my n900 catch dust in the cupboard and continued with the more easier option my iphone
Thanks you guys for keeping me entertained! I think it’s hilarious how SENSITIVE people get about their little fones…especially if you say the “i” word! ROFL!!!
If you really are a convert having evolved from a convinced iPhone user to a Nokia tech-geek, your opinion is probably one of the very few unbiased ones out there.
I am a N900 user. But although I am a iPhone critic and almost always take sides for Nokia, the N900 is nit without error. Unfortunatly, the device still needs a lot finetuning. Although the recent firmware update made it MUCH more usable, there are still unexplained errors forcing a restart. I guess this is the price of total control. With an iPhone, you don’t have any trouble at all, but the iPhone is restricted in many ways that the N900 is not. Given enough time to mature, Maemo (now Meego) might become THE mobile operating system on the market…
Stupid ifans
For flash-they will say who uses it?
For Fm Radio – Who uses it?
For proper Bluetooth- who uses it?
For flash in browser – who uses it?
For USB memory storage they will say- who uses it?
With N900 nokia has finally got the better of apple,
But with a month to go I would like to wait and compare N900 with iphone 4, both the features and the price. I hate the stupid contract system with Iphone though.
I just bought mine and got int in the mail from http://www.mycellz4less.com – I have to tell you guys how right you are – I LOVE THIS PHONE!
I just got this in the mail from http://www.mycellz4less.com – I LOVE THIS PHONE – strongly recommend.
you all need to get out more
Having read all this, I’m convinced that the iPhone 4 is the one for me. Particularly the comments from the Nokia funboys who boast about balls. Methinks they doth protest too much.
need to knw , frm where to get its apps….
i having it since 2 months…. dying 4 its apps…….
I change my 5800XM to a iPhone, and I dont miss it…
Nice review. I would say for me the price is very important and Nokia N900 is lot cheaper as compared to Iphone.
Nokia N900
guys….every gadgets got pros & cons…just get over it…..ask urself what u desire….either nokia or iphone…..ur money…ur taste…..
the hell which is better or worse…..
hi frnz, rite now m using iphone 3g but now i want to change it. so plz tell me, is N900 really a gud phone?? m a bit confused!! m worried about nokia’s HANGING problem, as this occurs most in N97!! or suggest me sum other phone in range of 25,000 INR.
reply awaited…
hi, everyone! im lucky i dont have to worry about anything like which phone is best or which one has better feature, os or whatever. I dont worry about that coz i have n900 because someone gave me the phone as a present , haha. sorry im not being boastful or bragging about anyhting, im saying im just lucky. thanks to my loveones, i realy appreciate everythign. someday i ‘ll pay you back for everyhting. FYI, im a SE fan not Nokia but i like the phone but still like much better a SE. thanks evyrone
so everyone agrees then!!! The N900 wins i got 1 and 2 iphones both which i use as n900
im sorry i mean i use my iphones as coasters…=]
Maybe “dam” is a reference to a thick, dense dam wall???
I’m just sayin :P
personally I would still prefer iphone, the appearance is more beautiful and the touch feeling is super good. Each one thinks in his way, check the more specific info fron the following web:http://www.m2cmobile.com
doesn’t officially support bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Ita actually a pain in the ass to make a bt keyboard work with the dvice. After managing to pair them, the keyboard uses the layout of the builtin keyboard so no numberpad and symbols…Nokia sucks. Android phones are way better.
THIS IS WHT I SAY SENSELESS
If u r a serious business user of cellphones..then everyone would laugh at ur statement!! N900 is more user friendly and easy to use!! Well its sad that u cudnt use this cell..lol!! go back to ur primitive cells…
FUCKING RICH ASSHOLES, . YOURE JUST WASTING YOUR MONEY IN THAT USELESS TECHIE STUFFS., WHY WONT YOU JUST USE YOUR MONEY FOR CHARITY AND NOT WITH THAT USELESS STUFFS, . USE 3310 JUST FOR TEXTING AND CALLING, THATS WHAT CELLPHONES ARE FOR
I’m a serious business user of cellphones. Tried N900, its too complicated and requires too much time to figure out simple tasks, abandoned it. Went back to Nokia E71, which is as good as blackberry. iPhone works good too as a business phone and a entertainer. N900 can be improved for mass users, till then its just a geek’s toy.
Bah ha h ha.. Lets face it Iphones are gay
I,m sure that i have the best mobile phone of the world , iphone is a toy.
Compare the official youtube videos of both company. What i am looking for is technology for my works.When someone comes to sell me anything appealing to the sentiment, I get suspicious.
i have an n900 because it works
Anyonecare to do some gardening here and moderate these comments ? is this thenextweb.com or some teen blog page ?
Lol…although this differers on the person anyway… compare iPhone 4 to n900…
1st… Safari on iPhone4 is faster with HTML5 (replacing flash already) and 960 x 640 is alot nicer than 800*480 (0.614 MP to 0.384 MP or double)
2nd… No offence… but Nokia OVI sucks copared to App Store… in range and amount of contest.
3rd.. iOS4 (all iPhones except 2G) support VoiP contacts, port FB DP’s to iPhone contacts and other Social Networking stuff.
4th… Its a personal opint of view… but iTunes is wayy better than Windows Media Player and Nokia Music Transwer device.. and iPod app is better than Nokia Music one (MY opinion…)
5th… Depends, with ebuddy it makes no difference anyway… but its personal… tho the default n900 is better.
6th iPhone Camera is now 5MP too with flash… and has way more free camera apps that are more powerful than n900 image editor, and have social network uploading too… Photoshop Express is a great one. or CP+ Pro for a small price if u must.
And to rebut the last scentance:
The N900 does not support multi-touch and is quite bulky [while the iPhone touchscreen is really nice and fast, and the keyboard great software prediction and correction], I agree, but the full QWERTY keyboard, video conferencing[Facetime works, unlike 3.5G Video calling], 32 Gigs of built-in storage [Uhh iPhone 4 32GB?] and additional SD-card support are way too coo [U need that with 32GB? Anyway DropBox over Wifi works great]l. Heck, it even supports a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. [iPhone supports keyboard... you need a mouse??]
***********************************************************************************
However personally I want an iPhone 4 with dual boot Android 3.0 (Works with 2G and 3G so far)
I just bought a Nokia N900 on my bday!!!! Wow…now dats wt i call a cell with all features. Rating 9.5 out of 10. Iphone doesnt come near it!!
Iphone is the best for them who knw hw to use a mac its nt ur fault u dnt knw hw to use mac nd if u hv any doubt cmpre iphone4 wid ur nokia…….
i have just gone from n86 to n900 i do like the ipone for games i have both and apart from having to jailbreak the cell so you can download aplications or use a credit card to get suff that is for free on nokia apple must be afraid of the n8 comming soon
you are absolutely right dude mine shows 27 GB how the hell could he store 30 gigs of mp3s in his n900 :(
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i agree totally Fawzi Rahal, I have never loved a deice like i love the N900, Fiends laugh at its lack of MMS but there is a app for this and i have only ever sent 3 in the past. But what i dont agree with is the mine phone is better than your phone, if your happy with the handset you have then thats great. But the N900 is awwsome, If the N9 which is due out soon beats my beloved baby then roll over apple and android your time is over, just thank the networks for locking people into 2 yr contracts as the best will be back
since no one has replied to it and I read it now so the writer where are your so called open source apps for the N900. You see iphone 3gs still runs all 350000+ apps and you r n900? lol
I think that the IPHONE4 is not so good for geeks… hey y’all, we cannot compare a cellphone to a minicomputer like n900, n900 is the best and it’s getting better day by day…
For geeks (clever people) – N900
For cellphone users (narrow-minded, but rich) – Iphone4 or 3gs
GPS though also is, but works somehow strange, the error at once can be 4 meters, in another of 4 km (though in the street always works precisely), and that the strangest – asks for an Internet..
here we go…blinded by the apple lights.
The UI is very responsive.. finally transitions when switching screens and rotates when changing orientation as opposed to the old glitchy N97 interface.
In terms of reaction speed, I’ve noticed that loading the conversations app the first time takes a bit longer to load as it populates the content. From then onwards, it’s just great.
Macro mode is okay. I posted this today… http://web.me.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/Blog/Entries/2010/1/3_N900__Day_4._Photography._Macro_Shootout!.html
Video capture is not great…
http://web.me.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/Blog/Entries/2009/12/31_N900__Day_3._Video_Shootout!.html
Granted the N900 photo and video capture could be beefed up, but as it stands the iPhone is looking pretty good in comparison.
Well the test videos of N900 I’ve seen looked amazing… I couldn’t believe they were recorded with a mobile phone!
Thats odd… MY retail N900 records at 30fps, with no dropped frames. Maybe if you’re running the media player in the background while IMing friends and talking to someone on the cell it will drop frames. But out of the box, it records high-def 30fps without a problem.
Mr. Robert, I guess you need wake up call.
Go around the world and see yourself.
I come from biggest country in world, China. iphone is nowhere. Same with India. And if you know basic maths you should know what % population of total world comes from just 2 countries.
Nokia, samsung, LG are far far ahead of i-pple.
You are in wonderland.
In Europe, Nokia is king. I guess they have sold more 5800 than iphone.
Man just get out of your i-mania and why you are not replying to basic questions like flash, FM radio? Bluetooth?
C’mon man you left out Aus….
Not a question of being American or not and stop with stupid nationalisms.
Restrict yourself to compare products
Haha, lol… Same argument from iFanBoys, how much this and this paid you… Just very funny :)
I never liked Nokia, in fact I hated them but even I know that they have a 40% market share of Mobile Phone sales worldwide ever since the Mobile Phone has been invented lol.
Although they pretty much shocked me with the N900 and the Maemo platform because it’s everything I ever wanted.
Mr. Robert , you are again not answering questions.
FM radio? Flash in Camera? Flash in Browser?
Why i cant use plug n play(Mass storage mode)?
Get ur i-sense right :)
To each his/her own.
@Todd I completely agree with you. @Inacurate Who is to say what is “right” and what is “best” to confuse popularity with? The iPhone wasn’t the first iPhone, but it was the most disruptive. The iPhone has really triggered the popularity of smartphones today and continues to the the example that everyone is trying to copy. The only difference is the competition is calling out small things that they are marketing as iPhone flaws to certain type of people to distinguish themselves. If you want to install whatever or do whatever, then find a smartphone that does it. But, please don’t knock the iPhone.
@T.Weiss Why do so many people like yourself have to call anyone who supports Apple a “fanboy”. Why can’t we just be people who like the phone that happens to be made by a company called Apple?
Like NIgeria!! Nokia rocks and it is rugged
Like NIgeria!! Nokia rocks and it is rugged
Angus188: you don’t need apps for that kind of things, just place a direct shortcut to the webaddresses of these sites and when you click on it it’ll open in the WebBrowser that looks and works exactly like your desktop browser. Simples :)
This is why Nokia stamped this device as a Mobile Computer, well it basically is!
Firefox for Maemo5 RC2 is out for the N900 and it supports flash 10.1
Yeah but does it not bother the iPhone users that they almost never get 3G speed on the go?
Haha, that’s just wrong :)
N900 IS a REAL mobile computer, the iPhone is – yes based on a desktop OS too – is only a toy compared to a real smartphone like the N900.
Really, do you even realise how dam you are?
haha…..wat a joker u are…..u are so desperately defending ur iphone…..trust me buddy….i have both….N900 is way cooler…..and just cuz u probably own an iphone doesnt require u to defend it so vehemently….calm ur ego….looser
cumon dude nw ur talking like kid listen properly a kid …do u aware of iphone real aware, i m sure ur nt thts why talking like this.
u can not do video conff or chat with iphone 4 to other device .
iphone 4 to iphone 4 in this case also many thngs u need wifi and connection session of IM who r providing this to iphone, then next batt then phone big screen small the nt a proper multitasking then locking thng(locked with carrier)…nw u grown up dnt shine like apple its just a name just enter in cell market dnt kne they way to grown up…just in learning period
cumon dude nw ur talking like a nipple kid listen properly a kid …do u aware of iphone real aware, i m sure ur nt thts why talking like this.
u can not do video conff or chat with iphone 4 to other device .
iphone 4 to iphone 4 in this case also many thngs u need wifi and connection session of IM who r providing this to iphone, then next batt then phone big screen small the nt a proper multitasking then locking thng(locked with carrier)…nw u grown up dnt shine like apple its just a name just enter in cell market dnt kne they way to grown up…just in learning period
lool, i like the way u talk, where u got those lines from ? pokemon ?
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, look at all that self confidence !!! umm uuuum
i’m soooo impressed and moved by those lines …holly shit, i have goosebumps everywhere, i think i peed a little bit too…
look, i’m gonna tell you something, take ur retarded iphone, make it vibrate (if it does have the option) and shave it down ur asshole :)
hello dear u know mac just has its name thts it whts so special abt iphone with mac can u tell me ..its just simple as nokia ….n it has the same boring style thts it…
You suck dear
m.google.com ??
Here we go… stupid rich boy
fuck u, u motherfucker. just mind ur language. asshole…..