Home » Mobile Phones
» Nokia » N900 » Articles
Nokia N900 Preview
14 Nov 2009
Nokia has been struggling to keep up with the other smartphones on the market in recent years. Whilst just a short time ago the N series of handsets offered the most powerful mobile platform around, competition from HTC, Samsung and Apple has left Nokia looking decidedly outdated. The biggest problem facing Nokia is not that of hardware and technology, but rather the Symbian operating platform. It looks somewhat creaky when compared to Android or even Windows Mobile and as such even the latest N97 suffers. However, with the N900 the mobile giant may finally be able to win back the hearts and minds of disillusioned customers.
The Nokia N900 is the first mobile phone to utilise a Linux-based mobile operating system, called Maemo 5. As such when it hits the market in late 2009 it will be the most powerful and versatile smartphone on the market. Indeed the N900 is being marketed as an internet tablet rather than a mobile phone, fitting in with the N800 and N810 before it. Unlike these older handsets the N900 is far more compact and pocket-friendly. It features a 3.5 inch touch screen display, but it also has a full QWERTY keypad that you can access if you slide the screen upwards. The screen has a high native resolution of 800x480 and is best used in a landscape position. This makes watching high quality movies and videos easy, as well as giving Nokia plenty of room to play with when laying out the menus and home screens.
The interface looks to be one of the biggest boosts achieved by the Linux platform. With a 600Mhz processor and nearly a gigabyte of RAM available to applications, the N900 could develop into one of the most powerful and highly featured mobile phones on the market. At the moment it seems that widgets and mobile applications will still be a key part of its functionality, it will just be able to perform better and offer more once the user base is there.
As you might expect from an internet tablet, the Nokia N900 has plenty of connectivity options. On top of the Wi-Fi and built in GPS with Ovi Maps pre-installed, it has HSDPA support and is one of the few phones to allow up to 10Mbps download speeds thanks to this technology.
The 5 megapixel camera is similar to other devices used on many Nokia handsets at the moment and with high resolution video capture possible it is also staying competitive if not re-inventing the photographic side of the smartphone market. You can at least use the GPS in conjunction with the camera to geotag your photos, although this is not a function unique to the N900.
Design-wise, the Nokia N900 is less remarkable. It is black all over and fairly hefty because of the advanced technology crammed into it. As with the N96, it has a little plastic kick stand on the rear that makes it easier to rest it on a flat surface and it also has a front mounted camera for video calling.
Because of its computing heritage and wide connectivity options the Nokia N900 will require regular recharging around every 2 days or so. This is because the N900 is really attempting to replace a laptop computer. The one issue this presents is the question of price. The N900 will cost around the same as a full sized laptop computer and will consequently outstrip the price of a netbook PC - twice over in some cases. It may struggle to find a market whilst the price is so high, although for business users the capabilities of a Linux mobile platform may prove to be attractive enough to warrant the purchase.
Nokia has been struggling to keep up with the other smartphones on the market in recent years. Whilst just a short time ago the N series of handsets offered the most powerful mobile platform around, competition from HTC, Samsung and Apple has left Nokia looking decidedly outdated. The biggest problem facing Nokia is not that of hardware and technology, but rather the Symbian operating platform. It looks somewhat creaky when compared to Android or even Windows Mobile and as such even the latest N97 suffers. However, with the N900 the mobile giant may finally be able to win back the hearts and minds of disillusioned customers.
The Nokia N900 is the first mobile phone to utilise a Linux-based mobile operating system, called Maemo 5. As such when it hits the market in late 2009 it will be the most powerful and versatile smartphone on the market. Indeed the N900 is being marketed as an internet tablet rather than a mobile phone, fitting in with the N800 and N810 before it. Unlike these older handsets the N900 is far more compact and pocket-friendly. It features a 3.5 inch touch screen display, but it also has a full QWERTY keypad that you can access if you slide the screen upwards. The screen has a high native resolution of 800x480 and is best used in a landscape position. This makes watching high quality movies and videos easy, as well as giving Nokia plenty of room to play with when laying out the menus and home screens.
The interface looks to be one of the biggest boosts achieved by the Linux platform. With a 600Mhz processor and nearly a gigabyte of RAM available to applications, the N900 could develop into one of the most powerful and highly featured mobile phones on the market. At the moment it seems that widgets and mobile applications will still be a key part of its functionality, it will just be able to perform better and offer more once the user base is there.
As you might expect from an internet tablet, the Nokia N900 has plenty of connectivity options. On top of the Wi-Fi and built in GPS with Ovi Maps pre-installed, it has HSDPA support and is one of the few phones to allow up to 10Mbps download speeds thanks to this technology.
The 5 megapixel camera is similar to other devices used on many Nokia handsets at the moment and with high resolution video capture possible it is also staying competitive if not re-inventing the photographic side of the smartphone market. You can at least use the GPS in conjunction with the camera to geotag your photos, although this is not a function unique to the N900.
Design-wise, the Nokia N900 is less remarkable. It is black all over and fairly hefty because of the advanced technology crammed into it. As with the N96, it has a little plastic kick stand on the rear that makes it easier to rest it on a flat surface and it also has a front mounted camera for video calling.
Because of its computing heritage and wide connectivity options the Nokia N900 will require regular recharging around every 2 days or so. This is because the N900 is really attempting to replace a laptop computer. The one issue this presents is the question of price. The N900 will cost around the same as a full sized laptop computer and will consequently outstrip the price of a netbook PC - twice over in some cases. It may struggle to find a market whilst the price is so high, although for business users the capabilities of a Linux mobile platform may prove to be attractive enough to warrant the purchase.
