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A Multifaceted Communications And Entertainment Device, Leveraging Open Standards...
Xand0r
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
...To Seize On The Ubiquity Of Digital Media.
http://maemo.nokia.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au_uRmoy8Fs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP5R-5NX1BE
The Nokia N900 is the first mobile phone to run the sweet Maemo (GNU+Linux based) OS. What does that mean? It means that tens of thousands of Free and Open Source software developers have been collaborating to bring you an All-In-One mobile device that meets all the needs of the ditigal era.
Take a look at these specs and features:
http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/specifications/
I've been hesitant to buy a Smart Phone because so many of them are bogged down with DRM limitations which hinder what you can do. This thing is a Phone, a Video Camera, a Digital Camera, a GPS, a Web Browser, a Music Player, and a Video Player. It's a phone sized computer with open standards.
This thing can't come out soon enough.
Seeing as this is my first post, and it sounds like an advertisement, let me prove my PA devotion with this offering!
http://maemo.nokia.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au_uRmoy8Fs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP5R-5NX1BE
The Nokia N900 is the first mobile phone to run the sweet Maemo (GNU+Linux based) OS. What does that mean? It means that tens of thousands of Free and Open Source software developers have been collaborating to bring you an All-In-One mobile device that meets all the needs of the ditigal era.
Take a look at these specs and features:
http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/specifications/
- 3.5 inch touch-sensitive widescreen display
- 800 × 480 pixel resolution
- 32 GB internal storage
- Up to 16 GB of additional storage with an external microSD card
- Mozilla-based browser with Flash support
- 5 MegaPixel Camera
- DVD quality Video Recorder
- Video playback file formats: .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp; codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263
- Music playback file formats: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
- Ring tones: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
- Bulit in FM transmitter for listening in your car
- GPS
- QWERTY tactile keyboard and touchscreen keyboard as well.
- Loads of software and other features too
I've been hesitant to buy a Smart Phone because so many of them are bogged down with DRM limitations which hinder what you can do. This thing is a Phone, a Video Camera, a Digital Camera, a GPS, a Web Browser, a Music Player, and a Video Player. It's a phone sized computer with open standards.
This thing can't come out soon enough.
Seeing as this is my first post, and it sounds like an advertisement, let me prove my PA devotion with this offering!
Xand0r on
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In terms of power, the n900 obviously has the iPhone beat (and seeing as it's thicker than a stack of them, it better be), and if the browser is WebKit-based, it'll probably have a better web experience (also: wooooo Flash!!). And it looks like they've really put a lot of work into redesigning and upgrading Maemo's UI, and it looks like they may finally have a good PIM suite. It is so tempting to wait this one out.
The reason I'm probably still going to get an iPhone, though, is simple: the apps. I followed Maemo for awhile when I was considering getting one of the earlier n-Series tablets, and there really wasn't much out there at all. Even if the n900 catches on somewhat, I just can't see useful things like the CTA bus app coming out for it.
The one thing that might make me wait is if T-mobile is likely to allow tethering with it (TM is assumed to be the US carrier for it because it can do 1700MHz GSM). Then I could just use iPhone apps on my iPod Touch while browsing on the n900, which would be so awesome I wouldn't even care that I looked like a tool while doing it.
PSN:RevDrGalactus/NN:RevDrGalactus/Steam
（ ´∀｀）＜ オマエモナー
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｜ ｜ |
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Another sweet video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhTtsZATwBQ
It probably could, easily. Moreover, it could probably be compatible with Android applications, given that both are open source.
Don't tempt me, boy!
Shit yes. Please tell me they're selling this thing with no carrier-exclusivity.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Good news: Nokia means you'll inevitably find it available through an official channel, unlocked.
Bad news: You'll pay twice, once for the whole, unsubsidized handset, then again because your monthly subscription has a handset subsidy built into it (unless you live somewhere awesome where the carriers actually have a lower rate for "bring your own phone" service).
PSN:RevDrGalactus/NN:RevDrGalactus/Steam
Today marks the 8th month since it's announcement and well, I bought mine about two weeks ago. I'm not sure if any of you are still considering or even have one to discuss, but I thought I'd at least share my thoughts on it.
<SUBJECTIVE>Why didn't I initially pick the iPhone or an Android-running phone? I don't like the bells & whistles on the iPhone interface because I'd rather it move me from point A to point B instead of animating it while bringing me to B. It also can't (well, couldn't, I think it can now) multitask. Android, while cool and backed by Google, didn't have any hardware that I really liked besides the Nexus One and, as dumb as it might be, I just didn't want to get what everyone else had. And the application store was not a draw in either case for me because I'd perused both stores and felt like the majority of the applications weren't very practical. I realize you can argue back and forth, but I really just liked all of the Nokia handsets I've had in the past and missed it and wanted to go back. I've been on a dumb phone forever and figured it was time to take the plunge. </SUBJECTIVE>
The n900 is a portable internet device first and a phone second. When browsing sites, I don't get the pansy mobile version, I always get the full version of a site and the n900 handles it fine. It only ever chokes on internet video, but man, it's at a pretty high resolution considering the phone's actual resolution, I don't really blame it. It handles multi-tasking really well, think of the ALT-TAB functionality on most desktop OSes; it's like that with toggling and the ability to close windows from there. The applications that are available tend to be user-made by the open source community, and because of that, some of the n900's functionality is user derived.
There are a few downsides to it, like the lack of native functionality. Specifically lacking MMS support, broken USSD support, the lack of a screensaver.. However, there are user made applications to fix the first two and because they were developed by the community, they're being rolled into the next OS patch, which should be pretty great! It also doesn't have native vertical support for a lot of applications, which is a bit of a bummer, but I find the phone easier to use horizontally anyways. And lastly, the battery life does bother me. It's not that different from the iPhone or Nexus One's battery life. What it comes down to is, if I turn off constant 3g-searching, bluetooth and wifi scanning (had to get an application for this one), my battery lasts a few days without a problem. I don't have 3g at all where I work, so that was killing my battery, but while I'm at home I tend to leave the features on as they don't cause a problem.
I bought mine from one of the only Nokia stores in the USA, as I don't live too far from it. Otherwise you'll probably have to buy it online. It's unlocked and worked fine with AT&T (I had no data plan then) and I switched to Tmobile the next day because I wanted better reception and a proper data plan in my area. Thus far, it's great! No dropped calls yet, except with AT&T customers, no extra fees for using the phone. The device isn't quite as fast as the video makes you think, but it's not what I would call slow. The ARM Cortex-A8 processor throws its weight around fine and the OS is stable. I've had one webpage crash because of a strange flash implementation, but my phone remained stable after killing the browser. Oh, right, the n900 supports flash, it's awesome.
These are just my thoughts after 2 weeks of use, and I didn't plan on doing a formal review for it or anything. There's a bunch of them out there if you want to google for it. But I'll happily answer questions, etc. or would love to hear what anyone else thought about it.
What this might mean is that in the near future Nokia will drop support on the Maemo platform.
I think I will buy one. If anyone else is also tempted as easily as myself, well it turns out you can buy on of these unlocked from Dell Small Bussiness store for $419 with this coupon code: 0187GT1T9QXHC9 Coupon expires May 19th, don't know if that means ON the 19th, or on the 20th, but I will be putting in my purchase later today.
I'm excited.
It does with XTerminal and you can give yourself root access to do as you please.
Man. I saw the announcements and whatnot for MeeGo but I couldn't really make sense of it. I think I may have just read all the wrong press releases.
EDIT:
Link to a primary developer's post regarding Maemo and MeeGo.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=538094
TL;DR
Nokia builds its applications off the QT framework, which means that applications built on this platform will probably work in either operating system. And there's still a pretty good community of developers so it's not like the n900 will just keel over and die. Also, take note that the n900 is an open device, even if you don't like MeeGo, Maemo is still around and it works just fine and still has developers playing on it. And really, the big thing about the OS is providing drivers for the hardware and Nokia has been flexible about this in the past, the n900 is too great a device for them to just kill support without any real warning.