The seven reasons why you should buy Nokia’s N900
By The Prodigal Fool, published on 19 April 2010
#1 The N900 is cool
The iPhone is state of the art industrial design. Really superb. But nowadays, it’s also completely ubiquitous. When every other person you encounter is clutching the wonder phone from Cupertino, there is something very cool indeed about the more butch, the more rugged-looking N900. True, it’s bulky and the slide out keyboard has an air of geekiness about it but we think the whole thing looks great and benefits hugely from being ‘the anti-iPhone.’
#2 Browsing is peerless
On the N900, two little details collide to deliver the absolute best browsing experience on any mobile device: the 800 pixel wide screen and the amazing browser with full Flash functionality. What this means is that you very rarely have to scroll left or right and that YouTube videos et al run right there in the web page as they would on your desktop. We think browsing on the iPhone is pretty near perfect. This is better. It’s as close as you’re going to get to a desktop experience.
#3 It returns your freedom to you
If you’ve been using an iPhone for a while, it’s all too easy to forget how prescriptive it is. A few days with the N900 reminds you what it’s like to be free. Really free. Want to change the background picture on your homepage? No problem! Want to download some 3rd party, un-tested software? Hell, it’s your phone, go right ahead. Want to configure your four desktop screens to provide all the information and shortcuts that matter to you? The N900 is geared up to it. Want to install a completely different operating system on your device? OK, if you must. No doubt about it, if you’re a bit of a geek like us and enjoy tinkering with your devices, you’ll love the N900 and the almost unlimited freedom it provides.
#4 Multimedia is a joy
The simple but effective combination of the kick-stand that allows the device to be placed on a desk and the nice loud stereo speakers means that the N900 is a very capable portable multimedia player. A detail perhaps but we were impressed by this aspect of the device. And when it comes to creating multimedia, you get the same great Carl Zeis optics and flash as on other high-end Nseries devices. You’ll hear people gripe that Nokia didn’t upgrade the camera. Why would they? The N900’s 5 megapixel camera ain’t broke so Nokia wisely decided not to fix it. It produces excellent results, which we would say are closer in quality to our N86 than the N97 mini we trialed a few weeks ago.
#5 You can’t beat a good physical keyboard
Clever though on-screen keyboards are, they’re still no substitute for a physical keyboard and – although it looks like it’s going to be a pig when you first slide it out – the N900’s is very good indeed. True, it’s only three rows. True, its space bar is oddly positioned off-centre. But none of that matters once you’ve been using it for a day or so. The keys have good feedback and are individually slightly raised. They’re very nice indeed to type on.
#6 The operating system is both effective and gorgeous
People who are familiar with S60 – or any other operating system for that matter – will have to get used to the Maemo OS. And it does take some getting used to. But once you’ve invested a day or two in familiarising yourself with how it all works, you’ll discover one of the best mobile OS on the planet. It has some clever UI touches (going back by simply pressing anywhere in the background, for example) and some gorgeous design (the way the transitions work and the application going out of focus to draw your eye to a dialogue box, for example.)
#7 Multi-tasking makes everything better
We’re not big into music streaming or anything else really that needs to be running in the background but there’s one thing that multi-tasking delivers that does matter to us: speed. The ability to quickly go from one task to another without worrying about closing one application, finding the next, opening it, is a joy. It also adds to the overwhelming impression that the N900 absolutely oozes: that of being a supremely powerful device.
In short
The N900 is the most powerful, most capable, mobile device on the market today. Full stop. Nothing comes close. It’s a peerless internet browsing device that doesn’t nanny you like the iPhone and offers you both the freedom to tinker with your device as you see fit and a welcome alternative from a hardware perspective which, to our eyes, looks way cooler than the ubiquitous iPhone 3GS.
Then again, we can think of seven reasons why you should avoid Nokia’s N900.
The seven reasons why you should buy Nokia’s N900
#1 The N900 is cool The iPhone is state of the art industrial design. Really superb. But nowadays, it’s also completely ubiquitous. When every other person you encounter is clutching the wonder phone from Cupertino, there is something very cool indeed about the more butch, the more rugged-looking N900. True, it’s bulky and the slide [...]
6 Responses to “The seven reasons why you should buy Nokia’s N900”
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Owen
20 April 2010
The landscape/portrait issue is much imporved after the latest update.
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That’s what I hear – but it’s still not universal is it?
You see, I think that a phone (i.e., an ultra-mobile device) needs to be able to perform almost every task one-handed. Otherwise, it can’t really be called a phone.
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mwm9999
20 April 2010
i have n900 ,, i really love it but the battery is SH**
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I wouldn’t describe it as shit. It’s not the best around but no worse than iPhone or N97 mini in terms of how long it will last you in normal use.
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cdhamz
2 June 2010
Lol.. ders definitely one phone dat beats n900, its HTC HD2 n i own it haha..
An intriguing N900 review « WOMWorld/Nokia
20 April 2010
[...] and quirks in usage such as the landscape/portrait issue. To counter-balance this, though, the positive post highlights the ‘cool’ aura, the ‘peerless’ browsing and the freedom it gives [...]