Nokia N900 Smartphone - Dining Room Table Reviews

*** UPDATED NEWS BELOW ***

Review of the Nokia N900 smartphone from my dining room table.

Now available as a 60 fps H.264/AAC download via BitTorrent.

720p: http://thecanadianpublic.com/torrents/NokiaN900Review720p60Final.m4v.torrent (186 MB)
1080p: http://thecanadianpublic.com/torrents/NokiaN900Review1080p60Final.m4v.torrent (453 MB)

Music by Kevin MacLeod, http://incompetech.com .

"Operation IVY" and "The Last Man on Earth" available at http://archive.org .

*** UPDATED NEWS ***

The issue with the MicroUSB connector breaking off as previously reported by Engadget ( http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/10/nokia-n900-micro-usb-connectors-prone-to-f... ) appears to have been mainly an isolated incident since no further reports have come in about the problem. Also, I've have accidentally jerked the cable on my phone more than once, and the connector hasn't budged at all.

Skype Video has been working on the phone since last Spring, a month before iPhone released their "face plant" feature which by the way only works on their Wi-Fi connection. The N900 doesn't have this limitation, but watch out for your phone provider's data caps!

Dumped Firefox Mobile. The phone's built-in browser must be the first built-in browser to be preferred over third-party browsers. Nokia did a great job with this one.

A switch for the phone's radio is available. Install "Cellular Modem Control Buttons" from the Application Manager, press the power button, and switch between Tablet Mode and Phone Mode. Hopefully, Nokia will release something less cryptic that will work from within the status area popup window alongside the other radio switches (WLAN, Bluetooth).

Our channel's N900 compatible live broadcast feed can be viewed with the kmlayer app pointing at http://38.104.152.86:11285 .

The FM transmitter's signal strength can be increased with the "FM Boost" app, but its overall effect on the phone as well as its legality are unknown at this time. This doesn't change my opinion on the transmitter's sound quality though since I was able to obtain a clean signal during my evaluation.

*** WHAT I'D LIKE ***

- Inbox counters on the email accounts page, including both total and new message counts.

- Auto BCC function to send a copy of my replies back to my email account at the office.

- Custom ringtones for individuals contacts.

- Better labeled switch for the GSM radio. At least the feature is available.

- MMS if possible. I don't use it myself, but others do.

- A clock radio.

- Volume control on the alarm clock. With some audio clips, the alarm can be a bit too loud. Also need to cancel the progressive volume increase. My preferred alarm audio clip already does this.

- Samba client with GUI interface. I still have to use IP addresses to connect to foreign servers, and it's annoying.

- Media navigation and playback by order of directory and file names.

- Auto playback of the next video clip upon completion of the current video clip, just like the audio clips.

- Minimize the video player while a video is playing so I can do other things. Nokia, remember to turn off the video decoding while the player is minimized. That will save a ton of battery power.

- Manual aspect ratio control. All the popular ones including 2.35:1 will be sufficient.

- Auto-reconnect in the network interface as well as in the media players. The Internet isn't that reliable yet.

- Portrait mode support is getting better, but is still lacking.

The phone is already a year old now, so it's doubtful any of these improvements will ever see the light of day, which is too bad. There's still no other phone out there that can match its geek factor.

As far as the iPhone is concerned, I've tried it in the store. It's more a toy than a serious productivity tool, just like my iPad.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Nokia
• N900
• smartphone
• phone
• cell
• mobile
• review
• dining
• room
• table
• ssl
• vlc
• vim
• vnc
• openvpn
• vpn
• angry
• computer
• man

[wicked1337zn]

it s 10 am...where the fuck are you?

[TheCanadianPublic]

@wicked1337zn Hah! I almost forgot that one! I almost asked you what the heck you were talking about! LOL!

[MidnightrambIer3760]

I was one of the first owner of this phone when it first came out, (ordered months prior to its first release) but I never knew about the FM radio application. All I ever used was the pre-installed Internet Radio.

How do I get the FM Radio application?

[TheCanadianPublic]

@MidnightrambIer3760 Connect to the Internet, open the Application Manager and search for "FM Radio Player". It MIGHT be in the Extras-Development or Extras-Testing repositories, but don't worry. It works fine.

[onnu23]

what app did you download for that calculator? the one at 6:44

[TheCanadianPublic]

@onnu23 AlmostTI Graphing Calc Emulator, available under the Science category of the Application Manager.

[GEMBALLLA]

hay man this is definitely THE BEST phone review i have ever seen

[andre3wap]

I love your work man!!! keep going!!!!!!!!!!

[gwald]

i've got a 32g micro sd card... so your video is wrong ;)

[MsMcdrum5]

thanks men it doesn''t work

[tural072]

i loved thish vide it is wonderfuullll

[wrinkledmind]

very good presentation and specially in the second half.

[polo99a9]

@TheCanadianPublic

it maemo

[0ZPLATINUMZ0]

there is nothing i didn't see it about the phone in this review !!

great job .....

[TheCanadianPublic]

@ChanAldrick No. I'm just saying that Symbian is a dead OS. With iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 out there, Symbian is old and dated. It has to die.