N900 Hands-on from Nokia World

Posted on 02 September 2009, Last updated on 03 September 2009 by

I’m sure we’ll see tens of these videos before Nokia World is over but here’s the first one.

Slightly out of focus but looking very very smooth indeed. JKK and I agree that that rotation zoom gesture is horrible ;-)

Another video here.

Makarus has a nice set of photos coming through from Nokia World too. (Also part of a post from The Nokia Blog)

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12:46: Slashgear now have a hands-on video and photo set available. Here. “…the keyboard is compact but tactile, though we’re still not keen on the offset space-bar.”

15:34: Phone Arena have posted some videos. The N900 video is in Russian Bulgarian (sorry!) but again you get an idea of how fluid the UI is. A very short browsing demo is also included.

16:31: One of the best Maemo video overviews so far. A live demo at The Nokia Blog

19:30: Slashgear sat down with Ari Jaaksi of Nokia. There’s some interesting information about the N900 including USB mass storage mode, the Maemo 5 to Maemo6 upgrade path, over-the-air upgrades and a target 1-day connected usage battery life. Read the full article here.

26 Comments For This Post

  1. Steve 'Chippy' Paine says:

    New article: First N900 Hands-on from Nokia World http://cli.gs/n8zQa

  2. Balazs Gal says:

    RT @chippy: New article: First N900 Hands-on from Nokia World http://cli.gs/n8zQa

  3. Jack Schofield says:

    RT @chippy First N900 Hands-on from Nokia World http://cli.gs/n8zQa [YouTube video; Linux phone; multi-tasking; keyboard]

  4. luis antónio santos says:

    RT @jackschofield: RT @chippy First N900 Hands-on from Nokia World http://cli.gs/n8zQa [YouTube video; Linux phone; multi-tasking; keyboard]

  5. Patrick says:

    I like online contact management very much! Have to agree that rotation zoom feature sucks, 3 row keyboard is also something i don’t like but it is a nice punch in one small form factor.

  6. Marc says:

    Nokia UK online shop is reporting the price as £499 including VAT.

  7. Kam says:

    I tried the offset spacebar on a friends N97 & its actually ok. I kind of like it as it falls naturally to my right thumb. Would’ve been nice if it had another row of keys though.

    Been using WinMo for a fair few years now as it does everything I need & more. Nokia’s S60 was hateful but this is a completely different kettle of fish. I’ve never wanted a phone so much since Apple released the iPhone (but then being disappointed straight afterwards when I discovered it didn’t do this, didn’t have that, not allowed to do this).

    Roll on the release day.

  8. Carl says:

    Of course, the N900 doesn’t have an MMS stack or FM radio software (at least yet), so do prepare yourself for at least a few little disappointments.

  9. Kam says:

    I don’t listen to radio & don’t do MMS , so no disappointments there.

  10. Carl says:

    I think many people would be in a similar boat. I don’t think I’ve *ever* sent an MMS now that I think about it. I’m not exactly jumping with joy about loosing radio, though, Still, the hardware supports it so someone just needs to write the software.

  11. turn.self.off says:

    the mms thing is confusing, as nokia claims they needed to do things with the kernel, yet google have mms from the go, with no kernel patching that i could find.

    as for the radio, if the driver is similar to the n800 i suspect that boafm will be a quick port ;)

  12. Carl says:

    Wouldn’t it be the stack, rather than the kernel itself? Well, I could be wrong, I’m far from an expert of linux.

    I think Google uses some closed-source code to make MMS work on Android. Openmoko has completely open source telephony and txt, though, so maybe that could be ported over.

    I guess we need a linux expert in here to explain the finer points.

  13. Patrick says:

    @Chippy & @JKK – ask them when will they implement physical 5 row qwerty keyboard!!? Someone has to voice that question!

  14. animatio says:

    it is time and again annoying to see ingenineers and designers f***K up good concepts by such quircks like this keyboard. it actually only lacks 1 row and things would have been fine. after so many years of practical eperience and expert reviews one thing should have become clear to the dumbest of these guys: some things are human intrinsic and cannot be “improved” each time.
    thus a no go for me at any prize.

  15. turn.self.off says:

    physical size constraints, so that it would be easier to hold while in phone “mode”.

  16. nickjay says:

    The device and the OS look bloody great.
    My question is on e interoperability/sync of the contacts, tasks and calender not to exchange, but to Google. The videos shows contacts from GTalk, but what about a true contacts/tasks/calendar sync ?

  17. turn.self.off says:

    either in the box, or will be implemented shortly by the community if possible. there are some big users of google services there.

  18. REMF says:

    it does look awesome, but i’m fighting shy of the price because i don’t like contracts.

  19. HG says:

    Can it be paired to Bluetooth to connect using BTDun?

  20. turn.self.off says:

    not at the moment, but someone is sure to take a long hard look at that (and other ways to share connectivity) obes its start shipping.

  21. OpenMitko says:

    “The N900 video is in Russian but …” Excuse me, but the video is in Bulgarian!

  22. Chippy says:

    As I was watching the video I was thinking that the language sounded a bit rounded for Russian. Thanks for the correction. Sorry Bulgarians and Russians!

  23. Kam says:

    Just thought of something that might prevent me from getting the N900. That is native built in East Asian language support such as Chinese, Thai & Japanese. I remember the N800 & 810 had to installed the CJK package which was workable but not perfect (didn’t have Thai fonts)…

    Hmmm

  24. Dave says:

    You pirated this video from http://thenokiablog.com/

    Love the N900! Will get one as soon as it comes to USA.

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