At the end of the recording, in part 3, we talk about what Nokia have done with the N900. It certainly makes me think even harder about my 3-device strategy and for anyone already convinced of the need for convergences, this is the device for you. Street prices are already down by 100 euro in Europe so at 499 you’re looking at one of the most impressive MIDs on the market. A second, larger screen version would probably convince most people out there that Nokia have chosen both a superb platform and developed a stable and well-grounded operating system that’s not just for geeks. The start-up and usability experience has been very well refined.
I can report that we had one browser lock-up in the 4 hours we were active with the device but that resolved itself without a reboot. There were no other software bugs or crashes. (Note: That browser lock-up remains the only bug I’ve found in 4 days of use.)
With firmware updates planned for this year and next and with the developer community already pushing apps into the Maemo channels, things can only get better for the N900.
The three videos below are server captures from Ustream.TV that have been pushed over to YouTube. Quality suffers but at the moment we don’t have a higher quality way to record the sessions. We’re working on that though and I think you’ll find the current videos OK to watch until we find a better way. Give yourself 2.5hrs to watch all three!
Part 1 Hardware overview and discussion.
Software Part 1.
Software Part 2.
Pages: 1 2
Nokia N900 Live Session Notes, Impressions, Videos (2.5hrs) #maemo http://cli.gs/qndsr
RT @chippy: Nokia N900 Live Session Notes, Impressions, Videos (2.5hrs) #maemo http://cli.gs/qndsr
RT @chippy Nokia N900 Live Session Notes, Impressions, Videos (2.5hrs) #maemo http://cli.gs/qndsr
RT @chippy: Nokia N900 Live Session Notes, Impressions, Videos (2.5hrs) #maemo http://cli.gs/qndsr
Nokia N900 Live Session Notes, Impressions, Videos (2.5hrs) http://bit.ly/2LFMv
RT @chippy: Nokia N900 Live Session Notes, Impressions, Videos (2.5hrs) #maemo http://cli.gs/qndsr
I was kidding myself by thinking I could live with such a small screen. I think jkk hit it right on when he said if it had the same or similar size screen as the n810 he would be more tempted to buy one. It gets frustrating on my viliv s5 viewing some web content. I dont want to image now what it would be like on the n900. I was so sold/impressed watching the videos. Then at the end you guys crushed my hopes. By explaining the pitfalls of a device like the screen size and such. With no 3g coverage where i live. I guess i should stick to my two gadget setup. First gen iphone and this viliv s5. Maybe soon we will have a device with a 4+ in screen that have full flash and will fit in a pocket nicely. I want to end this by saying thank you so much to steve and jkk for doing these shows and giving us your honest opinions on these devices.
This is a smartphone and not a umpc. You could buy a HTC HD2 that has 4.3″ screen but HTC Sense UI can’t compete with Maemo integration and wont be capable to do so any time soon because of mobile providers requiring locked interface (HTC has no SDK for UI). I currently have old HTC TyTn2, the phone has 2.8″ screen. Screen is cramped but it is enough for the things i operate on it (server monitoring). Currently i think N900 is the best thing after the sliced bread in SMARTPHONE segment, Nokia can market it how ever they want it but n900 is still a “classical” smartphone trailing HTC flagship TouchPro2 device only in keyboard and number of 3rd party applications.
Hopefully if the N900 is successful Nokia is going to make a range of devices using Maemo. A ~4-4.5″ screen (with minimal bezel) and telephony features intact would serve me best, but we all have different dream devices.
At the very least Maemo looks like it’s capable of scaling to different form factors.
I agree that this is a huge step forward for Maemo more so than a smart phone with broad appeal. I really am interested in seeing what happens with this whole deal.
Dear god, Chippy. It went around 5 hours. My eyes were useless afterwards.
There must be some way to go back to the old UStream chat method. This new one is just too buggy.
First person who mentions “IRC Client” dies.
The current session is actually an IRC client – Web based.
We are trying to find a new chat method.
I just finished watching them all. Great stuff. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a smartphone watch a flash-based livecast in realtime before.
Wow, great job guys. I think this phone is overkill for average SmartPhone users. =) I been thinking about getting a smart phone this whole year and have compared several phones and by far this phone looks the most promising. I just wanted a smart phone that could browse the web like my ipod touch 2g, but not be an iphone. The end of the 2.5 hour intro to N900 was pretty depressing but then again this is coming from hardcore UMPC geeks and not from regular SmartPhone users. I agree that next year the successor will be for the mass b/c it would have a bigger screen that is capacitive, have a xenon flash and have a full qwerty keyboard and better software but till then I don’t see anything that comes close to bringing the full convergence of devices. Its funny how devices are merging and the line between them are blurring.
This phone definitely has gotten me thinking, can this phone replace my ipod touch’s web browser experience and my compact digital camera, plus make be good at being a phone? I think the phone can, but maybe it can’t replace your UMPC. That’s it! Nokia wants to sell the N900 as a mobile computer but it’s more like the best SmartPhone merging into a the best mobile computer. So what this means is that the future of the complete merger depends heavily on the success of the N900, so to me this means support for many years after it is released. Sounds pretty good to me! I am getting the phone but to be a SmartPhone + replace my ipod touch and compact digital camera.
I think this device is impressive enough to make me wanna sell my Gigabyte T1028 and get a N900 and a Notebook with 15-17 inch screen and some hardcore processing power. That really seems like a good and complete combo. At the moment I’m on Nokia N85 for calls, email viewing, gps, pics, video and share online. Netbook for mobile web and basic computing and replying to email. Desktop for the CPU. I have the sneaking suspition that the N900 is going to completely re-order my life. Woohoo!! I like!!!