Nokia N900: the future of mobile Internet devices

Tags: Maemo, MID, mobile internet, N900, nokia Categories: IT&C

Nokia N900 isn’t a new product as it was announced a few weeks ago already, but recently the Internet started to get full with reviews of the pre production model of the N900, a cross between an Internet Tablet (old Nokia series) and a MID (Mobile Internet Device). I say a cross mainly because the N900 has a 3.5 inch display, so it’s a little bit bigger than the Nokia N97, but has all the features of an Internet Tablet plus a phone function, making for a full mobile device.

From hardware point of view the Nokia N900 is an up to date device, featuring all the bells and whistles a mobile gadget has in 2009, but what sets it apart is the Maemo, a Linux derived operating system that runs everything on the N900. Maemo is Nokia’s bet on the future of their high end smartphones. They’ll stick to Symbian for their entry-level and mainstream devices, but the cherry top gets Maemo, an OS that puts special care on multitasking, connectivity, integration and multimedia.

Nokia N900 can be alredy pre-ordered from Amazon

A conversation on Nokia N900

Nokia N900 main hardware specs

ARM Cortex A8 superscalar CPU running at 600 MHz
1 GB applications memory (256 MB RAM + 768 virtual memory)
3D graphics accelerator chip with OpenGL ES 2.0 support
32 GB internal storage, expandable to up to 48 GB with an external microSD card
3.5 inch WVGA touchscreen display (resistive, with 800 x 480 pixels resolution)
Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3.5G HSDPA (10 Mbps download/2MBps upload maximum), WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS
5 megapixel digital camera with Carl Zeiss lens, dual LED flash and 800 x 480 video recording
Full screen browsing (Mozilla based browser) and Flash 9.4 support

Maemo 5 OS

As I said before, Maemo is the big change that makes the N900 a special device. It’s a Linux based OS that offers 4 virtual panels which can be easily accessed with a swipe of a finger. All 4 screens can be customized with widgets. The Dashboard is the place where you see what’s currently running on your device. You can focus on any running up from the dashboard.

The Mozilla based browser is said to function like a desktop browser so you’ll be able to visit the same websites with no difference whatsoever (well, minus lower the resolution). Contacts is one of the best applications on Maemo, as it integrates all of the contacting options for a friend in the same place. You just decide how you want to communicate with them. Search in contacts is very easy: slide open the keyboard and start typing the name of the person you’re looking for.

There’s also a possibility to share your status in various social networks like Ovi, Gtalk, Facebook, Twitter, all in one place. That’s a super powerful integration feature that I would love to use on Nokia N900. Images taken with the 5 megapixel camera can be tagged, edited, organized and shared online, so another plus here. The multimedia player is excelent, integrating music, video and Internet radio in one place. Everything can be of course synchronized with your computer.

Email support is great, like we are used to on a Nokia smartphone. There’s support for multiple mailboxes and Exchange servers. HTML email is ok couse on board. The Calendar application can be kept synchronized with your computer of work server, so we see unification once again. OVI maps come preinstalled on the Nokia N900 and benefit a lot from the high resolution screen