Maemo Summit - N900 info

[spyda]

Info from Maemo summit currently taking place ..

Maemo Summit Liveblog Day 1 Courtesy of thenokiablog.com

Not sure I like the sound of some of what's being said. Couple of things jump out at me from the summit so far.

Seems to me that the N900 is little more than a test bed for Maemo. Maemo 5 at that with 6 just around the corner (Q1 / Q2 2010 maybe). New h/w required for Maemo 6 so the N900 will become old tech?

Multitouch coming in a capacitive sreen. Nokia working on this but not possible in N900.

One positive point is that portrait browsing is on the horizon (Xmas time). Though I am not sure if this will carry over into the o/s also.

Full support forportrait and landscape in a maemo 6 comcept UI. Does that mean there is no intention to add this to Maemo 5 - maybe it's not possibe?

All speculation but the coverage from the guys at the event makes interesting reading.

Each of the participants of the Maemo Summit will be loaned a N900 for 6 months - guess we should get some decent reviews soon then, although I hope they are honest reviews and not made from a Nokia fanboy perspective. We want to know the good AND the bad this time!

[maclondon]

well maemo 6 was always around the corner, back at when the n900 was announced it was said to be the next step to 6 which will be the biggie. But realistically thats a year away.

[Sp00k]

Neat link Spyda! :)

Some useful info there, I notice the pics from 'thenokiablog' are taken with the N900, it's coping extremely well with the indoor shots!

[roberth]

well this one caught my attention....did he say 1500mah battery? trying to confirm this

http://tinyurl.com/yjfezrz

[Sp00k]

Nope, 'fraid not Robert, the battery can be seen to be marked BL-5J, same as the 5800... 1320mAh 3.7v :(

[buxz777]

intresting stuff

good post

makes you wander if its worth skipping the n900 with better things maemo just round the corner

think ill sit this one out after the n97 iam treading more carefully , alot of people missed alot of things with the n97 its good to see nokia releasing fixes for these problems but it has taken them around 5-6 months to do so and still not all n97s are shipping with the new backplate yet

i just hope the n900 doesnt have any big problems like this for all the people wishing to buy it

i think the battery may struggle and be like the n95 was , it seems alot of device to power on the 5800 battery

i hope it turns out good it certainly looks quite promising depending on the timescale of maemo 6

[roberth]

well im still getting the n900 and knowing nokia...maemo 6 wont be til
august next year prob....so a good few months using the n900
about the battery its is 1320....had me all excited for nothing!

[pseudofinn]

Having spent a couple of days with the device myself last month, I can confirm two things-

1320 mAh battery (swapped a dead N900 battery with my 5800 actually, same thing)

It does, IMO, much better than the N97 in low light conditions. I'm sure you've also heard that the lens scratching issue has been resolved with the N900.


The very few things I don't like about the device so far are-

Screen size- I know it's been cut down from the 4.3" screen of the previous tablets to make it a more pocketable device, since it's no longer a 'companion device'- but it's MUCH smaller than the N800/810 that I've become used to with Maemo.

No Bluetooth tethering. Again, I get that it's a stand alone handset now- but I don't know why it's been forced into this role for those who wish to continue to use the Maemo product line as a companion device. Great- add a GSM chip, but why kill the basic connectivity option that every Nokia Internet Tablet has had thus far? I could go on and on about this all day long- but I'm spent on attempting to champion this effort (seemingly) alone. :-/

Compared to the N800 and N810- the kick stand is a piece of junk. It's the same thing you find on the N96- and I feel like I'm gonna break it if I operate even the touchscreen while the kickstand is in use. The previous tablets had a metallic bar that ran 3/4 of the way up each side and all the way along the bottom. With the N810, they even added the ability to position it at multiple angles. The fact that the weak, tiny variant of this feature is positioned to one side of the N900 (around the camera) makes it a balancing act to just prop the thing up at times. If it's not a flat surface, forget about it. It's better than nothing, but it's a joke compared to the previous tablets.

Looking forward to hearing a lot more about this device in the coming weeks as they pass through the developers' (and a couple of bloggers') hands. Just like Spyda- very much looking forward to hearing (constructive) negative feedback as well.

From what little time I've played with it- I'm really digging the N900. Some shortcomings for sure, but so far it's looking REALLY good. The new software is leaps ahead of the previous tablets.

[ynwa]

Not knowing much about batteries, can someone tell me is there a physical size difference in the 1500mah battery and the 1320 battery? I take it there is, other wise they would just put the 1500 in.

[pseudofinn]

You assume correctly; there is a considerable size difference-





Interestingly enough (I suppose)- that 1500mAh on the right was taken from my N810 (same as E71, E90 and N97). That's something that concerns me. The N810 gets about 7-8 hours solid use, with WiFi. I can't imagine the N900 with a GSM chip operating the entire time as well is going to be a lot better. It does have a considerably smaller screen though- which might eat up much less battery.

We'll find out about the battery life soon enough. It's not much to go off, but when I spent a couple of days with the N900 last month, the battery life didn't seem obviously sub-par. This was with a proto and final hardware, but early software.

We'll see soon enough though...