So I have had the N900 in my hands for about 4 days now. I received it on Tuesday from Amazon and inserted my microSDHC, SIM, and battery (had to later take out battery and re-insert SIM since I inserted the SIM incorrectly resulting in it not detecting the SIM) and quickly went to work testing it for known hardware defects such as:

-defective microphone
-dead pixels
-TV out problems

Glad to see there was none of these issues. I then began setting up contact information and my chat accounts (only GTalk, Skype for the moment). I then powered it off and charged the device.

It had a full battery before I went to bed so I decided to leave it on but off the charger overnight to see how the battery would last (in retrospect a bad idea since this could have potentially backfired on me since I have a busy Wednesday that wouldn't give me much time to charge the device if needed). Surprisingly over the period of 6-7 hours the battery only lost 1/4th of its full charge while being connected to EDGE/2.5 (I don't get 3G in my rural hometown) while everything was online.

- no reboots (haven't installed any applications yet though, just added contacts and accounts, and played with settings)

I then left the phone on (using it occasionally to take a picture and browse the web using 3G and 3.5G inbetween my short breaks between classes). It was only about 6 hours later (12 hours total away from charger) that I then decided to charge the device since it was reaching 1/4th battery left. And I also needed to use it as USB storage since I forgot my flash drive at home.

- called girlfriend to see what we should eat for dinner
- no reboots (installed several applications from extras using campus wireless network)
- long battery life
- bluetooth headphones work well. However due to the design of my headphones, play/pause/stop are all on the same button. o.O. The N900 just receives pause and pressing that button again will do nothing. Oh well, I figure that's a result of my headphone's design.

Went to my [undergraduate] Alma Mater to see my girlfriend like I usually do and showed her, her new "competition". I'm a bit of a "geek" in that I love electronics. So her rival for attention is not other girls, but other electronics. Before the N900 she considered the n800 her main rival since I spent nearly as much time with the n800 as I did with her.

Showed her the device (she jokingly threatened to smash it with a hammer) and commented on my poor job of putting on the screen protector. I need to order another one or request a replacement..I did a really bad job putting it on. She said she would do it since this was 2/2 times I messed up with screen protectors (first time was on the n800).

Went over to my sister's dorm and stayed there for the night. Plugged my N900 into her desktop to charge (I had left my AC charger at home) and slept on the air bed.

Next day, uh oh. I realized I made a stupid mistake. Desktop and Laptops don't charge USB devices when you shut them down (unlike game consoles like the XBOX 360 and Sony PS3 which go into sleep mode when you "shut them down" so you can still charge USB devices).

The N900 only had 1/2 a charge left after being left on my Alma Mater's wireless network all night (about 6-7 hours). At this time I had setup one of my IMAP email accounts (that was polling every hour), accounts (Gtalk, Skype, SIPP) were on.

Chatted to my girlfriend for a little while, and then powered it off while I went to work for two hours and then went my one class afterwards. Charged it for a little while after class, while waiting for the review session that started an hour later (final exams are next week). Later went back to Alma Mater, ate dinner there, charged device at sister's dorm for about two hours (bringing it to about a 3/4th charge). And then went over to my friend who lived in a nearby apartment area for my friends' belt dying ceremony (they had recently went up a rank in the martial arts we do. I would have too if I had time to actually come to practice and practice.. oh well). Took lots of pictures and video and found:

- no reboots
- received a few gtalk messages, emails, and SIPP and regular phone calls
- The N900 does not handle low light pictures that well (noise and a little blurry if people move). Flash was used often if the lighting wasn't strong enough.
- Video randomly lowers frames per second

Battery was still around 3/4th full. About 3-4 hours later I left and went back to my sister's dorm to go to bed. Plugged the device into her laptop (which she left on this time) and made sure the N900 had a full charge since I cannot plug USB devices into the computers at work (government does not appreciate it).

Overall a pretty positive experience so far. No reboots, no microphone issues (I really do think it's a hardware defect for those that have those issues if they have not installed anything on their tablet).

Now things I noticed:

- if your in an area that can lose cellular signal (e.g. an underground Metro subway system) then I noticed it tends to thrash your battery a bit as the N900 connects, and disconnects from the cellular network over and over. This could explain the weak battery life issue some people are facing.

Overall I like it however:

a) when I try to use the N900 like an n800 I keep accidentally nudging the screen up a little since it slides to reveal the hardware keyboard. Just feels weird since my immediate reaction (coming from the n800) is "oh shoot something broke" when in reality the slider is just working.

b) The UI is not as friendly as I'd like. It takes a while to get use to the double tap top left to get to applications (learning it though). I also don't like the file manager (I prefer the n800's). The hardware keyboard also places the blue characters in the weirdest places (I have to look for them when I type on the keyboard.

c) TV Out only works if you plug the composite cable in first, then the N900 side. If you plug the N900 end into the N900 first then the composite cable into the TV/Projector it won't work.

d) FM transmitter is a bit weak. Part of the problem is the Washingtonian area is flooded with FM stations so finding a open frequency is challenging. But after finding one in my dad's Toyota Camry, the antenna is in the back so if you sit in the front the signal is weak. I could literally (while sitting in the passenger side of course) move the N900 back towards the antenna to get a stronger reception and then move it farther (closer to the front of the car) and the signal would get worse. Yet, for some strange reason later on during the drive it worked fine up front.

e) How come the only media player to sync with the N900 that I've tried is Windows Media Player? And it tried to sync all my music >.<. Not to mention it put the music in its seperate music directory instead of the .sounds directory. None of the Linux media players I've tried see the N900 as mass storage despite selecting it on the N900. Songbird in Windows doesn't either (I haven't tried MediaMonkey). But seeing as how I use Linux most of the time I'm looking for a Linux media program if I want to use syncing. I could however just drag and drop (but I don't have much time to do that till finals end). If I choose to go with the syncing route, can I choose the directory it'll go into? I want it to go into the /.sounds/ directory since all the other music files are there.

f) What is with all the phone categories? I can understand breaking down between home and work categories. But this makes no sense to me cell, cell (home), cell (work). What is the difference between cell and cell (home)?

g) The light sensor seems to activate randomly? Not sure if it's a result of me covering it up sometimes with my hand but sometimes the screen will randomly go brighter or darker. Not an annoyance, just a puzzle.

Surprises:

- I randomly dropped some video files I had into the tablet (some of them HD) and they both worked on the N900 (surprising myself). This was using the default media player (no codecs and nothing outside of extras had been installed).

- The screen really is sensitive. I was surprised at how little pressure I had to use to activate it. I'd say it's even on par with how I use the iPhone (from all my attempts at using them I still can't grasp the concept that I can just glide my fingers over them without using any pressure so I always wind up using a little pressure).

I do have some other thoughts but they aren't hardware specific necessarily. More just if all applications in extras and Ovi install to /opt or is it possible for applications to sneak by with installing to /root. I'd like to test some applications in extras-testing later on but I really don't want to install anything to /root and then have to do some manual cleaning of that directory (lest not till finals end). Perhaps when you install an application if you hit details it should tell you where the files will install? (to /opt or /root?).

And yes.. extremely long post.

Oh and if you live near the Washington D.C. area I'm trying to get people together (just a social event for maemo forum members). See off-topic for the thread. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=36424

Ok your experience is similar to mine except how the hell are you getting that much battery time.

I really think that besides the wireless battery drainage bug which I have experienced, sub-optimal network signals also take a huge toll on the battery life. I have also installed quite a bit of applications which may also affect.

I just hope in the next firmware there could be some battery optimizations and bug fixes regarding the 3g and wireless radios.

Anyway nice review

Coming from the N800, what do you think about the keyboard? To me the biggest problem (in addition to it being impossible to use from the couch) is that the 'function' key (the blue arrow above the shift key) is just below the key with 'Sym' in blue. I have to press Sym a lot, to get access to the missing '|' character on the hw keyboard, and I find it very difficult to do 'func+sym'. I wish the shift key and the function key were interchanged, even though that would leave the shift key in a 'non-standard' position w.r.t. the Z key - that matters little on a thumb keyboard anyway though.

Thank You. I did turn off GPS for a while but then I realized it doesn't stay on unless your using an application that uses GPS (Map, image tagging, location updating) so I turned it on Wednesday morning and have left it on since I left my house Wednesday morning. I have location updating turned off so my chat friends can't see my location. =D. I believe that would drain the most battery since that would be constantly poll the GPS.

I also disabled bluetooth for a while, but I don't think that made a difference since it's not transmitting or receiving if it's not connected to anything. So since Wednesday afternoon I just leave the bluetooth enabled. I turn my headphones off because my headphones battery life is about 6-7 hours and I can't wear them in class anyway. :P


I'm not a fan of the hardware keyboard's layout. I agree with your opinion on the positioning of the left modifier keys (shift, function, ctrl). I'm starting to get the hang of it but I can't help but wonder how it would be if they were moved around. I personally find using the function key to type numbers annoying since I have to hold the function key and then type the numbers in (some which are on the left side). Luckily if your typing in #s or caps for a while you can just hit the modifier key twice and it should say stay on that for a while. Yet, despite these issues I do find myself using the hard keyboard more than the soft keyboard.

You don't have to hold the function key - pressing once will set it on for the next key pressed. Ditto for the shift key - the Ctrl key seems to need to be held though.

i charged mine for 6 hours from the box and got up and used it from 7am all day videos n internet blah blah, only 1/4 of the batt had gone and its 4:30pm now! tv out works great too! not sure why people are having these drainage problems myself. wifi on full and full screen brightness can drain it a bit but thats expected.

Thanks for that - it helps immensely. I did not think it would so I didn't try it, although I did expect the shift key would work that way. Don't ask me about how the mind works.

I have installed plenty from extras testing and devel, not noticed anything ignoring /opt yet.

WOW that is amazing! can you provide a little more detail? How much time exactly watching videos and how much browsing the net?

Were you connected to 3G the whole time? or wifi? gps off?

I'm amazed at that statement. For me the battery lasts that long with very moderate use.
If I make phone calls the battery goes down extremely quick, otherwise I can get 10 hours with moderate use: 1-2 hours of internet/chat, a couple of hours of music, and a few minutes of phone calls.
Overall I am a little disappointed with my battery life, I would have hoped it would be better. I definitely need to charge it throughout the day if I plan to use it. I cannot leave home without a charger/USBcable.

And if you press either of them twice, it will stick to that function