A friend of mine asked me yesterday if he should buy the N97 (as he intended to) or wait for the N900; he had actually read the rumors elsewhere, I didn't tell him.

My first impulse was "N900, because it's free software..." - but then I realized that this was exactly the one thing he doesn't care about. He's a gadget lover. He'd even buy Apple if they had something that he thought was cool.

So what I thought was odd is that besides Maemo being the politically correct OS, I couldn't find much in favor of the N900. Quite on the contrary: the N97 is smaller, by far not that heavy (150g vs. 180g for the N900), has a D-Pad, hardware buttons on the front cover, .... and, not to forget, it runs an OS that has a long history as a reliable and successful phone OS.

I can't say much in favor of the N900 in direct comparison. Higher resolution, yes, but I doubt you'd notice at 3.5".


Is there anything I missed? Anything that would shout "Wait until the final specs of the N900 are revealed" to an average consumer who simply loves high-tech-toys but certainly doesn't care about free software?

None of the two devices are what I expect of a phone myself, so I never cared to really gather information about the N97. Is there something in the specs that would put one device clearly ahead of the other? (In case you love bricks, that is ...)

Wait until the N900 is totally revealed, and then make the decision. If there's a need for such a device now(-ish), then get the N97. It will have ample value by the time the N900 comes out that it will be suitable to make that comparison and then move/not-move then.

It depends on how close N900 turns out to resemble the speculation that was leaked. If N900 comes out as leaked there is very little size difference. The length/width have slight difference due to slightly different aspect ratios of the screens but both are still 3.5".

IF the N900 is indeed a phone:

The N900 is going to come with far superior hardware with OMAP3430 and 256MB of RAM and this is the one reason I'm excited about it. The N97 is running a 434MHz ARM 11 core with 128MB of RAM.

I'm excited to see how Maemo is used on a phone.

N97 supports US 3G for AT&T and not T-mobile but it looks like the N900 will support T-mobile and not AT&T? 3G support is a must for me personally and the lack of support for AT&T 3G could be a deal breaker for me personally with the N900. Hopefully there are multiple versions as there are with their current phone.

You need to compare the software repository between S60v5 and Maemo. S60v5 is slowly getting more and more support from vendors as they support the new touch version of Symbian. Is Maemo going to get more or less support for application ports? Yet to be seen.

I too will be disappointed if there is no 3g for the N900 with AT&T in north America.

Why not get an Android phone over the N97, I have heard Google will soon be taking over Europe… http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...-years-end/?em

Maybe we will all want the “The Google Experience” after seeing the N900 and how tightly T-mobile has it locked down....

Yep, Android is nice for gadget lovers. And the G1, while being a thick brick, is still a thinner brick than what the N900 is expected to be.

so nothing in favor of the N900. (the faster cpu doesnt count... performance-wise they could be equal if maemo needs more resources than s60, which i think it does)

A framework generally doesn't consume significant CPU resources during activities where it matters (e.g. games, videos, etc). It very much counts.

Watching the maemo-developers mailing list, I'd say the Maemo team is still months away from a polished final release, so if you want something sooner rather than later, go N97.

The N900's OS, I think, will look "swishier" and very next-generation, with lots of transparency, 3D effects, swishing and swooping windows, etc. That tends to appeal to gadget hounds.

I think the N900 will be a very nice device, nicer to use than the N97, and probably with a very good set of apps out of the box...

...but it will really shine for all of the edge cases that excite us geeks; it will be able to handle open codecs (like ogg, flac, etc), it will have a command line, you'll have all the freedom of the current tablets to hack away at everything and anything....

But that isn't interesting, as you said, to gadget hounds.

Yes, I got the same impression myself. The suggested July launch for the US would be nothing short of a miracle. The September-October timeframe seems more realistic

Just in time for Nokia World Conference in September...http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld/home.htm