Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

How about this: it will be an issue for some people, some uses, but not for others?

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Just thought of one major plus for me once the office suite gets good.
If I need to do a presentation, all I need to do is take along my N900 with tv-out.
Wow!
Also wondering whether connecting it to a monitor/keyboard/mouse would allow greater usability for creating documents, the more I think about the uses for this device, the more excited I get.

Can't I go to sleep until mid October :-(

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Because of the screen quality and resolution.

It's perfect for my use cases. What are your use cases anyway? I'm kind of interested to see what it is you're trying to do that even the N810 is too small for.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

wow you're right, i forgot about that! cool

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

32" crt tv @ NTSC, cropped at sides?

i'd like to know what the ideal size would be if N900's screen is too small and it has too big pixel density... i bet there is always someone to nag that the screen should be 1" bigger while the screen size is < 22" ("i had to buy a ford F140 to carry my pda around!!")

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I was happy with 4.1".

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I was satisfied with 4.1". I think I'd be happiest with about 4.5" if it could be put in a small enough form factor, like if you scaled up the iPod touch to the size it would be if it had a 4.5" screen; it could be even a little bigger than that. I'd gladly sacrifice the camera and speakers (but not the microphone) to get to a small enough size with a large enough screen.

My most obvious use case for the slightly larger screen is that I like to sit the unit on an airplane tray-table and watch movies. At that distance, regardless of the resolution, 3.5" is too small. That's the instance where I most wish for 4.5".

I also like reading ebooks on my N800, and I find 4.1" great. Regardless of the resolution, I like to pump up the size of the font so that it's a comfortable size for me at a comfortable distance. Doing that with a smaller screen would mean less text on the page. Maybe I'd get used to it, but it's one of the reasons I prefer to read ebooks on my N800 over an iPhone.

Also, web browsing. Some people may be more capable of seeing smaller things on a screen, but my eyesight, even with eyeglasses, is, I suppose, imperfect, and there's a point where it's just too small for me. 800 x 480 for a webpage is at about my limit on a 4.1" screen.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

The correct size is; as large as possible without making you look you're auditioning for the sequel to Revenge of the Nerds, so it's anything below 5".

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

This has more to do with DPI than anything else.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

i
I've done this with my N95 for a year, and now the same with my N97 on a regular basis. Since 2007, I've done computing like this, sans laptop.

Let me know when the IT generation catches up, because this isn't just a possible use case, but should have been one with tablets/mobile computers/smartphones for a long time. Maybe this new one will cause others to see like yourself and rock out computing in a different dimension.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

*ticked all of the above*

i don't know whether the n900 is nokias best ever smartphone, because i have never cared for smartphones in the least, what i do know is that nokia is the first company to market a mobile computer at me which also happens to do a bit of telephony, and I'm completely sucked in.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

nokia should really have played that up, maybe even made a E-series complete with a "turn to desktop" dock of sorts...

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

No it does not. I already hold the N810 too close for comfort for some web pages. I also hold it at the exact closest comfortable range when reading books. There is no way that I will hold the N900 15% closer, so there is no way that it will have the same amount of text on the screen as the N810.

Did you notice that even though there it is possible to print at a resolution equivalent to 3000DPI, no books are printed with a font of size 2 points, no matter how expensive paper is?

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Well, it does have the same amount of text onscreen as the N810 and because the screen is just that much better than the N810s, there's no need to hold it any closer. Everything's perfectly readable at book range.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

@zerojay: well there's the obvious issue of a physically SMALLER screen.
I can definitely feel the difference (less comfortable, reduced accuracy, etc) going to HTC G1 (3.2") from the iPhone (3.5") even when they both have capacitive screen with the same resolution.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Try it before simply shooting it down. G1 and iphone don't run the same apps so of course you'll feel a difference there anyways.

Take an app you've used a lot on your old tablet and run it on the N900. Try it.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

FYI, I didn't shoot anything down. I just pointed the obvious (About the physical difference of 4.13" vs 3.5") and illustrated MY experience of comparing 3.5" vs 3.2". In my case: Yes, they the difference of 0.3" was noticeable with similar apps (browsing same websites, reading same ebooks with similar font setting\sizes). I don't personally know how the 0.63" difference between N900 vs the previous NITs which I have (the N800) would pan out.

I didn't make any specific claims about N900.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

People keep overlooking the fact that "book range" varies from person to person.

A couple of years ago (at 46) my eyes changed dramatically in a short time. I suddenly had difficulty sometimes reading text on my N800 at typical distances. You guys who have not encountered this yet are in for a rude shock.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I'm not talking about web pages, I'm talking about books.

An iPhone is hobbled in readability by its DPI, so saying the N900's 3.5-inches isn't going to be usable for book reading based on your experience with the iPhone isn't necessarily a valid conclusion to come to to.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I'd agree with that argument if you were talking about displaying non-zoomed-in web page display against the iphone:
A 480x320 screen does not have the sufficient resolution to display a 800x600 website with full clarity.

But when you mention ebook reading, which are generally done with big fonts on the screen (maybe 40-60 lines on the screen, portrait mode)... I don't understand how the higher DPI on the N900 matters, when the iPhone's lower DPI is already sufficient to render the text clearly at the required text display size.

EDIT:

Exhibit (a):

http://www.netwhatever.com/randomdev...a-internal.png

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

today i had a N900 nightmare lol...i bought it, but it was rubbish... the screen was tiny and the GPS worked in a way that the phone was surrounded with folding paper which was glued to it and displayed a map...last time i had a dream like that was when i was about to buy a N-Gage lol...man, i want October !

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

@Jack6428: lol, maybe it's time to raise the dose man

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

The higher DPI gives clearly readable letters. Of course this doesn't help if the letters are generally too small to read. But with properly sized and crystal clear letters, text is really a lot easier to read.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

@pycage: no doubt about that.. but please check the sample screenshot i've pasted in post #60 of this thread (edit: just below). I think it has sufficient DPI to depict all the letters nicely so anyone with a normal eyesight will be able to read it with 100% accuracy. A higher DPI will definitely yield crisp-er looking letters, more pleasant, but it won't help to make it any more legible, since it's already 100% readable.

Am I wrong here?

EDIT:

http://www.netwhatever.com/randomdev...a-internal.png

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Wow, I had a dream with the N900 in it too. But it was kick a55 awesome.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I'm just amazed this is even a polarizing topic.

Different strokes for different folks.

Done.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Er, you're trying to use a screenshot to prove a point about DPI?!

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Perhaps I misunderstood your prior statement then.

I thought you were making a point that due to iPhone's lower DPI count it's not useable for book reading. This implies that the 320x480 screen does not have sufficient resolution to display the characters legibly somehow, and if that was the case it should be visible on the screenshot.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

For some people, yes. Please see the post I was quoting at the time. :)

The threshold for legibility is different for different people, but wherever that threshold lies, an 800x480 3.5" display is capable of rendering characters with a much higher accuracy than a 480x320 3.5" display.

http://www.library.cornell.edu/prese...mages/dpi2.jpg

(Crude, but I'm too lazy to put together my own example at the moment.)

Which characters are more legible?

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

As I'm also in the group who need serious visual hardware augmentation, I understood the point was that your eyesight is the first and foremost limitation. I already (have to) use fairly large letters (size 16) if I plan on a lengthy read sessions, not because edges are jaggy but because they are blurry if I don't hold them at the proper distance. I do understand most people have better eyesight, but holding stuff for long periods of time ever-closer to your eyes is NOT going to help your eyesight.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

@GA: According to your eyes, which of 3 three examples you've given does the iPhone's screenshot (i gave) above most resemble?

ps: as attila77 said: we're not talking about lack of character definitions (visible jaggies, they all use good AA nowadays anyway) but rather the physical size of the letters.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

Here's what I ask: once you get ahold of an N900, compare the legibility of the iPhone against the N900 at the same relative font size, then get back to me.

. . . and this doesn't have anything at all to do with anti-aliasing (in fact, with a high enough DPI, you don't need anti-aliasing).

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

@GA: I think I've mentioned that point already in a previous post of mine (that the N900 will yield crisper letters at the size required for ebook reading, but I was making the point that the iphone's screen res has passed the minimum required DPI for comfortable ebook reading).

To take this issue to the extreme.. what do you think if there's a 3.5" handheld with 1920x1080 resolution? Will it be 'so much better' because it can either:

a). display the texts at the same size with much crisper detail?

or

b). display a much smaller text clearly (if you have the eyes or loupes for it) so you can fit more on screen?

We're representing a subset of the users who can't\don't need to take advantage of (b) due to its uncomfortably small size.

And I was making a point that (a) is not necessarily that much better once you've passed the minimum DPI to have the letters legible.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

What incredulous font size would you be talking about? Some alien numbers most people won't even be using?

At a comfortable font size range (for most), the iPhone does perfectly legible text rendering - and as ysss had said, why more clarity when it's going to be just as legible (at that font size range, I must emphasize).

Yes, at times the N900 is going to be more useful when you REALLY need to zoom in on a text till the extent in your example, GA, but what are the chances of us needing to do that. For practicality's sake, the iPhone resolution for READING, is probably just the right resolution, and the N900 is just overkill.

The iPhone still has a better zooming method than N900 though.

Again, for reading purposes, do you really need such a high DPI when an iPhone-ish one can serve majority of them?

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

For you. Personally, I can't stand reading on the iPhone and, no, its DPI is not sufficient for me. Again, please go back to the post I was quoting. I believe the DPI will have an effect for that user.

And I wholly disagree with you. End of story.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I've had MMS-capable devices since 2004 or so, and have in total maybe sent and received five MMSs. When I've been sending photos, email has always been the better option (images don't get downscaled etc).

MMS and the other telephony-specific protocols need to die in favor of proper internet-based protocols like email and XMPP. That way you can communicate seamlessly with people regardless of whether they're in a bus with their phone or at office with their laptop.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I'd never used MMS before reading this thread, so I thought I'd give it a go.
It's absolutely terrible, and the phones I sent it to just had a plain message saying "go to this url to retrieve the photo" and they are new phones bought within the last 6 months.
Completely pointless.
I assume it is supposed to actually send the photo to someone's phone, but of the three phones I sent it to none of them got a photo just a url link.

In this case it is much easier just to send it to flickr/facebook etc.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

That's the wrong comparison. It is obvious that the N900 is better than the iphone in this category. The comparison we are interested in is with the N810, in which it is just as obvious that the N900 loses.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

The phones get the link if the network isn't aware of their capabilities for some reason. IIRC, years ago I had to send an MMS before my network would deliver incoming ones properly.

MMS is nice for certain purposes. IMHO it can only be replaced by proper IM on phones (like on N900 ;) ). Not by email or flickr.

Re: Is N900 the best smartphone Nokia ever released?
 

I agree if everyone I knew had proper IM on their phones, but most people don't. Using flickr etc. at least allows a wider audience.
I can probably get my missus hooked on an n900, but for my parents etc. getting them to use text messages is a miracle sometimes, nevermind IM.

Also isn't MMS limited on the image size? When I tried to send the MMS it "resized" it before sending it.