300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

So all these testers and pre-testers get the N900 and are playing with it... yet we have no information as yet much on specific functionality and nice-little tid-buts from them.

Only once in a while I see some little info from Planet Maemo or somewhere - a little nugget of info thrown to the hungry dogs so to speak.

So are all 300 Maemo summit attendees under NDA's or what ?
Ad not any info on what Nokia is rectifying on the official ROM and what are the fixes going in (except some major ones which Qole and others have discussed - like the memory issue etc).

Just a question - was the N900 so much of a beta quality thats been the reason for the tight NDA's and the delays ? Or is it something more benign than that ?

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

There was no NDA or anything. They've been giving them to reviewers as well for crying out loud. :) Feel free to ask questions.

I have no idea really why the n900 was delayed. It seems solid to me.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Nokia obviously went out of their way to find the 300 most introverted and anti-social attendees. I would say only 10% of the 300 have provided public feedback (positive or negative).. quite odd

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Have you checked the maemo.org bugzilla lately? Lots of 'feedback' there from the Summit 300. That 'introverted' and public feedback will give you all a much better release version of Maemo 5, and top notch apps in Extras.

Peter specifically said in Amsterdam that there was no NDA... feel free to ask questions if you want.

Edit: The pre release Maemo 5 we have does not feel Beta at all. There are some bugs, yes. But overall, the OS is top notch. And really, what hasn't been covered on youtube already?

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Perhaps, I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that most of the people at the Maemo Summit were developers, rather than media/blog people. I'm just guessing, but I'd imagine the developers are more interested in using the device and figuring out what they're going to work on with it, than posting information online. I'd love to hear from them, but I can understand how that's not their focus.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Following Eldar's initial preview, the most information I got was from using it for 5 minutes at the Chicago store.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

A rather odd suggestion to reverse roles.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

The week the N0900 ships we will see more info and reviews we can handle.

Then the Maemo and Android fanboys will duke it out with the N900 and Droid being the fighters of choice. I know who I have my money on and it does not have one spec of byte code to bog it down ;)

That being said, at least the Droid was actually released on time.....

Round one goes to Droid :eek:

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Yep released on time and they are already predicting OTA updates to fix some of the issues before year end.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

What would be nice is if Android allowed more video codecs in the framework.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Question: are you following http://maemo.org/news/ & the Maemo Bug Jars?

I have seen plenty of feedback, only not always in the form of "I went to the Maemo Summit, got a device and this is the summary of what I think". Which is good to avoid plenty of elementary and duplicated feedback.

There is also many bloggers and power users with a device, not only developers. We asked all of them to provide feedback, and all in all we are happy with what we've got.

What information are you missing?

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

I'm working on a personal review "one-month" after. Unfortunately, I always get distracted by a) my new job started last week b) Steam's Mass Effect offer from last weekend and c) Various things I'm working on for the N900 :-)

However, one thing I can say: the Nokia N900 is an absolutely outstanding device defining a whole new class of devices. It's way more than a smartphone and I enjoy it immensely. The version we got in Amsterdam feels very finished and consumer-ready.

The only valid reasons I could see for a delay are Tracker (sometimes a bit erratic), Ovi Maps (UI, Offline Search) and Front Video camera (Quality). And probably a hundred small things in the background that only Nokia's engineers know (and luckily care) about.

Simply said: The N900 rocks! Just be patient, the slight delay is nothing compared to the joy you will get from it once you have it in your hands.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Since these N900s are pre-release software and hardware it wouldn't be fair to "review" them IMO, but do see bugzilla for feedback from the testers.

Other than that, anything specific you want to know?

There is a contract (which explicitly forbids copying and reverse engineering for example).

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

I admit I was a little bit disappointed, too. It's not about technical feedback and bug reports. It's about "How does ... work" and "Does the N900 have ..." type of info.

I tried to invite the 300 testers to at least answer the open questions at
http://wiki.maemo.org/NokiaWorld_2009_QA
in this thread, but that was hardly successful.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

No NDAs. Nokia was eager to give them away. Even my ID was not checked.

As for providing feedback, I am not a professional blogger/reporter with skills to provide videos and tutorial. what I do routinely is post messages on twitter (@mustali) and a humble blog about the N900 experience (myn900.wordpress.com). Other contributions have been extras-testing, comments and suggestions to developers and bug-reports.

The MaemoUI channel on youtube is a good way to see some things in action. If you have any specific questions, please ask.

N900 is definitely not beta by any strech. some official apps (like Ovi) seem to be but the OS/UI feels robust..

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

I missed that thread. will check it out later.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

How's battery life working out for you guys? Are you getting through a day of normal usage without needing a recharge?

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Yes. I make a point of never leaving home without a full-charge. Takes about 1.5 hours for a full recharge from low.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Are you kidding me? Pretty much everything on the N900 including specific functionality has already long since been revealed or talked about so I have no idea what you're on about at all.

Almost feels like there's not a single surprise left for end users at this point, honestly.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Battery life is hitting a full work day for me. I stay logged onto MSN, AIM and GTalk all day and I only have battery life problems when forgetting to turn the FM transmitter off. The ovi maps app kinda sucks, but using google maps from the browser is just fine.The 3G is working nicely on t-mo US with the $10/month plan.
I have a feeling that a lot of the '300' (Why do I keep wanting to scream, "This is Sparta!"?) hang out more on IRC (freenode/#maemo) than on this forum. That will probably change a bit once some of the pre-launch insanity/boredom dies down here, and the the signal/noise ratio gets a little better.

-John

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

to the thread theme: to my understanding what's most valuable to nokia (who loaned the device) is to receive feedback that have the potential to change something for the better before launch. this includes

• submitting bug reports
• developing and testing software on the actual device (example: extras-testing marathon)
• submitting feedback directly to developers of particular software, either in extras, extras-testing, (or with certain reservations, extras-devel)
• install and use crash reporter

this is what i've focused on. reviewing and discussing the device on tmo is interesting, and sure, when i stumble upon something i'm in a privileged position to answer, i do. but that hasn't been my main priority.

qgil, or someone else, if there is something in particular that needs focus right now, i'm happy to assist. and personally i wouldn't mind if the internal email list of us 300 would be used for specific requests.

thanks and sorry, i missed that one before!

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

See the maemo-users thread starting here.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Forward facing camera... used by anything?

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

a while ago, I started this thread:

summit n900 recipients, report in
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33205

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Just the Mirror app at the moment.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

I think there was a thread that touched on this already, but:

• As a phone idling in my pocket, waiting for calls, the N900 easily lasts all day. It might well achieve ~32 hours idle around my work and home, matching the best I've seen from other (non-smart) phones.
• As an "Internet tablet", loading one web page after another, moving and merging threads on here, the N900 lasts roughly as long as my N800 or N810. I'll boost the battery back up three or so times throughout the day as it reaches 50%-ish.
• As a camera with flash, taking dozens of photos, the N900 lasts about as long as my old Olympus C-4000 Zoom. That is, about two hours. Without flash, taking photos doesn't hit the the N900's battery hard at all.

The non-final firmware and numerous variables involved make what you might see quite hard to predict though.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Forbids copying what, exactly? Because if Nokia forbade anyone from copying software which was licensed to them under the GPL that would terminate their licence. Which would be bad.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

At least in Europe, for certain limited purposes reverse engineering is allowed even if a copyright license says otherwise. I don't know if that would apply to the things we'd like to do with the N900.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Theoretically for video calls, but according to the comments in bug 5218 that won't work in the first release.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

"The Product(s) and any accompanying materials" is the exact wording.

Relax, the GPL says nothing about being allowed to copy binaries, and the GPL components' sources are available in repository.maemo.org :-)

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Hey Zerojay that cause you guys HAVE been playing with the device and you think we non-device waiting-in-the-wings users know it all from Youtube videos. Not always the case. I am hankering after little details is all - of course the major functionality has been discussed and video'd, but not having a device in hand - the questions are aplenty rather than having a device in hand.

Example - like the question someone popped - can we link a particular directory as a shortcut on the desktop ?

How long does the battery last in a day with different usage scenarios.

How does Qik work and example videos of Qik maybe (which I havent seen much of at ll).

and all such .... no big revelation - just little things is all.

But anyways no worry - the N900 is finally out - so maybe when I get one myself, it will answer all my questions.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

No you can't as of now.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34228

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

No.

I provided some information on this previously in the thread. What additional questions do you have?

I've never used Qik, sorry.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

The latest version of Qik installed on my N900 (0.0.38) fails to start up. complains about missing libgstplugin.so.
Qik is supposed to stream audio/video live from the device-camera onto your channel on www.qik.com. Worked great on my S60 phone.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Yea I have the same problem.

But a friend of mine was using it at the summit, it worked well then. You just shot video and it shows up on the web.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

Sorry, this is the first time I've seen that thread.

And on a general note, didn't we already do this thread? I could have sworn we did... and I replied that there have been plenty of tidbits brought forward (my personal favorite, the call log, has been discussed ad nauseum). In fact some Brainstorm items sprang up due to our receiving the devices.

So, for someone to say "not a single mention" is a bit naive. Sure, the tidbits may be scattered, but they are there, and many have received a lot of attention when mentioned.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

what about the ; mms, video call, java, FM radio & the digital compass??

are they supported in the final release..????

thnx

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

i made one for you, have a look here.

it stopped when i tested to manually focus (must've pressed the camera button all the way, the camera application started).

edit: actually searching for "n900" on qik.com reveals a lot of videos taken with the n900. perhaps there's another lesson to be learned here as well?

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

No MMS, no Java and there is no digital compass. There is an application for FM radio. Video call probably also is out.

Someone is working on rudimentary MMS support.

All those things could have been gathered from the threads here without access to the devices.

Re: 300 testers and not a single bit of info
 

can u plz, post the link for those....:)