Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Saching007, the switcher location on top left corner is perfect, in particular in closed mode (if it was at the bottom, your left hand thumb would have much more difficulty reaching it comfortably). In open mode, you can just hit ctrl + backspace to get to the app switcher.

Gadgity, +1. Still, I would hope a bit more maturity in style (and fairly often in substance too) even from Sr1329...

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Congrats on your new N900, not jealous at all :D.

Just a few small questions:

1. It it possible to sync with PC and latest OVI Suite?
2. Some how (maybe in settings) possible to arrange the icons in the main menu to your own likings?

Have one on pre-order, but think it will be here earliest some time early December, man can't wait for this little monster to arrive, is a big fan of the N800/N810 devices, and Maemo (best mobile browser out there).

BTW. Resistive rocks :D.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I am totally digging my N900. I have to admit though I agree to a certain extent with the claims of a lack of polish in the UI. For a lot of basic usability it seems like a really awesome prototype. I'm sure I'll get more than my money's worth in nerding out with my N900, but I think mainstream users (the masses that iPhone has snatched up) will find glaring issues they don't understand.

For example:

http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...n_imap_server/

This is being looked at for Harmattan. As an end-user I have to say I feel like it's absurd that the email client doesn't do this properly. Hell the account setup wizard lists .Mac as a service, how long ago did Apple rebrand that?

While I love this phone and am nerd-raging all over it. It is definitely a stepping stone. Thus I couldn't recommend it to everyone, and would have to properly inform people who I might recommend it to.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I don't have the device yet but from what I have read so far the device has a steep learning curve at first, and NOKIA is not making it easier for the users. It's up to the community to provide that I guess but it will be a while as the documentation catches up.

Other than that, I hope that the email and the maps application is working seamlessly. For me N900's selling point is the browser, and the unhindered linux behind. However, from such an expensive device I expect things like maps and email to be working seamlessly if not perfectly. I don't mnd the learning curve, or some of the shortcomings because of the device's internet tablet background those are a given tbh (and the shortcomings usually come with positive points as well) :)

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Hello YoMod,

It's me!

I think you have this all wrong. I don't need an app store and nowhere did I complain about the lack of one. Also I don't care for portrait mode either. It would be nice, but I can live without.

However the e-mail support in this device as you've read is very 2004 ish. If you can't search e-mail you really can't effectively use e-mail in the 2009 era. I know it will come (I don't think even Nokia is too stupid to know that) but when? Even S60 has search feature albeit poor.

You assume far too much just because a person uses an iPhone doesn't indicate anything about their technical knowledge or IQ. I use it because it is extremely reliable and offers a good browser and good e-mail support. Those two things alone are why I use it. I don't care for app store or any of the little gimmicks of that device.

I suggest you don't go out there and assume. At the end of the day I could be very happy with an E71 + Roadsync if it didn't restart in the middle of phone calls.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

You know, it's ironic that you mention e-mail and maps, Those are the two areas of this device that need work. The browser is great and with Adblock it's like a dream come true!

But Maps takes 25-30 seconds to just load and its a pretty cumbersome interface. The compass rotation is slow and stutters. To get to search (which is the number one thing people do with a mapping application) you need to go into 2 levels of menus. Maps is a beta product. It also slows down and freezes for moments.

E-mail actually runs fine. It's snappy and pretty good. But it lacks simple e-mail search. That is a problem. No other platform lacks that now including S60.

I like the fact that you can use keyboard shortcuts as if it were desktop linux. So some things are great, but Maps is unfinished and you will see that when you get yours. E-mail needs a modern feature set.

UI and interface are perfectly fine. Not as responsive as others but functional just the same. I think capacitive screen type would bring it right up to par or exceed it.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

speaking of sr1329's posts, you are right that it's emotionally charged. You are right that he very quickly got into a reactionary position with the N900.

I posted in that thread. My view is that his perspective is anchored in the past. Sure, Nokia should learn from all feedback. But Nokia is being bold enough to do something no major handset manufacturer was brave enough to try. They are looking forward, so there is a limit to how much they should conform to the criticisms of some guy who's view is so rigidly dominated by his prior experiences with Nokia in the past and with phones he has used in the past.

IMO, the main requirement for enjoying the N900 is being flexible and adaptable because this is the beginning of something new. It is still in the formative stages.

If we let opinions like sr1329's dominate, it might just kill off this wildly promising new thing. Fortunately, Ari Jaaksi doesn't mind taking some calculated risks.
http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/2009/11/m...art-of-it.html
His vision is one that could change the world. sr1329's criticism is simply small-minded.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Just now I received a call. When I looked at the phone it was a blank screen. It glitched and it took about 5 seconds to show the actual answer button. Do you think people want to deal with this kind of thing?

You have grand visions of FOSS changing the world and freeing us of our dependence on money grubbing corporations and proprietary software. I respect that, but seriously you couldn't get people to care unless and until you package it right.

You linux chest thumpers will never understand that. Has even one Linux desktop distribution taken greater than 3% marketshare? Analyze the situation and learn from it if you want FOSS to succeed in the mobile space. Instead of criticizing the user's perspective, understand it. That is the only way you can pull off what you want to pull off.

Start with getting rid of the BS elitist attitude. That would be step one.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Since you've used both designs, why would you prefer capacitative? As I understand it, the pros are that it allows multitouch, and it doesn't require any pressure to use, whereas the cons are that you lose precision and the ability to use the screen with anything other than a bare fingertip (so no nails, no stylus). On the face of it that doesn't sound like a good trade-off, particularly on a device like the N900 which will likely run quite a lot of apps (desktop ports and web apps) not designed specifically for a fingers only interface.

Clearly, on something like the iPhone that lacks a separate keyboard the multitouch is useful for things like game controls (though at the cost of having the user's thumbs obscure the display), but I what would capacitative add to the N900?

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Welcome aboard!

I didn't assume a dang thing about you in that thread or this one. I first posted here to help understand your position better. I did generalize in this thread as I referred to general remarks that I made on this forum some months ago. I thanked everyone for their input and then posted about it yonder, including links to this thread.

I also did not suggest in anyway what you should or shouldn't do based on those generalizations.

I do believe what you say about e-mail support is true and I'm glad you chose to join maemo.org in order to make those issues known.
I generally don't presume anything about a persons intelligence but if I did, your decision to join us here to expand on these N900 issues would have more bearing than anything else. :)

Have fun!

...Oh, and my username is YoDude and I do not moderate these boards...

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Ah. I think you may misunderstand what many of us 'linux chest thumpers' want to pull off - what I want is a free OS that does what I want, on my machines. I've already got that on servers and on the desktop, and I'm getting closer to having it in my pocket. I'm not sure why it should trouble me if other people choose not to take advantage of it.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

That actually sounds quite disconcerting.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Because if others don't use it, it ceases to be remotely commercially viable, and no-one will actually make your device.

You know, I always though the OS community was fired by altruism, by a willingness to work for free to create something for everyone. This 'pull up the ladder, Jack' approach seems to the exact opposite. :(

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

What I find interesting is the insistence everyone seems to have that Nokia will never grab market share with the n900 as it is etc.
To the best of my knowledge Nokia have done everything except bury the n900 marketing under a rock. Any buzz has been generated by the community.
Nokia never intended the n900 to be a mainstream device and if you purchased it thinking it would be then well more fool you for not having done even some basic research into what the n900 was meant to be.
In reality its a techie device and a first run for Nokia before releasing a user orientented device. Think of us as a big old group of first adopters and beta testers. The lessons we learn and the new apps we generate will go into the next phone and that is the one you want if you want a mainstream device.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I understand that you want everything perfect. If that is what you expect nokia is not for you. The nokia user interface is never perfect and going by the way the company works it never will be. There will be few quirks and bugs in any nokia device you use. But what nokia differs from other companies and apple in specific is that they believe in providing as many functions as any one can possibly can in their devices. Now you must understand that the more functions the more possibility that there will be bugs. You need to make a decision if you want to deal with perfection or more functions. Obviously nokia tries to reduce those quirks and bugs as much as possible and also remember that maemo 5 is in its very raw stage. Even the iphone first gen also had many bugs and very less features which were later updated with firmwares. My friend's iphone 3g even just gets stuck and does not respond sometimes. But if you are willing to work around the early quirks and hold a little while while you pass the learning curve and nokia updates the firmware you will really notice that there is a huge advantage to having functions rather than perfection. Just have some patience. And i bet there will be many workarounds for your problems once more members get the retail units. Just keep following maemo.org and you will notice how dynamic maemo is and you will never get bored with the n900 unlike your iphone.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Exactly Bratag. I think the hangups Nokia is experiencing may be due to that too. They were caught off guard at the popularity of the n900 since they were expecting the next step to be the one that appeals to consumers.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I think Nokia will do okay as long as they are quick to get updates and fixes to major bugs out the door. Not some six month turn around time for updates.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

So this step is Nokia's learning curve on how to successfully bring a mameo device to the 'consumer'. And it's the Maemo community's learning curve on how to relate to Real Consumers. Because if we don't learn in time for maemo 6 it won't matter how great the software and hardware are, it'll flop. And if it flops, nokia will put it down to experience and move on.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Are you serious? You can't search email??? who is designing this stuff??

Can someone please confirm.. is there a fix coming.. this is a show stopper for me.. I have a blakberry with over 1000s emails I need to search quite frequently.. this would be a no go for me..

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Actually its Nokias learning curve on what maemo is capable of when given to a larger tech oriented audience. I imagine the reason behind that would be to do exactly what you mention. Learn before maemo 6 and a consumer device comes out.
Nokia pour by far and away more money into research etc than any other device manufaturer and its obvious the investment in maemo as a future OS for their upcoming lineup is something that is long term and important (see articles regarding Nokias statements about the sunsetting of s60). Maemo 6 will be built on the lessons learnt here and now and will have the advantage of being fully QT 4.6 alowing devs to write once run many places. No other device is even close to that (and please don't say Android does that because it doesn't).
After the debacle that was the last release Nokia could have simply gone back to a boring old safe s60. Instead the chose to go all out and try revolutionise the field.
Remember man. Great innovation takes great risk.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

The problem is your asking developers and people here to be helpful and supportive. Which is fine and all but the supportiveness quickly dries up when the consumer is unwilling to learn or help out (by submitting bug reports or explaining in depth why they were doing when the problem occured). Hence why Texrat and you guys are doing the Maemo Greeters program. Ideally when helping the newbies you will guide them to not just post

"whine whine, fix it now!" and instead turn that into something constructive where there's still whining but at least something that at least can lead to fixing the problem instead of people just ignoring the whining.

The difference in say a commercial venture to say this community is that a commercial venture gets paid. You want good customer service because your livelihood depends on it. While in this community most of us are putting in our own free time. It's like if you were volunteering and the person you were helping spit at you and insulted you. All we're going say is "**** off" and ignore you in that case.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Anyone having issues with connecting to the GPS? I left my N900 along for over 3 minutes and nothing what so ever.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I am buying this device knowing it's current limitations and abilities, but I'm also a "geek" so a lot of these issues don't concern me at the moment. One thing that does disconcert me though is the possibility that some of these basic usability issues, such as e-mail search, won't be fixed until Maemo 6, and it seems most likely that means a new device from Nokia.

The N900 being in the spotlight such as it is may not have been Nokia's plan until Maemo 6, but as it is, if they don't fix some of these issues which will put off the casual user, it may seriously hinder the reputation and sales of their next Maemo device, regardless of their intentions.

Here's hoping it all works out in Nokia's favor in the end, this seems to have the potential to be a game changer in the mobile world.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I'd have said it's more a willingness to work together as a community to create something for the community. Anyone's welcome to join the community, but if they choose not to, then they're not going to feel the full benefits.

There's no ladder being pulled up here; people are still free to come join the community if they want to be part of it, but it's not fair or reasonable to expect the community to bend over backwards to satisfy people that aren't prepared to be a part of it. Diving straight in with:is hardly the attitude of someone who wishes to be a contributing part of this community, or who is prepared to acknowledge that 'step one' happened quite a long time ago, and it, and the steps that followed it, have resulted in the creation of an entire OS that he's been freely given, as a gift.

There are loads of ways to join up and help out - writing code is obvious, but writing documentation, testing and filing bugs, and things like the Maemo Greeters effort are all valuable contributions. Calling the community's culture 'elitist BS' and demanding it change - not so much.

Edit: typo

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Will the GPS work without a data plan? If I buy I will initially not have a data plan and rely just on Wi-Fi.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

The GPS will work without the data plan. The data plan just helps with AGPS (assisted GPS) which helps get a lock faster.

The problem is you won't be able to use GPS software without an internet connection unless you download the maps before hand (e.g. if you were using Ovi Maps for example).

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Take the concerns or misconceptions mentioned here and then amplify by a thousand. Nokia did underestimate the interest of the N900. Just imagine if Nokia had the foresight and actually marketed better and added the following phone features without removing any of the current good stuff:

1. Home call and end buttons (plenty of room on the front of device)
2. Phone centric profile option (key word is option)
3. MMS

The N900 would dominate, make geeks happy and smartphoners. Also reduce the concerns and complaint to a fraction of what they will probably be.

added
Whenever most of us get them of course.... whenever that is.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

I feel like I'm a part of the larger open source community. I went from being an MS fanboy (part of a 100% Microsoft shop) to now getting all my important computing and communication work done using open source solutions. I no longer own a computer running Microsoft software. :D

But as a relative newcomer to Linux (and as someone who is not a developer at present), I am somewhat sensitive to the issues of other newcomers. I don't really like to see a community member react defensively when a newcomer doesn't immediately grok the value of open source and the community. In my own case, it took me a while to fully appreciate what this is all about. And if people over at the Ubuntu forums had not bent over backwards to be kind to me (kinder than I probably deserved), I would not have survived my transition from closed source to open source.

That's why I think the Maemo greeters program is such a good idea. Developers should not necessarily be expected to patiently hold the hands of noobs. So greeters ("technology evangelists") play a role that has critical value.

Not everyone who uses open source wants to see it dominate the market share, but I think everyone would agree that greater acceptance and adoption of open source benefits all of us in terms of hardware support, influx of new developers, etc.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

tmobile 3g spotty service on 9.99 unlimited web plan

http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed

I used a 1MB download payload for each test
icon shows 3G 719kbs latency 0.219s size 1024k

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Were your hand covering the sensors?

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Well, for a resistive it's pretty good but when I put it down and pick up the iPhone, the difference is very noticeable. There's a reason why Maemo 6 is going for capacitive.

The UI has never made me feel like picking up a stylus though.

Also multitouch is important for the sake of the onscreen keyboard. The on screen keyboard on this phone is just plain bad if you've used the iPhone keyboard. I mean your maximum typing speed is less then half what it would be on the iPhone.

Otherwise the browser and links functions just like the iPhone and you have control over what you are selecting with just a fingertip.

Because of the resistive screen engaging hover mode is difficult and sometimes you need to use your fingernails. I think capacitive will make for a better device for most people. The exception would be for people who want to input Chinese characters with a stylus but apparently iPhone has solved that problem. I haven't tried it myself but I have heard it works well.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Trust me I would love it and I think the Nokia brand recognition could pull it off. However people generally won't make personal sacrifices for a greater goal. I need proper e-mail support and proper mapping support and I can make other sacrifices for the cause.

One thing that is you need critical mass to get commercial quality apps. Commercial quality apps are needed even on a FOSS platform. If I'm using a free app for a critical function and something goes wrong who do I call? So support is needed.

But I guess you have a very realistic perspective on what is most likely going to happen and you have needs that are different from the other 95% of people.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Trust me it boggles my mind. Absolutely boggles it. I can't for the life of me understand what was going through their minds.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Okay I found a saving grace. I need to post this on HoFo also.

I sent an e-mail from the device and thank heaven it synced it to my Exchange account. So that is one MAJOR S60 issue solved. However it will not populate the sent mailbox with what you sent from other devices. That's still a BIG problem.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Do you have that setting that turns into phone app when you rotate the phone to portrait? Could it be that setting(waiting for the accelerometer) that's causing the delay?

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

hah, I ran out of disk space! was trying to get python installed for on-device app dev and it filled up the rootfs. oops. I guess it's a known bug.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Man how will we get around that .... I mean if only there was another way to enter text, WHY NOKIA WHY!!!!!


:)

As for being able to search email - this is a FULL linux build - which pretty much means that any desktop email client is only a port away from being able to work on the N900 - giving you the features you are looking for. I agree its an oversight - but its really not a killer.

Evolution, Sylpheed heck even Kmail are just a port away.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Stantum has a resistive multi touch and Nokia has recently applied for a patent also on resistive multi touch so it's coming.

It's coming and when it does, which one do you think you will like better when the resistive has better accuracy and you can hand-write on it?
....not to mention stantum tech has unlimited touches.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Since you're so enthusiastic and an 'potential coder', you should go attempt the port and get back to us on how easy it was.
A direct port would probably result in a very non-finger friendly UI, plus all the dependent libs you would have to port also.

Re: N900 Owners Thread (First impressions, ...)
 

Well yes - thats true if all you did was simply cross compile it to work on the ARM processor - not that it wouldnt work - and of course we do have the stylus - however I was thinking more of a proper port.

I have already said in another thread I may very well have a go at it. So perhaps now you might take your attitude and ram it directly where the sun don't shine :)