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

First experiences
*Mail for Exchange does not work with Exchange 2003! I can't use this until it does! (Documented in: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5597 Go vote for this!)
*Overall responsiveness is good.
*Will take a moment to get used to, the screen not orienting is a bit annoying but I guess that'll get fixed.
*Overall, shows a lot of potential, but doesn't quite have the feel of a 'finished product' on the software side.

Bonus for the media playback features (divx)

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

Nope, but most of the OS200x devs will port their apps. Which is easy, because Maemo5 still supports GTK libs and also provides QT to make apps that will be easy to port on Maemo 6 in the future.

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

Never mind I found the answer in a different thread.

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

Yes, my iTunes syncing experience here:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34987

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

Just checked out

http://maemo.nokia.com/maemo-select/

http://maemo.nokia.com/images/app-sc...e1-500x300.png

http://maemo.nokia.com/images/app-sc...io-400x240.png

to download Bounce Evolution and FM radio.

Installing both went well via the Maemo browser.

The Bounce Evolution is a beautiful example of what can be done with this high-resolution screen and motion sensing. It really looks spectacular, I look forward to exploring it a bit more.

FMradio enables the FM radio receiver in the N900. I had my headphones on (it uses them as an antenna) and from a quick test I gather it works.

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

Well I am at last an owner of a Nokia N900 here in Italy (pre-ordered from Nokia.it). Unfortunately I am at work at the moment but looking forward to playing with it tonight. I will post some first impressions tomorrow.

I had heard somewhere that the arrow keys may be messed up on the Italian version, though not in the picture on the Nokia.it website. I am English so do not want an arrow key replaced with some sort of accented 'e' or whatever it might be !

Now have to try to concentrate on work stuff.

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

My Dell order shipped late last night, so either it is coming today or tomorrow (next day delivery). So not long to test for myself.

It will be interesting to compare the N900 to Droid for a few days.

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

I look forward to reading what you have to write Rushmore. I saw someone with the Droid yesterday on the Metro. It looks nicer then I thought but the Verizon logo on it makes me go "ugh".

If I were to ever get it I would probably get the Milestone (GSM variant of the Droid which was actually Sholes originally). Especially since Verizon's 3G network won't let you do voice and data at the same time. :confused:

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

It's been a few days, enough for the glow of having an N900 to wear off I presume, but I still love this phone. Yeah, Exchange support is busted at the moment and I had to switch to using an IMAP connection to access my mail, but it's an annoyance, but not a big deal enough to have me switch back to iPhone (yes, I used a jailbroken iPhone before this - please refrain from ad hominen attacks) or Android. And the pros of this phone greatly outweigh most of the minor problems the phone has.

Again, it's not perfect, but it was a welcome upgrade from the iPhone (though email support on the iPhone, in my opinion is much better)

Hopefully maemo and the N900 will be successful enough to see wider adoption. Would be nice to see a manufacturer other than Nokia launch a maemo based phone as well, but that may be wishful thinking. Additionally, for the U.S. a launch by a major network carrier would help in elevating the exposure of the platform, and thus accelerate application support.

The multitasking capabilities are awesome. Everything is so quick to switch between apps. I haven't really noticed any slowdowns from having many apps open at once, though I probably keep things reasonable and don't have more the 6 windows open at a time.

I gave up using my finger for any browsing. nearly impossible to click on links without zooming in, so I'm using the stylus when I browse and it's fine. Either that or I have to grow my finger nails.

Battery life is ok, I think it lasts a little under a day with moderate-heavy usage, though it may need more time to be "burned in"

Edit: updated for clarity

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

I already know the good and bad about Droid:

+ Sweet 3.7" screen with perfect aspect ratio for movies (less black bars)
+ A lot of practical apps and good phone centric integration
+ Google apps work great- especially Nav and Layers
+ Game emulators work very well (from a game nut perspective)
+ 3G is amazing in KY (of all places)
+ Solid build

- Android
- Processes reopen even after killing them with task manager- bad for game emulators and I can tell when it happens. For some reason, even apps like Tunewiki will load without prompting-odd.
- SD card stuck behind battery
- 28 less usable gigs of memory compared to N900
- No FM receiver or transmitter
- Have to convert video files to MP4
- No Flash until July (at best)
- Camera is weak and maybe not all issues can be corrected through software.
- Low apps space. I currently have 181mb free on the Droid I am using, which is not much if decent commercial games were to come out.
- Keyboard is weak.
- Sound quality is weak compared to G1 (good sounding device)
- OS updates are at the mercy of Motorola - this is not good, based on their history.

N900 will have to be looked at differently, since "new" OS with version 5 and will take time for apps and phone features to build up and / or improve.

UPDATE: Laughing Man, I did not know that. I have not used it for much calling since I still have my G1 and want to keep my current phone number. I have only called out a few times testing the signal in remote places.

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

Goddamnit why has my order STILL not shipped. I was one of the first orders from here. I am calling DELL and going right off

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

Hey Bratag,

Take a look at this.. I seen it in another thread apparently the guy only placed his order on the 19th of this month.

http://bit.ly/4r8rtk

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

fudge!!!!!!!

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

Please... don't bypass the swear filter. :) I access this page in my living room and in places were children are present. Some short people take great interest in what we do.

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

I have just joined the happy group of owning N900! I also just gotta admit this thing is awesome! Just had to say it to make others envy of me, sorry....

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

Just to let yall know the UK now have shipping conformation So i can post my impressions soon :D

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

I m sorry guys but is anybody else disgusted by the music player? No way to make playlist, no headset control, no speed... Am i missing something or te most media oriented mobile device can't actually play music well?

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

Actually I get disgusted at people who create threads about a topic and then post the same damn thing in every other thread.

Sorry personal peeve

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

@ BRATAG

I am deeply sorry for this terrible and unforgiven crime I've done. Maybe I am just a bit upset after spending 600€ not being able to create a playlist.
Anyway, if you like to be helpful you can say if you have the same problem.

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

Lol!

I was concerned about this too.

Select the song or album you want to play. Then press and hold the title for 2 or 3 seconds till the "add to playlist" option comes up.

When your selections are playing, press and hold where it says "now playing" and you can save whatever playlist you just created.


Not sure what you mean by headset control or speed though, can you clarify?

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

Speaking of the music player, anyone notice that it doesn't sort a set of songs in an album by the Track Number in the ID3 tag. As a result, some of the albums are sorted incorrectly.

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

I'm surprised the hidden playlist thing still hasn't been resolved from its older tablet roots (even then you wouldn't know how to set one up unless you experimented or looked it up).

Headset control means a button to say pause/play. It's something that can done if it's not in the n900 already considering we have a thing called headset control on other tablets. ;)

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

From the other thread my version of instructions for the playlist creation. It is easy once you know how, but it should be possible from the playlist list too! I agree that needs changing.

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

@ Ny900
Thx

But I really can't do it, I tried but when I long press a single track, it comes out the menu add to playlist but It add all the track.. and then when it's paplying I have the whole music library... I hate it..
I know you already did it but I am a terrible noob and I can't make it work... Can you try again? :-)

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

Why I can't select a single song to play and it's always all library...

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

Had a go at the Bounce Evolution (download it at maemo.nokia.com):

http://maemo.nokia.com/images/app-sc...e1-500x300.png

http://maemo.nokia.com/images/app-sc...e2-500x300.png

Just a two level demo from what I gather, but some really nice promise there. Very good 3D graphics thanks to the resolution and nice motion controls.

One level is the peaceful forest with huts and bridges and ponds, and a scripted event, the other is fact-paced time-limited roll in space-age track spiralling all over in space.

Framerates and speed is nice!

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

Yes any time I choose a single song ALL THE LIBRARY goes is NOW PLAYING... and so what... I save all the library in a playlist and then remove each track... OMG

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

Well I am stupid but this way of making a playlist is far more stupid than me :-)

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

First, make sure when you go to music that you sort your music by artist or album, otherwise it just lists every mp3 on your device.


Then to find a specific song after you have sorted all the music select the artist, then click, on the artist to see their albums, then click on the albums to see the songs in the albums. When you see a song you want to play/ add to a playlist, don't click on it or highlight it first.

Once you see a song you want, even if it's not highlighted, just press and hold it. If you're in 1 album and selecting one song it, the option to add to playlist should come up to let you add it to the playlist.
Maybe yours has a glitch?:confused:

I think you may be adding all library to playlist because you're selecting the song from the listing of every mp3 on your device(all library) instead of sorting them by Album or by artist first.


Hope this is a little helpful.

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

I'm probably the last person that should be using a swear word of any kind on any forum, but that process is totally assinine and nothing near intuitive towards the experiences releated from *several* other mobile music devices.

A person should not have to *go to the right listing* in order for a playlist to appear. That's a solution which happens because the user interface design team did not think the process through simply enough.

What it should be:
- go to music player
- tap on music library icon*
- tap on artist/album/song (the appearance and order of these should be a preference setting customizable for the user)
- see song, notice (+) sign at the right side of the song list
- tap (+) sign to add song to current playlist, or be prompted to create a new playlist if you've not saved one
- item starts playing with visual indicator in the top right of the page while user is still within the playlist area to select new songs

* Alternative method to tapping on music library icon is that person slides out hard keyboard and just starts typing the name of an artist, song, or playlist. Items being showing in a list format, with the ability to click on the (+) to add to playlist or just tap on the song name to play.

That's a UI, and that's what users coming to this device will expect. Saying that a person has done it wrong because the UI didn't get these two paragraphs of attention says more about the community's lack of involvement with its development (me included) than anything else.

Add: Brainstorm Proposal to Improve the UX of Playlist Creation (go vote on it, or develop solutions, just stop harping on it)

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

Do you need to use strength to take off the back of your N900?

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

Yes, N900 not for Girlie-Men!

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

But it almost crushes.....

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

Strength and cunning are needed to avoid injury!

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

thx. I did it but I think it's really a problem...

but ok... i will live with that...

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

I agree.

The playlist editing seems to be overly complex and needs rethinking. I personally don't edit playlists on a device, so I hadn't felt it interfering. Overall I feel the Maemo user-interface very intuitive once you get the hang of it, but this part of the media-player clearly needs work!

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

My first impression:

Right before getting my N900 I had a chance to borrow a friend's G1 for a couple weeks. Comparing these two, it's a mixed bag. Part of me is really excited at the new stuff I can do and part of me wants to go back and use the G1 again. I really love the web browser. On the other hand, there are lots of little minor bugs that still need to be ironed out (many of them mentioned in the "yes, it sucks" thread). Oh well, these things will get fixed soon, I expect. But there are two things that really disappoint me:

1) Okay, so it's not entirely Nokia's fault, but the out of the box experience using this with gmail is pretty bad. You can't use Gmail's mobile version in the web browser, even with the wapbrowser add-on installed. And don't even think about trying to use Mail for Exchange with Google Sync. It simply doesn't work. So that leaves IMAP, and it doesn't support IMAP IDLE, so you have to poll. And when I open my gmail "All Mail" folder the email app stops responding and has to be forced to close.

2) I tried to install the SDK. I'm a programmer and I'd like to help improve the software. But Nokia's servers are currently messed up, so it's nearly impossible to use the SDK. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=389957

Oh and I really miss Pandora Radio! Yes, now I'm being picky. ;) The N900 is an incredible bit of hardware. Good build quality, nice camera, and the GSM radio is giving me good reception and call quality. But I'd like to see some big improvements to the software.

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

does anybody here know to remove tags from the list of tags available in the photos section?

i know how to associate tags to photos and remove them, but after adding a few tags myselft, i want to delete it from the list of tags available, but cant find the option..

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

There is a bug report open about that (and the old media player in OS2008 had the same problem, IIRC):

Media player doesn't recognize "Track Number" metadata in songs

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

The available tags come from the tags on photos on your device. Remove the photos with the tags, or remove the tags from the photos, and the tags will disappear (except for some example ones which never seem to go away).