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maemo.org - Talk (https://talk.maemo.org/index.php)

- Nokia N900 (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=44)

- - N900 - Yes, it sucks. (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=35009)

Texrat

2009-11-25 04:40

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjx (Post 390543)

It could also be the RAM is too full and it's swapping. We haven't been told how many other apps it's running, or what their memory usage is.

Right, which is actually my main point and sorry for any red herrings (by interference I meant wifi but as you point out that's an unlikely contributor). Too many unknowns to make any determination.

Texrat

2009-11-25 04:41

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davetech (Post 390546)

No lock please. They'll stop, they promise. A stern warning should do. ;)

I'm curious to find out if others will experience similar issues, along with any remedies if available.

This thread is too inflammatory, by virtue of title alone, to be of any serious troubleshooting value IMO.

davetech

2009-11-25 04:43

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Can't the title just be changed then?

How about "N900, could be better, should be better - YMMV"?

Rushmore

2009-11-25 04:44

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Does not make sense. Droid has slightly higher res and scrolls far smoother than the N900 on the same pages in these vids. Since both have the same chipset, it must either be the browser or there is something hogging resources on Mega's N900. He shut Flash off, so that is not the problem.

I will do tests when I get my N900 tomorrow.... wait- KY plays on TV, so there might be a delay;)

sadfist

2009-11-25 04:55

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

I'd just like to point out that while Megacrazy is exaggerating how bad the browser/scrolling issue is, everyone who is arguing with him is exaggerating how good the browser/scrolling is. It's pretty easy to get slowdown, especially with the performance of the mail client and media player.

Face it, the N900 is basically a retail boxed prototype. It's got rough edges. It will improve, the community is awesome. I just hope I won't have to get an N1000 to get a lot of these things people take for granted fixed :-D

Megacrazy

2009-11-25 05:04

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Just to satisfy everyone, the phone has been flashed. The behavior is unchanged. It's just what it is.

It wasn't running any apps when the videos were made.

Anyway, I think I've accomplished what I set out to do with this thread and that was to demonstrate that Nokia has added another unpolished product to their collection. I hope they will learn from their mistakes and continue developing the N900 (which I love) and not jump to another product in 3 months that will be just as unpolished. Apple has shown that it is all about software and sticking with something that works and bringing it to an end.

On the other hand, you guys need to stop generating excuses for Nokia such as "it's version 4 of 5, great effort Maemo team, it will be better with updates etc etc...". Keep in mind that the people who developed this product were paid to work and you and I owe them nothing. On the contrary, they owe us 600$ worth of product that they (IMO) did not fully deliver.

I will be around and follow all the developments of cool apps for the N900 (even if the scrolling sucks) and enjoy the phone for some time to come. Do not kid yourselves though, this product falls short of the iPhone and the Droid (which also just came out) bigtime. It is unfair to average users to sweep problems under the carpet. Admitting a problem is the first step to solving it.

Texrat

2009-11-25 05:06

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megacrazy (Post 390564)

Admitting a problem is the first step to solving it.

Ok, that's it. No more irony for you young man. That exceeds the threshold. :p

Devil

2009-11-25 05:06

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

texrat, what if im scared just a little bit about the negative commentary's?

buy it or not?

see... my problem is.. i don't see other alternatives. n900 is best ATM

but i am not on the road that much.
could just as well save up for a nice very portable laptop.
i'm at home/university. so... 11 inch sony vaio hmm come here baby :rolleyes:

Texrat

2009-11-25 05:07

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil (Post 390570)

Is leasing an option for you? :D

kyle	2009-11-25 05:28

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Megacrazy, have you tried increasing the memory cache setting to 40 mb and then doing the same test? It seems quite a bit better to me after I did that- I still see the checkered pattern occasionally, but it seems to go away in just a fraction of a second.

It makes sense that this would be the case, because the engadget homepage is big and must take up a lot of memory in rendered form. Increasing the cache size means that it has to do a lot less rerendering. There is also an "automatic" setting that I haven't tried yet.

Of course, some other smartphones that don't do true multitasking can afford to always use the maximum amount of memory available. ;)

johnnyrockets911

2009-11-25 05:33

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by un-named_user (Post 389968)

I don't seem to understand why there seems to be a tinge of fanboy-ism in some of the replies. Megacrazy has raised very valid points, about how a normal consumer will feel about the device. And people who think that a 10 15 minute fiddle with the device is enough to tell all about it aren't entirely correct.

Yes I love the phone, but it feels very beta-ish after you use it extensively. Yes I know, that it is the culture we live in. Sell now debug later.

The iPhone does have a very very polished albeit limited UI. But just beacuse maemo5 is more advanced that doesn't give Nokia an excuse not to have gotten it right. (Not comparing functionalities)

I've used the phone now for 4 days now and I'l list out some of the problems I encountered

Browser
1. Crashes every 15 minutes or so, I guess because I switch back and forth every min between windows. Bad nokia :(
2. History is a painfully slow method to go back a page. Nokia needs to provide forward and back buttons in the UI
3. History, open in new window, the menu(tap and hold) stop working randomly.
4. Lots and lots of checkered patterns while scrolling and esp after you start scrolling after zooming in.
5. I have a habit of opening a new window and going back to the previous page instantly(via the task switcher). All that happens is a 2-10 second delay before the page responds/scrolls again.
6. Some of the new window(in point 5) doesn't load completely when I do come back to it and have to wait 3-10 seconds again for it to load. This is a bad when the phone is billed as mutitasking
7. Links click(finger and stylus) but the browser doesn't seem to respond once in a while.
8. I like the volume control to zoom in and out, but then I have no means to control the volume easily when playing a flash video. try youtube and just see how microscopic the volume links are.
9. Drop down lists are very laggy while scrolling.
10. The address bar gives suggestions whenever it pleases. A reboot later it seems to remember all the website I have visited before :p
11. Once in a while if I click the address bar and start typing away the contact search opens up

Music Player
1. Stutters often while browsing the web side by side.
2. Scrolling just feels laggy at times. Nokia really needs to pick up the slack here and everywhere else kinetic scrolling is implemented

General
1. The pdf reader really needs kinetic scrolling.
2. I don't know if its relevant in every country or not. But the contacts application gives me an option to send a text msg to landlines. I atleast want an option to turn it off.
3. To swipe the screens the finger has to be moved a lot before the screens move.
4. The phone tells me to remove the charger as the battery is full after I have done so :D
5. The rotation sensor for the phone app is flaky, from standby I've literally had to shake the phone while holding it to get it to start. But once it starts it switches orientation perfectly as needed.

Weird Bugs
1. I downloaded a couple of pics from the internet, saved them in the gallery. then later deleted them from the gallery. But I was left with some pictures(with black thumbnails). If I tried to delete these the phone said they didn't exist or something and didn't do anything. I downloaded the pics again and deleted the pics. it worked then :confused:
2. The conversation app is showing 2 entries from my call logs and I still cant delete them :mad:

Hardware thoughts
1. There has to be ctrl, shift, and the symbol key on the other side of the keyboard. Its a pain trying to do lets say ctrl+a.
2. The build quality is fine. But I've been a E-series user for a long time and this seems like a step down.
3. The screen could have been brighter
4. Single touch makes it a pain to type fast on the on-screen keyboard. I wish it was resistive multi touch. I dont like capacitive ;)
5. Battery is just about adequate. Nokia should have put the 1500mAH battery.
6. A lil hardware(send & end) buttons would be nice. Just makes it easier to use the phone.

I still love the phone, I do. The promises it holds, the browser's capabilities(not the stability as of yet), the community behind it. and I hope most of the bugs would be resolved as soon as possible in the coming updates.

No point I suppose in discussing the third party apps, and the things the phone can't do, like lack of mms which I really do need sadly cause I still knowingly bought the phone :)

PS: this is my first post on the forum, been following it for a month or two now. But was too lazy to register :D. So a hi to all.

btw could somebody guide me how to get rid of the damn conversation entries without formatting the phone???

and NO I wont sell my phone :D

Best objective post I have ever seen about the N900's flaws.

If you haven't Thanked this guy, do so. We need more posts like this, for those of us who are still on the fence.

Calling it garbage -- stupid and helps no one. Taking the time to actually explain the issues, very helpful.

johnnyrockets911

2009-11-25 05:35

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megacrazy (Post 389905)

Here we go some real life scrolling in the browser, flash off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8JeLKKfDDM

If you want a comparative iPhone vid I can do that too but I think it's pretty much self explanatory. I might cover the actual OS later.

As far as the unit being defective...come on...seriously.

Wow, are you serious?

Who the hell zooms in and scrolls that fast?

The only garbage in here is your original post.

I'm watching the video the entire time thinking "Wow, that looks amazing."

I'm coming from a G1 where every time I switch browser windows or apps and come back to the page, it reloads. That's right, the *entire* page reloads. Your video is just amazing to me, and I can't believe you're complaining.

Laughing Man

2009-11-25 05:38

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by christexaport (Post 390477)

What definition of smartphone is everyone using to make these claims? Some say it isn't because it doesn't support autorotation, but neither did the N73 or 6600. They say because it doesn't have call and end buttons, but neither does the iPhone. They say because it lacks this or that, it isn't. I totally disagree. I don't think all smartphones are portable desktop devices, but all portable desktop devices with calling features are smartphones. They are multitasking computing platforms with cellular telephony capabilities and native application frameworks. Many of the features it lacks that people claim make it not a smartphone postdate the arrival of smartphones. So please get off the gas...:rolleyes:

My definition is how applications are designed and centered around. IPhone is a smartphone since its apps and design is around a phone's usage. While a tablet is more PC oriented apps. The tablets and n900 have both PC oriented and smartphone UI apps.

Breece

2009-11-25 05:40

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

This might be interesting for everyone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

Its a video answer to Megacrazys complains in the first post..

MountainX

2009-11-25 06:01

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breece (Post 390614)

This might be interesting for everyone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

Its a video answer to Megacrazys complains in the first post..

Everyone reading this thread should watch the video Breece linked to.

Megacrazy, I hope you get your issues resolved. I thought it was cool that you wanted this device enough to bargain for an earlier spot on the waiting list. But what's up with your attitude in this thread? For starters, the title is inflamatory. But then there's this comment:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megacrazy (Post 390564)

Anyway, I think I've accomplished what I set out to do with this thread and that was to demonstrate that Nokia has added another unpolished product to their collection..

What's with everyone trying to punish Nokia for past sins??? Maemo is different. It is not just "another unpolished product"! That is an absolutely ignorant statement!

Maemo is new and it is a bold experiment. Why not celebrate the fact that Nokia is the only major phone manufacturer giving us an OS this open (e.g., root access without jumping through any hoops, etc.). Nokia readily states that Maemo is at step 4 of 5. That's not an excuse. It is the reality of turning Linux into something that retains the power of the desktop but runs on a phone-sized device. No one else has managed to do this (including Google), so if we want this bold experiment to succeed, let's acknowledge that it is not a trivial undertaking and let's appreciate what Nokia has done so far.

For me, the worst possible outcome in the world would be for Nokia to be discouraged from future Maemo development due to negative customer feedback. That would suck beyond all belief.

davetech

2009-11-25 06:03

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megacrazy (Post 390564)

I have no expectations that the N900 will be an Iphone killer. While I don't agree with Apple's nickel and diming of anything that touches Apple (and I despise Itunes), I give them credit for making a very smooth user experience and successfully continuing to produce profit as a company. And I'm sure they'll continue to do well in this respect for some time to come.

As cellphones continue to go the path of the cellputer, which I think the N900 is leading the way in in terms of potential (fewer apps and lesser refined rendering aside), I hope Nokia doesn't fall behind as I've always considered the call quality and cost value of their phones to be among the best. I agree that it is important for them to release solidly performing products out of the box and I hope they figure this out soon if they haven't done so already. Being a Nokia fan, I would love to one day see ads promoting a Nokia superphone that not only kicks *** (much like the Droid adverts) but is actually an accurate representation.

archzai

2009-11-25 06:10

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

umm i think its a valid point to complain about product launching and the STATE you launch it in. I think the real issue is, Nokia shouldn't have set a release date so soon without fixing everything up, i mean there are problems in here that COMMON SENSE would have made you realize were issues that needed to be patched before releasing it to the public.

Nokia should not have been so aggressive with launching it early, and by delaying it, it made people (at least me) expect a much more polished device rather than one that is STILL unpolished.

I know people hate comparisons with iPhone OS or Android OS, but from what i remember, when these were launched, there were a lot LESS issues. And for god's sake, Apple and Google have never even made phones before! (unlike Nokia). And for people comparing the N900's poor performance to the G1, cmon, the G1 came out 1.5 years ago or so, you cant really compare that.

I do want the N900, and I really hope things get fixed, but you guys have to stop being so blinded and realize that Nokia has done a very poor job of releasing this product. It's like Ferrari hyping a new car model, then delaying it and then when releasing it, having simple things like, the radio not work, the windows not work, and other electrical faults in the car. You dont want more customers over like this. Even if it IS step 4 out of 5, you're using this step to attract more customers, not drive them away.

Laughing Man

2009-11-25 06:10

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

While all the videos are interesting the tests need to be conducted in a similar fashion. Same website, same attempted scrolling speed.

daperl

2009-11-25 06:11

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Game Over

LouisLoh

2009-11-25 06:18

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Yes, but is that scrolling speed needed by ANYONE at all?

Devil

2009-11-25 06:19

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamem..._080303a-l.jpg

davetech

2009-11-25 06:29

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breece (Post 390614)

This might be interesting for everyone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

Its a video answer to Megacrazys complains in the first post..

That looks...

AWESOME.

WANT.

NOW.

HATE.

DELL.

jjx	2009-11-25 06:35

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breece (Post 390614)

This might be interesting for everyone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

Its a video answer to Megacrazys complains in the first post..

Well it shows the same scrolling / rendering issue, so at least we can confirm Megacrazy doesn't a have a "slow special" in that department :D

It's very interesting to see that the issue doesn't occur (or only very slightly) when zoomed out and showing a complex web page with tens of thousands of characters and plenty of images. It only occurs when you've zoomed in fully.

That tells me it is definitely a software issue with the rendering algorithm. If it was raw performance, it would be slower when zoomed out, due to increased scene complexity (whether hardware-assisted rendering or not). Since that's Gecko's area (the heart of Mozilla, Firefox, Fennec) I don't think we can blame Nokia for Gecko's behaviour - after all Gecko is an excellent browser engine choice in most respects - but we can annoy the folks at Mozilla with these videos until they improve it :D

I have no comment on the other issues.

MountainX

2009-11-25 06:45

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjx (Post 390657)

Well it shows the same scrolling / rendering issue

It does? Please point it out to me.

Anyway, this issue is of no concern to me. Even Megacrazy's videos present performance that seems satisfactory to me. And if I want another browser, that shouldn't be a problem either.

mobiledivide

2009-11-25 06:47

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Breece (Post 390614)

This might be interesting for everyone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

Its a video answer to Megacrazys complains in the first post..

Thanks for the video that was great contrast to the OP's claims. It is interesting to look at various users expectations. As this video proves the N900 is pretty adequate in scrolling while music is playing for the majority of people. I guess 50 fps is what constitutes as smooth these days. I don't know anything though I don't have an N900 yet.

kyle	2009-11-25 06:50

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjx (Post 390657)

That tells me it is definitely a software issue with the rendering algorithm. If it was raw performance, it would be slower when zoomed out, due to increased scene complexity (whether hardware-assisted rendering or not).

Could it be that larger text is more complicated to render? And that it scales in such a way that the higher resolution is a greater factor than the fewer number of characters on the screen at one time? Maybe there just needs to be a cache for the glyphs that are most frequently rendered in a given font and for a given point size. We should really open a bug, if only to inquire about how this all works.

daperl

2009-11-25 07:08

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

I've recently implemented phase 1 of a double-tap zoom hack for the Diablo GTK webkit, so I spent some time staring at how the iPhone OS webkit implements zoom. It's simple. They just do an animated 2D transform while another thread is rerendering the page. They time the animation such that the final pixel copy happens soon after the animation finishes. If you have such a device, you'll notice that your screen is frozen to UI while this is happening. After the zoom is complete, you have to reregister your onFingerDown event. Nothing will happen until you do. A simple parlor trick, nothing more. Nokia could do this, but instead they decided to show you the continuous output of your appSSS. Plural. So, now all you eye candy weenies know.

jjx	2009-11-25 07:14

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MountainX (Post 390665)

It does? Please point it out to
me.

At 4:24 there's the worst bit: a big rendering chug while scrolling up, taking a long time to draw the mysymbian banner. In that time, the whole top half of the screen is blank for a quarter of a second. It's like watching Netscape Navigator 4 all over again :-)

In fact it has the delay twice there. It really looks like it happens when there are certain object types being rendered.

See what I mean about it only happening when zoomed in? And I notice, when scrolling up (to the start of the page); it doesn't happen scrolling down.

At 4:18-4:20 when you zoom out, there's a long delay in filling in the top and sides - more white gap.

When zoomed out, it's pretty consistently good. At 4:12, there's a white strip at the top of the browser - another rendering delay, perhaps. (It'd be less visible if it was black).

(I see lots of brief stalls in the kinetic scrolling, but that could easily be Youtube not the device).

Big rendering chug at 5:33. Ok, that's a task switch, we may expect more chugging then. (Though a really polished implementation would hide such things).

Quote:

Anyway, this issue is of no concern to me. Even Megacrazy's videos present performance that seems satisfactory to me. And if I want another browser, that shouldn't be a problem either.

Indeed. To me it reminds me of browsers from an era gone by (waves to my old laptop). But it's usable, and no doubt will improve. It's a very superficial issue.

As someone who has worked on game engines, video playback devices and GUI toolkits, I tend to notice these little things and think "if only I it wasn't just me..." :p

I'm fascinated that you didn't see them in your own video. It really reminds me of my colleague who can't tell the difference between 30fps games and 60fps games - whereas I can tell immediately and they feel totally different to look at. No wonder people argue about these things if they're invisible - and therefore not an issue - to half the people :D

davetech

2009-11-25 07:15

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daperl (Post 390690)

Knowing is half the battle. When can we expect this hack? :)

jjx	2009-11-25 07:19

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daperl (Post 390690)

A simple parlor trick, nothing more. Nokia could do this, but instead they decided to show you the continuous output of your appSSS. Plural. So, now all you eye candy weenies know.

Parlour tricks are what good eye candy is made of.

I think Nokia's approach is better, and in this case it's up to the app to provide the parlour tricks.

(Though for really polished polish, to make transitions glitch free you do need some global scene management or compositing of app output.)

jjx	2009-11-25 07:24

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davetech (Post 390699)

Knowing is half the battle. When can we expect this hack? :)

Can't someone just implement an iPhone emulator for the N900? The hardware is similar enough.

Now that would be a really cool hack? :D

bandora

2009-11-25 07:44

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Ok this video answers some of the questions.. Especially with the scrolling with music on..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

daperl

2009-11-25 07:49

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by davetech (Post 390699)

Knowing is half the battle. When can we expect this hack? :)

I start Holiday and parent mode tomorrow, so the earliest I'll probably get back to it is Monday. I used it for a few hours last night and I was very happy with it. It's only about 15 lines of code, mostly inserted JavaScript. There's plenty more to do, of course. For instance, there's no instant visual cue that it's happening, so one solution is what Apple did: an opaque animated overlay that eventually becomes transparent. Anyway, I'm motivated, and maybe the same time that Bundyo sorts out all his Fremantle/Diablo stuff, I'll have something more robust to insert into Tear and take it for a spin.

giodelgado

2009-11-25 07:56

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

all of that stuff was mostly known before launch, thank you for giving me the: "this would have happened if I had pre-ordered it after the pain of waiting feeling"

Breece

2009-11-25 07:57

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

This link has already been posted by me this morning :) But thank you :)

ArnimS

2009-11-25 08:06

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bratag (Post 390498)

I do admit the problem is present on HIS machine. But I am still bound by the law of averages and when I see 20 videos none of which show the issue and read testimonial after testimonial that the browser is not only fast but amazing.

Maybe he is being an *** and running a cpu hog process in the background to make n900 look slow? Cant do that on iphone eh? :)

As i type this i am getting inexplicable pauses.

Also when typing in some search engine input fields - maybe that live quer y suggest assist could be disableable.

Otherwise browser is overall unbeatable.

ArnimS

2009-11-25 08:08

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bandora (Post 390746)

Ok this video answers some of the questions.. Especially with the scrolling with music on..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDn50QjNfM

music playback on speakers takes some cpu to eq the sound. hopefully that can be reduced. plugin headphones/line-out to remove that load.

davetech

2009-11-25 08:14

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Is a Micro SDHC card included with this?

daperl

2009-11-25 08:16

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjx (Post 390702)

They should be using asynchronous circular shared memory buffers. The Window Manager is now the current app and so the output from the other apps isn't mandatory at the moment. Smooth scrolling and zooming take precedent so the WM grabs app output when it can. When the apps go into tiled desktop mode they dump their output to shared memory, not to something synchronous with the screen buffer. And this obviously would be transparent to the apps.

Andre Klapper

2009-11-25 08:19

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dinis_2003 (Post 389825)

How nokia can release mega cool phone leaving all simple futures that any boolshit phone had it 5 years ago?

Because it is mega cool small computer with some phone functionality? :-)

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