Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Both of you are out of date.

RISC machines execute multiple instructions in a single clock cycle these days - and so do CISC machines.

But it's even more exciting:

Modern x86 is something like RISC underneath. There is a sort of instruction translator running which reads the CISC instructions and converts them to a stream of RISC micro-ops (internal instructions). Several micro-ops are executed in parallel. Some micro-ops take multiple cycles each, or (on some x86s) half a cycle, but because they run in parallel the total time is lower, averaging to multiple micro-ops per cycle (typically about 2-3 depending on application, but memory access time is another major factor).

The N900's OMAP3 has a Cortex-A8 ARM core. Due to it's RISCy heritage, most instructions translate to one micro-ops internally but some translate to several. It can execute up to 2 micro-ops per clock cycle, depending on rules for dual issue. The ARM instruction set, although RISCy, is quite compact: It can do several things at once in the same instruction, and it's up clever compilers and code writers to take advantage of it.

The N900's OMAP3 also has a TI C64x DSP core, which uses a VLIW instruction set and executes up to 8 operations per cycle.

So you see, it is really not as simple as CISC vs RISC.

Generally, modern x86 performs very well because it's a highly optimised design. But it depends a lot on which chip family, as well as the clock speed. That's why the clock speed isn't as important in marketing any mode.

ARM performs very well while using much lower power than x86, and the DSP on the same chip can be used for number crunching (but it's not as open to use, unfortunately)

In general I expect the OMAP3 at 600MHz to perform better than any x86 clocked at 600MHz for most functions, but not necessarily everything.

(The x86s which squeeze a lot per cycle are usually run at higher clock speeds, so only older x86s or ones with less fancy designs are typically run at 600MHz).

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

More like do you want some Cheetos with that cardboard box wine.

If you are going to critique something, do it maturely.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

One word.

TROLL.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Oooops I did it again....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnf31T3A-gI

Here's a video of the RSS App. If you guys think this is how the app should work and that it's perfectly ok...I give up.

- No, there is no need to reflash my phone.
- No there was no audio/video playing in the background
- It's slow as hell when feeds are updating
- Yes, it completely misses swipes with the stylus when it gets really busy

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Hello Megacrazy,

Yes the scrolling is spotty in the RSS app. It used to be like this in the previous versions also.
But does it effect the use of the rss app significantly? I personally dont think so.I am quite okay with how it is. I think your expectations are very very high...

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

High expectations that... it scrolls well? You're kidding, right? :)

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

My expectations are that the software they provide works. Yes, it does hinder usability because I have to sit there for x number of minutes before I can start using it, until all feeds are updated.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I never saw a delay of minutes while scrolling. It was a slight delay of may be a second. I agree that it is not perfect but it is very usable. Also if you want a better scrolling experience you could disable images. Off course it really defeats the purpose if you want to see the images. But what i am saying here is that it is not even the slightest of a deal breaker for previous internet tablet owners. However it may something of importance to newbies to the maemo platform. Anyway thanks for bringing up this specific topic but i think you are over expecting things from a mobile device and even over exaggerating things. Of course your iphone may be able to do the scrolling better but as a package it falls way short of the n900.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

hey by reading a lot of threads here, I can see that the N900 have many problems and not simple ones...:( very unhappy about it and could make me think about cancelling. on the pre production units these problems were not mentioned but now...i think really that nokia speeded up the production process hence all these problems :S

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I knew I forgot to mention something. :)

480x320 vs 800x480 is a significant difference and is not a fair comparison. If anything, the N900 vs the Droid (854x480) would be a better comparison (prefer the N900 myself).

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Thanks for the headsup Megacrazy...

I currently own an n810, and when I bought it, it wasn't very polished, lacked useful apps, syncing,... But I thought this would get fixed over time. NOT.

So seeing that the n900 goes the same path, I'll hold off handing Nokia more of my money.

For the Nokia trolls in here that were bashing Megacrazy, some facts:
- this isn't a new OS, maemo is quite old and Nokia still hasn't gotten its act together
- Given the pricerange this is sold in, it ought to be good. Period.
- If you think this is more of a tablet, then why did Nokia bother to add the phone capability. n810 with better cpu/memory and good apps would have been better.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Look, if the RSS app is having these problems, it's not the device. Someone just didn't do proper asynchronous GTK multi-threading. There is a relatively simple fix. On an n8x0 using PyGTK I can run silky smooth while downloading content and updating widgets. These devices kick a*s with this sort of stuff. They just need to get a senior programmer assigned. And if this is a system wide issue with network apps, the same solution can be applied everywhere. I have C and Python code to make these types of problems go away. I'm confident this can be fixed in a timely fashion.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Well in that case get to work :). I hope you don't expect any money because Nokia has our money already. Maybe you should give them a call and ask them for a cut if you fix this.

Btw next video up will be scrolling through the history in the browser...featuring image tearing, failure to load all pages and an eventual crash. Just kidding. I think my video career is done for now.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

1) Maemo has changed nearly in every jump. From the 770, to the n800/n810 to now the n900. It's not like Apple where the changes are gradual to the point where you can still run the operating systems on the older systems. It took a bit of hacking to get OS2008 running on the 770 and we'll see if Maemo 5 ever gets hacked enough to run on the n800/n810.

2) I agree. But it is good, maybe not to everyone's overhyped expectations.

3) Because they added the ability to use data so your not limited to tethering and wireless networks. You might as well throw in some voice functionality in there too since it's nearly the same chip. I pretty much consider the n900 a better n810 with better cpu/memory and a smaller screen (I would've preferred a 4 inch screen). More apps isn't something Nokia can do by themselves. They have to attract commercial developers and rely on the open source community. Most of the apps from the previous tablets came from ports or created by developers (many who are on this forum).

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Sorry, I just watched the video. I think I might be doing too much guessing here (like that ever stopped me), but Nokia's probably using the gecko engine system wide. There might be some of what I mentioned above going on, but that video suggests that the gecko engine needs some fine tuning. Mozilla does great work, but I'm not sure they have the right speed formula yet for these devices.

And what about Harmattan? I can't see a gecko-based flagship browser surviving when QtWebkit is a core library. This must have been Nokia's plan all along with the engine abstraction layer. Obviously a great move, and maybe this should be a high priority for the community. Time to resurrect that stuff.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

RSS Reader is lousy, i agree. But that doesn't mean N900 sucks. In any other aspect you're proven wrong. So, you're too much arrogant to admit that to yourself or you're just Gigacrazy. ;)

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I think that the guy might want to consider that the N900 has 800x480 screen which - compared to iPhone's 320x480 - is TWO AND A HALF TIMES MORE pixels to process at ANY time. The same hardware (CPU/GPU) gets 2.5 times higher load than on the iPhone. And for such a considerably increased load, I'd say that the result is more than satisfactory, and surely a subject to some further optimizations. This device has been on the market for just DAYS, for God's sake!

Secondly, maybe he should remind himself that the iPhone does NOT support Flash in the browser. It just SKIPS Flash content, which is often quite heavy. And the N900 browser has to deal with it. This also has some influence on less smooth scrolling.

So there are at least two factors that objectively affect performance. When rendering a web page, the N900 simply has A LOT MORE to do than the iPhone.

If that hardly (if at all - for "normal" users) noticeable scrolling jerkiness is the price to pay for 2.5 times higher resolution display and full Flash support in the browser then I am happy to pay the price as the "issues" that annoy him so much actually do not exist for me.

Regarding his complaints about the product not delivering quality and functionality he'd expect, maybe he could answer the following simple questions:

- does Bluetooth (the most crippled in the industry) on the iPhone deliver functionality one might expect from something that's advertised as the 'most powerful mobile platform'?

- does iPhone's 3 Megapixel camera without Flash deliver any usable functionality and quality AT NIGHT? Or is the iPhone supposed to be used in daylight only?

- has he already forgotten that it took Apple *TWO YEARS* and two device generations to implement on the iPhone as basic things as MMS, voice dialing, video recording, copy & paste, allow any GPS navigation to be released for it, etc. If he was patient enough to wait two years for Apple to do it, maybe he should give Nokia at least a couple of months and see what the upcoming firmware updates will bring?

It always puzzles me how iPhone users excuse it for having to wait two years for MMS or video recording, don't mind not having Flash support in the browser or even the simplest LED flashlight for the camera after 2.5 years and three generations of the device, and so on, while they're always the first to complain and throw mud at other devices for as silly and unimportant things as some miliseconds long scrolling unsmoothness I am not even able to see.

Maybe iPhone users should remind themselves how the first iPhone worked, what was it delivering and how long it took to add the most simple things to it. I'm sure we'll see most of the current issues fixed and missing features added in months, and not years like in case of the iPhone whose owners still wait for fully functional Bluetooth or Adobe Flash support, and got things like video recording or copy & paste only in mid-2009, five years after the rest of the world.

Shortly speaking: if you're able to wait YEARS for Apple to fix and add things to the iPhone, kindly consider waiting at least a couple of months for Nokia to fix and add things on Maemo, which only DEBUTED on the smartphone market.

Just my $0.001.

Best regards,
Michal Jerz
My-Symbian.com
My-Maemo.com (in a week or so)

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

@My-Symbian.com

Actually the GPU in the iPhone 3GS is better than the n900's.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I'm sorry you're not enjoying your experience as much as you hoped, but you have a premier device in your hand. You probably don't want to hear this but I'm gonna spew anyway.

These Maemo devices wouldn't exist if Nokia went it alone. And partnering with the upper tier of FOSS has been the Maemo creed from the beginning. It's a great thing, but it's a rocky path to the blissful green pastures. Everything's relative, so for a geek like me I'm already on the doorstep of the promise land. The pluses are so big that I'll even put up with a worthless hardware keyboard hangin' off of my device. :)

I know you're expecting something closer to perfection, but you're in the middle of a process, and Nokia has been embarrassingly upfront about it. But here is a high level question that makes my decisions easy: Where is everyone going? Take your pick: Google, Apple, Sony... They're control freaks. All of them. And they partner with control freaks. If their products are excellent and people want them, who am I to say anything. But where can they go? Only towards more control. I say let them fight it out; they're still going to have to adhere to standards and such, so let them try and cram their visions down my throat. And even though I like and use some of their products, I have my own dreams and visions; we all do, and Nokia has given us a great playground such that I have done things in the last two years that were just fantasy for me before the n800. But these devices have been proven to be much more than just playthings.

Anyway, again, it's a bummer about your new toy, Nokia seems to have a gun to their head and I'm not here to make excuses for them. And trust me, I'm not in good favor with their presence here, but Maemo and all that that implies is still the best thing going as far I'm concerned. So as I see it, you have three choices:

- Hang in there, learn about all the Maemo offerings, and watch things evolve and improve. Maybe even participate.
- Return the device; get something else or not. All the while monitoring this board for the progress you're looking for.
- or, return the device and find the gadget and community that suits you better.

Regardless, don't think this community takes things standing down; I think you already know that from this thread, but I'm talking about from Nokia also. We are all trying to push high standards, but knowing how to do that in this environment is challenging. I'm still learning.

And as far as how I spend my development time, I never know how that's gonna go till I wake up in the morning. :) Welcome to the wild frontier of maemo.org!

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

How do you figure?

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Yeah, I've heard. But I couldn't 100% confirm it anywhere. Apple seems to very allergic to publishing any detailed, official technical specifications. So until I can confirm it, I assume it's the same.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Well, its a powervr 530 in the n900, 3GS reportedly has a 535. Not too sure how much that actually matters in a benchmark, as we dont have a good one. Thats all im saying.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

This site and its comments have some interesting info about the GPU.

http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/sho...=3579&p=3&cp=7

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Thanks for the info. Well, so it's slightly better then. But if the information is correct and the difference is mainly video acceleration related then it should not have much impact on things like scrolling.

On the other hand, I wouldn't say that the N900 has anything to be ashamed of when it comes to video playback or recording compared to the 3Gs, so it looks that the better GPU on the iPhone just isn't being taken advantage of in this regard.

To recap, if the better GPU on the iPhone has no influence on things other than video playback/recording, and video playback/recording is currently much better on the N900, I can still assume that they have the same GPUs, at least until Apple makes any use of iPhones better GPU :)

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

You guys are way too damn ravenous if somebody has anything negative to say about the N900.

It's not perfect. Random reboots, some other glitches. And I'm one of the people that was wanting to get the hell away from that - I've had more than enough with three iPhone 3G in the last year, where each and every OS upgrade has been a potential disaster - 2.2x, 3.0.x and 3.x all have basically killed my iPhone.

So my disappointment reading about the problems people are running into is that it exhibits exactly what I'm running away from... a faulty experience, even if it's only just a few things.

I didn't expect perfection. But the things that is affecting people, I've already paid my dues.

You guys though... like piranha on the new posters that say anything otherwise.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Nah, not ravenous. I want all the naysayers to stop comparing it to a third gen device, and start remembering that this is a raw product and that it can only get better.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I understand that, but how is this not a 3rd, if not 4th gen product ? All but the phone bits have been around. And Nokia is real good at the phone part.

I'm going to compare it to what I know, like and/or loathe because it has to replace it. Not a phone I had 3-4 years ago. One I've had just 3-4 weeks ago.

And things like random reboots and stuff, I didn't give Apple any quarter. Why should I give one to Nokia?

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I have to say I am having some serious second thoughts about this device. I was seriously burnt by the N97 after waiting ages for it to replace my Nokia N95. Read all the negative reviews and thought it was all Apple/Iphone loveism that was causing this and I couldn't believe the company that made the N95 over 2 years before would release a new flasgship phone which wasn't super. Turned out the reviews were correct and I returned it after 3 days.

Shortly after I returned the N97 I heard about the Nokia N900. Since then I have been watching youtube videos of this device obsessively - everyday for almost 6 months now.

I had never heard of maemo let alone knowing of the existence of this website. But I stumbled across this site about 4 days ago.

I have to say the time here has made me have serious doubts about getting this device. The youtube videos just show how cool the device is. It doesn't show you the problems.

In the time here I have learnt that:

- there is no custom ringtones for each contact;
- there is no way to edit contact info;
- some devices reboot at random;
- there is apparently no inline control other than with a blue tooth headset (how am I to answer a call when listening to music through headphones on the tube? I have to pause the music then disonnect the headphones?);
- there is the possibility of corrupted memory;
- there is no skype video calling;
- RSS seem to have issues;
- the music player is not very intuitive.

I also suspect the music through headphones will not be loud enough for me.

I have heard that the device is completely open and this community can do amazing things with the device and feel in blanks Nokia has left. However, I am not a developer. What if no one can correct any of the issues or no one cares about things that are important to me such as custom ringtones? What if this is as buggy as the N97?

I am now having serious doubts as to what I previously thought was the greatest device in the world. Now I am thinking maybe I should get the HTC HD2 and a Zune HD as music player (since HD2 doesn't have flash drive and I need at least 32gb). But then I read the Engadget review and it seems to have issues. And Iphone is out of the question. If I am killing myself over a lack of custom ringtones for each contact imagine how I feel about a device that doesn't let you create your own ringtones or select your own background.

So maybe I don't have a choice but to get the Nokia N900. Maybe I should wait a few months to see if Nokia or the maemo community can fix the issues the phone seems to have. Unfortunately, my baby son decided to kill my N95 by filling it with 10 gallons of saliva. Now I am back to using my 100 year old N80. So have to get a phone within the next week or so.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

It definitely isn't perfect. I am currently creating a list of cons for the full review I'm going to publish soon, and the list is getting quite long.

But "random reboots" is not on that list. I've been using the N900 for three months now (since September 2nd IIRC) and I haven't experienced a single reboot or freeze... When it comes to stability, there is absolutely nothing I can complain about.

I must be very lucky then.

And no, I do not mind people complaining about the N900. I'm just allegic to people who complain in a very specific way, i.e. "what a cr*p this N900 is! nowhere near the fantastic stability and functionality of my iPhone". This is the only case that makes me react as I know the iPhone and lots if issues and drawbacks it has. The N900 isn't perfect, and so isn't the iPhone. Nothing is.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Im not here to convince you. Just wanted to point out that we are working with a 1st gen device which much dev coming fromt he community. This is more of a traditional linux distro, with good hardware to back it. Dont be fooled by the OS's that were sported by Nokias prior tablets, MAEMO is a different beast. A close relative maybe. Like i said, im not here to convince you.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

May I suggest that you RTFM?

Whatever it means, "possibility of corrupted memory" is equally possible on any other device :)

Is there any other phone that has it?

What issues? Unsmooth scrolling?

It depends on how good intuition one has :)
Mine apparently serves me well, as I could make a playlist, start playback, pause it, resume it, and then close the player when I got bored with the music. Have I missed something? :)

So, you basically grabbed one or two guys' complaints off the net and added some SUSPECTIONS of yours and it made you so deeply disappointed with the device?

What if a huge comet strikes Earth tomorrow?

Let's be JUST A LITTLE BIT more optimistic :p

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I in part agree, But you must also remember 2 years ago the Apple/ iPhone mobile os and UI was a million miles ahead of what any one else was thinking let alone trying to implement. And while I find the N900 and Maemo5 compelling. Nokia is playing catch up. and when they get to see the mistakes made before them and repeat the same mistakes, ie MMS etc. And see what millions and millions of people want. Like apps. Ovi store is a pitty. The market place and masses have spoken. And Nokia up untill now has failed to react. Example, Nokia's market share going south in a hurry. Give people what they want, and what they expect, and they will return.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Yeah that's really helpful.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

The voice of reason. Thank you

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Don't get me wrong but I really do not think that iPhone OS 2 years ago was anywhere near being "what anyone else was thinking let alone trying to implement".

Please remind yourself that iPhone wasn't even meant to allow any 3rd party software. Apple changed this, quite unwillingly, in the last moment. Multitasking known from 9210 Communicator in 2001 hasn't reached the iPhone even by now. AppStore? Yes, it is a commercial success. But I get nightmares when I think that the same communist "approval/disapproval" processes could be applied to Maemo software. 100.000 applications? According to the recently published metrics, the 1000th "most popular" app in the AppStore only has 1.8% downloads and the 2000th one has 0.5% or so. So people only download some 1-2 thousand apps and the remaining 98.000 (i.e. 98%) are unloved and unused. And so on.

Apple indeed introduced a very nice and intuitive UI and great technological innovation (multitouch). But that's IT. Two years ago the iPhone actually had NOTHING but that, not even 3G, or Bluetooth, or usable camera, or video recording, or GPS, or millions of things everyone else had. Add to it that awful policy of serious limitations, locking the OS from the user, blocking lots of important features (apparently mainly to have something "new" for the next model), pushy and not very honest advertising methods, and you get what DETERED me from getting the iPhone for myself for good, even though I liked Apple and their computers VERY MUCH in '80s and '90s.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Search. There's a few posts/threads about it.

Yes, you are.

Whomever has said that?

I mean, for one moment, point to me where anybody with an ounce of credibility has ever said that the iPhone is perfect? I mean, this level of fanaticism on these boards - or any board for that matter, I despise fanboys with a passion because they're largely unrealistic and not honestly able to see facts stated to them as they are exactly stated. Instead it becomes some hyperbole that in the long-run will actually decrease how serious people are going regard whatever is said around here.

Nobody has ever said the iPhone is perfect. I've had a couple of rants against the very phone I own. And yet, I'm realistic enough to know that I do not want to re-enter a situation where I have a phone that does not act and behave beyond what I already have. I refuse to go from buggy (iPhone) back to buggy (N900).

And thanks for selectively quoting me.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

P.S.

Even if what Apple introduced 2 years ago really was a miracle, what does it have to do with N900's slower scrolling than the iPhone, probably because of its 2.5 times higher screen resolution that (the same as on the iPhone) CPU has to handle and Flash support in the browser?

I don't see much connections.

One can't blame 1600x1200 on PC in Quake Arena giving lower frame rate than 640x480. Everyone knows it's a price to pay for better resolution and more details.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

Do you want me to search for WHAT? For that *I* (I mean me, myself) have not experienced any reboots over THREE MONTHS of using the device? I didn't. Believe it or not, at your preference.

I said that.
Am I allowed to express my opinions?

Did I ever say that anyone said so?
It was me who said that neither the N900, nor the iPhone, nor anything else is perfect.

What is that you don't understand, or accept, about it?

I don't like being a judge in my own case, so please visit my website - My-Symbian.com - which I've been running for 10 years now, and ask any of our 130.000 registered users if over all those years I gave anyone any reasons to consider me a fanatic or a fanboy and therefore if anyone considers me as such.

Then let me know what they said.

Broken record, huh?

And you consider it buggy based on WHAT? Have you ever even just touched it?

Definitely not worse than how you twisted the "iPhone isn't perfect" sentence of mine.... Mutuality is a virtue.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

My-Symbian, no offense but you have made no valid points so far. The video you posted on youtube did not address any of my original concerns and even tried to hide some:

- you used my-symbian.com to demonstrate (very light site) instead of engadget
- you scrolled pages at a very low zoom level so there is basically almost nothing to scroll
- the RSS reader had 2 text entries you were scrolling which was addressed in my RSS video
- you did not address the issues about the music widget I brought up at all but instead used media player.

etc etc.

Then, the posts you made here are about the iPhone alone. Why? Why are we comparing it to the iPhone when I posted several videos that clearly showed how crappy the scrolling is. Who cares if the iPhone is smooth or not? We are talking about the N900 here.

Why are we bringing up the age of the device? THIS IS MAEMO 5, not 1, 2, 3, or 4. What are you saying?

Why are we trying to compare things to 2-3 years ago when the iPhone was out? THIS IS NOT 3 YEARS AGO.

I still get accusations of how petty my problems are. Really...Let's see, In under a week I have owned the device here are some problems to get you thinking:

1. Browser has some sort of performance degradation issues. The longer the phone is on, the slower it seems to get.
2. The browser crashes randomly. (at least once a day so far)
3. Device was not accepting any calls even though it was running perfectly. A friend called me on my other phone and I rebooted the N900 bringing it back to normal. Obviously the phone part somehow crashed with no indication what so ever.
4. Device was stuck in portrait mode just tonight. I had to reboot the device to make it switch back to landscape again.

This barely scrapes the surface. You want to talk about GPUs and graphics performance? How about the fact that the phone can't scroll 5 images without noticeable deformation and tearing of the images? This is poor design and programming.

Stop making excuses for this device and Nokia. They have no excuses left after the slew of crappy phones they put out in the past few years (which I own quite a few of). This is not the same market anymore where they can simply rename their phone to a mobile computer and explain all missing features as intentional. EVERY SMARTPHONE OUT THERE IS A MOBILE COMPUTER.

Nokia is not the measuring stick anymore and has not been for some time. Learn from your mistakes and improve your products or go die a lonely death. There are so many other options out there that nobody will care Nokia...really.

Re: N900 - Yes, it sucks.
 

I disagree with that, but whatever. :rolleyes: