Two extensive previews of N900 prototype - Page 5 - maemo.org

zerojay | # 41 | 2009-09-29, 15:07 | Report

Originally Posted by bugelrex View Post

For those people with the n900 unit and an NDA. Do we assume the NDA has now expired since the My-Symbian.com is out and Nokia gave him the unit to review?

No, you do not.

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Laughing Man | # 42 | 2009-09-29, 15:39 | Report

Hmm, am I missing something or did nobody talk about the front facing camera yet? Or is that no longer in / results of bad speculative reporting?

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Kehaan | # 43 | 2009-09-29, 16:42 | Report

Thanks for the links. The preview on http://my-symbian.com/other/preview_n900.php is very nice

From Kehaan.

deter3 | # 44 | 2009-09-29, 17:00 | Report

I love the the first preview , it's very detailed . i have been holding this question all along , why all preview and hands on did not ever touch base on battery life issues .

At the end of preview , it says " What hasn't been tested " is power consumption / battery life . He did not even tell any feeling about power consumption and battery life . I recalled a video demo , a Nokia sales guy mentioned " our target is one day full usage " when people asked about battery life .

I have strong doubt on N900 has big issues on battery life for this super mobile computer with a tiny battery . I really do not expect a pain at back like Iphone on battery issues .

romanianusa | # 45 | 2009-09-29, 17:07 | Report

The 2nd reviewer didn't even mention about the camera or video recording. He compared the iPhone brower to N900 and say N900 is 1-3 seconds slower but never mentioned the fact that maybe it's faster on the iPhone because it doesn't render flash contents?? He sounds like a iPhone fan-boy from the get-go.

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Mara | # 46 | 2009-09-29, 17:54 | Report

@ My-Symbian.com

Thank you for this nice preview. I was really looking forward to see a sample of the actual recorded video. The Youtube videos look very good and it seem this can actually replace a separate camcorder for all but most demanding users. For casual home/vacation movie purposes this seem perfectly adequate.

Would it be possible to upload uncompressed sample movies somewhere for more critical analysis? Especially I'd look for the color saturation and noise performance at little bit darker environments, such as the second movie clip.

mrojas | # 47 | 2009-09-29, 17:57 | Report

Now THAT is how a (p)review is done! Hats off to Michal.

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My-Symbian.com | # 48 | 2009-09-29, 19:33 | Report

Originally Posted by

He did not even tell any feeling about power consumption and battery life

Indeed, I didn't. But that's, as I wrote, because it's *REALLY* hard to judge such things based on an early proto. As others wrote, battery life is usually THE LAST thing to optimize, after eveything else had been done. I used many protos in the past, and some of them were emptying their batteries in just one hour, whereas final models were then providing 5 or 6 hours of active use, i.e. an improvement of 600% or so.

OK, it's not a secret and I can disclose that with the current early proto and old software I get something like 3 hrs of use (and about an hour or maybe 1,5 hr more with the GSM radio turned off) but it really does not mean ANYTHING and it may look completely different on final hardware and with optimized software... The most power hungry part seems to be the GSM radio as there's a huge difference of standby times (i.e. when the device is not in use) between when the phone is turned on or off. When it's on, the N900 cries for a charger after 7-8 hours while when it's off it lasts almost two days.... But it surely does not result from the GSM radio being that power hungry but from the software controlling it not being fully optimized yet.

Please, be patient, it's just several weeks left for the device to start shipping. Why now worry about hypothetical poor standby/work times if it's not going to be the case on final units...?

And even if the standby turns out to be lower than our expectations, I actually wouldn't worry THAT much about it. At least the N900 has a REMOVABLE battery (and quite a popular one used in lots of newer Nokia phones) so we can always have a spare one, unlike the iPhone. And at least they do not explode like iPhones and iPods, either ;-)

Originally Posted by

Would it be possible to upload uncompressed sample movies somewhere for more critical analysis?

I decided to include YouTube uploaded videos in the review because I compared them and it turned out that the resulting YouTube video actually differs only very subtly from the original. You really wouldn't see much difference. But if I find some web space, there's no problem with uploading the originals.

And like with the battery life, I'd expect the video recording to undergo some considerable changes before the device starts shipping. On the tested unit the only video mode was "Automatic" without any White balance settings, without possibility to turn the Flash on, etc., which I believe ISN'T how they intend to have it on final units. I decided to post the videos because I found them good enough for an early proto (not worse than quality offered by commercial builds of other phone models), especially when it comes to detailness and noise levels. But IMHO it's too early to judge things like colours based on them.

Originally Posted by

Hmm, am I missing something or did nobody talk about the front facing camera yet?

I didn't write about it simply because so far I haven't found a way to use it :-) But my unit is an EARLY one (and I had no time to send it for flashing a newer firmware) so maybe things changed since then.

Originally Posted by

Michal! Great to see you here! It's been a while since Mobius Boston, and I see you're now using a 50D.

Hi Reggie, yeah, it's been ages since we last met. Unfortunately, I had to reject last two or three invitations to Mobius due to family related problems, but hopefully John is patient enough to invite me once again next time ;-) It would be really great to meet you again!

Yes, now I am using the 50D and desperately trying to resist the temptation of the upcoming 7D :-)

Originally Posted by

"(the first superscalar CPU in a Symbian phone)"
this is not a symbian phone

Ugggh, right. It was meant to be "Nokia phone". Corrected, thanks!

Regarding the storage memory, I have just received a couple of comments on this from people 'in the know' explaining that it is being worked on and how the additional storage provided by /opt will be handled. So it's great that it's actually a HISTORY now. It was one of my biggest concerns. Not that it couldn't be solved anyway, but less advanced users might be in trouble... But it has been confirmed to me that is not an issue anymore so let's just forget about it. I will update my preview in a minute.

Best regards,
Michal Jerz
My-Symbian.com

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grenadejumper | # 49 | 2009-09-29, 19:36 | Report

Awesome review from My-Symbian.com. Big up! I am eagerly awaiting the full review, as I am a bit worried about the battery-life.

I have a question somewhat related to a paragraph in the preview:

Originally Posted by

One important thing worth mentioning is that the Backup application, even though it has an option to backup "Application list", does NOT backup the actual installed software. It only stores information about installed applications (name, repository which it was installed from, version, etc) and then based on this information it tries to re-install it from the repositories.

I was wondering if someone knew if there were any ways (perhaps from third parties) to create images of your phone? Similar to Norton Ghost for computers? The thing is I am kind of a linux n00b, and have on occasion been known to break my linux-box, and forced to reinstall. Incremental backups would therefore be a good solution in case I suddenly do something stupid (which, let's face it, is inevitable

).

romanianusa | # 50 | 2009-09-29, 19:53 | Report

Michal,

Will you do a comparison of the browsers' speed of iPhone 3GS and N900? For example, load up same websites at the same time and see which one load faster! Nokia hailed N900 browser as the fastest or best...so i was curious how or why the other reviewer' say otherwise.

Also you say regarding the video recording that there are certain pre-sets for white balance settings and do you mean that by selecting one of this preset that you can eliminate the sudden change of lighting or coloring as seen in the 1st video? Do you think the video quality is the same as N97?