SkyKnight | # 11 | 2010-10-15, 19:57 | Report

I dont think N900 second hand would be a great idea... there are hardware problems on it. Right? I know they r rare, but there are... like loose charging/usb ports and stuff... wudnt it be better if i got one with warranty??

And i have never purchased anything from outside india and friends have told me that after paying the import tax and stuff it would cost almost as much the price here....

And MuhammedAG is a legend...Ive seen almost all his posts..

I am worried abt n900 mainly coz of upcoming MeeGo and a promise of MeeGo device by the end of this year.... since its technology old ones will always be outshadowed and sometimes forgotten....

SkyKnight | # 12 | 2010-10-15, 20:03 | Report

thanks for ur replay Bun... Ive seen ur posts in various other threads and i found them very informative... I know about Maemo a lot...been reading this community threads for whole last week...

So its just between apps and multitasking??? You sure? Coz ive seen ppl saying n900 cant handle videos and comments abt n900 being picky with codecs and stuff.. I have a lotta movies that i like to carry around too.. mostly dvdrips which i assume n900 wud handle well.. but there are few mkvs with brilliant quality somewhere near 720p and some are 720p... wud it play those files too???

richwhite | # 13 | 2010-10-15, 20:06 | Report

If you buy a 'new' second hand one the warranty continues i think.

I wouldn't worry about N900 being outdated. It still does things other phones don't do so that's not an issue, and sure, some components may be outclassed later but honestly, so long as they work, does that matter? What i mean is, the screen will still be good and reflect sunlight, it'll still play a range of media formats, it'll still support wireless streaming, it'll still have a great camera, it'll still do Skype video calls (which no other device currently does), it'll still do everything. And you can OC it to make it faster. So what really will other devices do better? That's not to say things won't improve with other devices, i just mean yours won't run any worse, and if you have a N95 today you'll know what i mean!

I think that's a far greater issue for Android really. Every week a new Android device out that supposedly beats the last one, can you imagine being in a 2 year contract to a device that will have inferior hardware the next month, or week? No thank you, not for me!

And anyway, if you do want Android, stick it on the N900. I have no doubt MeeGo will be ported too, just maybe not officially - but you already said that doesn't matter. So essentially, you can have the latest and greatest software, but the hardware may be old. But hey, when the hardware does what it does, it doesn't matter. At least, not to me.

SkyKnight | # 14 | 2010-10-15, 20:14 | Report

That was a completely new outlook... I must say that i am a bit inclined to nokia myself since ive been using the same for the last half-decade. (real shame they arent allowing official support for MeeGo on this device.. BAD NOKiA.. )

RichWhite... U have my thanks... thanks a lot for the time u took in helping me... i value all ur suggestions and points..

SkyKnight | # 15 | 2010-10-15, 20:15 | Report

I still ve got a week to get it... So, any others who have something more to share... pls do....

richwhite | # 16 | 2010-10-15, 20:35 | Report

No problem

I've been using them for about 10 years, had 2 motorolas and an ericsson but they were short lived because they were terrible.

i'd like MeeGo support, but hey, who knows, it may suck! I doubt it, but until i know for 100% sure it's better than Maemo 5, i won't be upset.

qwazix | # 17 | 2010-10-15, 20:53 | Report

hello. I have used both systems for a while, anroid has a better phone. But that is the only thing I like better. I am a symbian user for many years and despite all the people here that say that it crashes a lot I found it waaaaay more stable than android. I used (as my main phone) for the past month, the milestone xt720. It sure looks like beta version much more than maemo.
Apps and widgets crashed about 5-10 times a day, sometimes I needed a reboot because it refused to connect.
Many apps that work didn't appear on the market, (tested it by transferring them from another android phone) and many apps from the marked couldn't even start. Some were messed up after an update and there was no way back.
Finally it messed up my contacts (clicked on person A and showed person B, also showing fake duplicates. I deleted one and it deleted the only one existing with that name - the other was another contact camoed) so I dumped it and went back to my trusty N95.

Multitasking. Ok the android multitasks but because the apps don't have an exit button when they go to the background two things happen:

1. the app is almost dead. Battery management sees that all battery consuming operations are suspended which isn't always desired (I dont want to lose gps signal just because I switched to contacts to check an address.) eg the browser reloads every time it is switched to (lame on a slow connection) Maybe this doesn't happen in all android flavors, I thing the wildfire doesn't do that.
2. you are never sure it'll stay alive. Maybe you are waiting for something to happed and the app was killed by the OS (even the switcher shows the recent apps not the running ones)

________
BestBodyEver live

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Last edited by qwazix; 2011-08-21 at 10:42.

bunanson | # 18 | 2010-10-15, 21:07 | Report

What do you mean by "carry around"? ALl my movie/TV/pics/music are all stored in my home computer. And whenever/wherever I just tapped into my home computer and it streamed to me perfectly, albeit, it is not something one can do in a couple hours. But once set up, I have not even touched it for ages. I used TVersity in the past and since N900, I used orb and works very well. Again, depends on your expectations. For me, something runs like a TV picture on my N900, I would call it good. For others, they are playing with 1080i or 720p.... I leave those to my home theatre. I have NOT re-code any movie for the N900, it just plays.

bun

pantera1989 | # 19 | 2010-10-15, 21:07 | Report

I tried Android. Although I was considering it if Meego is not great, I am not so keen on it now. Maemo5 is miles ahead. I have not tried Meego, but sadly I think that it will be more limited than Maemo. More like Android, if you know what I mean. However this is my opinion of course, and Meego might be very appealing after all.

With that said, I don't think there is another mobile on the market that handles videos as great as the N900. It accepts many formats, however nothing over 800x480 in resolution. Standard 699MB-1.5GB avi dvdrips are a piece of cake for the N900. I have never had problems with them. Using Mplayer with sib as frontend and the standard media player I have played some anime in .mkv format with dual audio (eng and jap) and subtitles, and sib plays them well and can switch between audoo streams. However I did have some problems sometimes with .mkv. Usually in seasons. They would be encoded differently from one season to another. So before going out, make sure it plays at least one episode, so you will be able to play them well. But it's still miles ahead the competition when it comes to video playing. And the screen and sound are beautiful too. So if video is important to you, the N900 is the only choice. Audio playing is another thing though..I felt quite disappointed with the standard media app. It looks good, sorts well and plays well. But playlist management is a joke and no equalizer (there is a plugin..but it is CPU intensive). There are alternatives like Tplayer and Symphonie that have an equalizer, You can also set up a server called Knots2 and stream media to your N900 from your PC.

Browsing is great too on the device. The browser is quite fast, renders well and I find the gestures to be very comfortable, like 'hover mode' (to select text) and swirl to zoom. But Android is quite good too. So you're good either way.

Memory is great on the N900. The 32GB onboard is quite fast (so not the cheap slow memory manufactorers sometimes put in the phone). For this Nokia must be commended. There is also support for a microsd with the capacity of 1-32GB, which brings the maximum total to 64GB. The camera is quite good. If your memory card is not fragmented, video recording should be smooth. And with apps such as fcam, it is much more pleasant and exciting to use than on Android. There are also other hardware goodies like the FM receiver and transmitter, IR transmitter etc.

Resistive vs capacitive. It is up to you. I prefer resistive for it's precision. The N900's screen will be less sensitive than a capacitive screen of course. But it is hardly noticeable believe me. Lacking multi touch is a bit of a downside though. But you can use gloves with it and a stylus. This makes drawing much fun especially with apps like myPaint. And you can use the browser without zooming.

UI in my opinion is much better on the N900. Android just doesn't feel...natural for me. I can't really explain it. A very good plus for Android is portrait mode. It is practically non existant for the N900.

Applications are quite good for the N900. You won't feel the need for them in my opinion. The developers here and those porting apps have really brought many good apps here. Games and ports are quite good too, but Android has much better games. There's no question there. However many Android games don't use the hardware keyboard on the Droid, so it kind of ruins the feel. Emulators are good on both platforms, however the N900 takes the crown by a little bit, and by using a sixpair controller or buying a gamegripper, it feels great on the N900. Most Android don't have a keyboard.

The N900 currently can have multiple OSes installed. Android, Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Meego are the ones that come to mind. Not to mention Easy Debian, which is just wonderful.

The hardware keyboard is much more comfortable than that of the Droid in my opinion. I am posting from the N900 right now (my fingers are getting tired ). GPS lock is good on both devices. Both have good GPS software too. OVI maps suck, but Sygic on the N900 is good. I didn't like Google maps because data plans are expensive. The N900 doesn't have a digital compass though.

Finally I would suggest that you don't buy the N900 but wait for Meego to see if you like it more, since Maemo5 is practically discontinued. But I do see a future for the N900, at least for a few more months.

Android vs N900? Android is more limited, stable, has more games, more mainstream and supports many modifications. Maemo5 has more freedom, bugs, better community, less games (although QT might bring more), can be completely modified and is almost pure linux. In Maemo5, some things won't just work. You have to search to solve a problem. I like modifying and doing just that. So I fell in love with the N900 and didn't like Android much. However many users who left here were disappointed by the N900 and felt much better with Android. It is purely down to preference. The thing is that some things (only a few in my experience) the N900 will not just work. To use it fully, you must know how to treat it. My personal N900 is very fast and stable and a pleasure to use. That's all I can say.

Goodluck with your choice.

**Edit** Some important points I forgot to mention. Multitasking is available to both platforms. However I feel the way that Maemo handles multiple tasks is better. The dashboard is a perfect way to implement multitasking and the processes are handled better too.

Also the Android sport 1GHz processors and more RAM. You can argue that the N900 can be OC to 1.15GHz and that it is 768MB virtial Ram, but the Android devices still get an edge here.

I also installed many apps (200+) for my N900. So I am not a careful user. I modified it so that I have a 6GB /home/ partition.

P.S. Many people take this for granted..but you'll miss it once you don't have it. The way that Skype (IM, VOIP and Video), GTalk, Yahoo and other IM accounts integrate perfectly with the OS. It's amazing, and one of the most things I missed (and one of the most things I actually took for granted).

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Last edited by pantera1989; 2010-10-15 at 23:32.

qwazix | # 20 | 2010-10-15, 21:08 | Report

but now that I think about it again why choose one if you can have both?
get a N900
________
Bong Reviews

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Last edited by qwazix; 2011-08-21 at 10:42.