NEW NOKIA N900

The Nokia N900 is a touch
screen and slider phone that
has a QWERTY keypad. It is
also Nokia's fist phone that
runs Maemo5, a Debian Linux-
based operating system that
can run on computers and
phones and it may end up
being the only Nokia phone
with Maemo5. This leads to
the question is the N900
worth the purchase?
One thing I like about the
N900 is the fact that it has a
keypad. I really hate touch
screens (eat your hearts out
iPhone folks), so the fact that
Nokia was smart enough to
provide the slide out
keyboard is an excellent
choice on their part.
However, one must point out
that the N900's touchscreen
is very responsive. The
colour quality is also very
good, and the screen
resolution (800x480) is an
excellent choice. This brings
this phone well into computer
range (most netbooks use
that resolution natively).
The sound quality of this
phone is unbelievable. The
speakers which are located
on opposite sides of the
phone are something, and this
quality makes it a great
phone for listening to music
or quickly watching that
downloaded video.
Unfortunately, Zain's
connection did not allow me
to see what a streaming
video would look like.
Like any good Operating
System should be, it is easy
to customise Maemo5. This
made it easy for me to put
different applications in
particular orders on
different homescreens. The
N900 has 4 by default which
also means that you can have
multiple programs open and
switch between them easily.
Think of it as the equivalent
of Alt+Tab on your PC.
Web browser
One of the killer apps for me
is the in-built web browser.
Based on Mozilla, it is called
MicroB, and unlike certain
other platforms (iPhone and
Android I mean you), it has
support for Adobe's Flash. If
you are a news junkie, you
will find the inbuilt RSS
reader to be a very useful
tool. Just export your XML
file from your computer and
import here, or better still
subscribe directly to your
favourite news sites and
everything comes to you with
ease. Unlike in most other
smartphones, the web
browser recognises the
phone as a desktop computer.
This means that when you are
going to Facebook for
example, you get the full site
instead of the striped down
mobile version. But the
downside to that in the
Nigerian environment is that
I had to keep paying more
money to Zain for Internet
connection. It might make
more sense with MTN's
mobile Internet package.
The phone's application
manager is easy to use.
However, I think that
Android's Marketplace is
some steps ahead. Again it
did not seem to have as many
applications as the Android,
which definitely means that
the iPhone has more
applications than it does.
Unlike my Android, however, I
did not have to start
scrounging for FM software
as the phone's music player
has an inbuilt FM transmitter
which allows you to listen to
stored music in your car on
the move.
Impressive storage
Speaking of storage, the
inbuilt storage on the N900
is impressive. It comes with
32GB split into three
partitions. 2GB is mounted as
home, 768MB is reserved for
swap space, and the
remainder, a princely 27GB
(remember this is a phone) is
reserved for storage. Now,
that is something.
One great advantage that the
Blackberry has over this
phone is that setting up email
accounts on this phone for
push mail is not at all
intuitive. I gave up after
some attempts, but to be
honest since I was just
testing the phone, maybe I
did not try hard enough.
Another thing I did not really
dig is the size and weight of
the phone. If I was the owner
of the handset, I'd be
tempted to stone a Lagos bus
conductor with my device. He
would certainly know that he
had been hit by something.
Back to the earlier question,
is the N900 worth the
purchase?
For an infinitely large phone
book where you can store
contact details, working
bluetooth, infrared and USB,
and a 5 megapixel camera
where pictures can be geo
tagged, and a battery life
that the manufacturers claim
is up to 9 hours of talk time;
the only reason not to shell
out N66, 000 at the Computer
Village, Otigba, Ikeja, Lagos
is that our mobile service
providers don't give us
enough bandwidth to make
this phone really fun. If they
did, it is worth having.

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Go get urz at any Nokia shops around u.