I was invited to Nokia N900 preview for bloggers. There are about 12 of us. I was a cosy affair with Nokia people around us to answer our questions. As you may already know, N900 is already launched in US but it has not reached our shore yet. What is interesting about this phone is that the OS is Maemo 5 (Linux) with Cortex A8 processor.
The event was held at Chinasquare Plaza, Seafredo, at Telok Ayer Street.
Nokia’s spokesman, Joseph (on the right), gave us a live demo of the Nokia N900.
It is interesting that N900 can connect out to a projector and the performance seems to be very fast. Here are the specs that I extracted.
Performance
- Enjoy fast application processing and multitasking on a live Dashboard. ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz and total available application memory up to 1GB (256MB RAM + 768MB virtual memory)
- Experience the full web with Maemo browser. Browser powered by Mozilla technology, full flash 9.4 and AJAX support.
- Personalise your own panorama desktop on the 3.5” 800×480 pixel touch screen.
- Fast wireless broadband. WiFi and HSPA data 10/2.0 Mbps
Keep your conversations going
- Chat with voice calls, internet calls, instant messages and SMS. Merge your phone book, Skype contacts and other contacts into an all-in-one address book.
- Share your status, location and mood with your friends.
- Keep multiple IM and SMS conversations going and move easily between them
- Email on the go with rich HTML and full QWERTY keyboard
- Pre-installed Nokia Messaging that mobilizes up to 10 personal email accounts Capture, tag and share
- Take high quality photos and wide screen videos using the 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics
- Tag photos with keyword cloud to best describe the moment and find them easily later on.
- See where photos were taken with the automatic geotagging
- Share to Ovi Share & Flickr or store in the massive 32GB internal storage.
Technical Profile
- System:WCDMA 900/1700/2100 (HSPA),EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- OS:Maemo 5Dimensions:110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm (L x W x H) *19.55 mm at camera area
- Weight:Approx. 181 gDisplay:3.5 inch widescreen (800×480 pixels) touch
- Battery: Nokia Battery BL-5J, 1320 mAh
- MediaStorage:Up to 48GB (32 GB on-board, 16GB expansion via microSD memory card slot)
- Video playback:H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid up to WVGA (800×480) resolution in 25fps. WMV up to VGA resolution in 30fps. Flash Video streaming in browser.
- Music playback:MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, M4A, WAV, WMA
Main Camera
- Lens:Carl Zeiss Tessar™
- Image capture:Up to 5 megapixels (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7 million/24-bit color)
- Video capture:MPEG-4 WVGA (800 x 480) at up to 25 fps
- Aperture:2.8
- Focal length:5.2
- Flash:Dual LED camera flash and video light
Operating Times
- Always online:Up to 2-4 days (TCP/IP connected)
- Talk time:Up to 5hrs WCDMA, 9hrs GSM
- Active online usage: Up to 1+ day
Connectivity & Data Services
- WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g with UPnP support
- BT 2.1 with support for stereo headsets
- Integrated FM transmitter
- Integrated GPS with A-GPS
- Nokia AV connector 3.5mm for audio input/output andTV out
- Micro-USB 2.0 high speed for file transfers and charging
After the demo, it is hands-on time.
Here is the back view.
And here is the back view with the keyboard pushed out.
The keyboard.
Now the main camera.
A close up of the Main Camera with the shutter close.
And here is one why the shutter open.
And here is a clip on the LED Flash.
And according to Nokia, the Ovi Map was ported over as seen in the picture below.
A short walkthrough on Nokia N900
Notice that you can open up applications after applications and the N900 doesn’t seems to lag. This multi-tasking function is much needed.
and the web browsing experience. It supports full flash. Watching Youtube on it has no problem at all.
The graphics quality is quite amazing.
And I did a power off and power on on the N900. The shutdown is fast. The full boot up will depend on the things that you put on your wall.
BTW, do you know that the N900 also comes with support stand? It think this is a clever design.
Close up of the stand.
A short clip on this stand.
The battery.
That is it! My hands on experience. BTW, apart from all these techie stuff, there is food for us!
Summary
I think the N900 is much better than I expected. There was no hiccups at all during the demo or our hands on. The games were fluid and interesting. In fact, the N900 is like a mini computer.
However, having said that, the N900 is a tad too thick. Here is a comparison with HTC HD2 and iPhone 3Gs.
iPhone 3Gs, Nokia N900, HTC HD2
iPhone 3Gs, Nokia N900, HTC HD2
HTC HD2, iPhone 3Gs, Nokia N900
With a RRP of US$649, it is quite steep. However, if coupled with telcos subscription plan, it should be affordable. I asked about the availability of this phone and was told that it will be officially launched end March or early April 2010.
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