Nokia has its latest smartphone experiment out in the form of the Maemo powered N900. We call it an experiment as Nokia is still promoting N97 over this wonderful gadget. Yes, I certainly believe that the N900 is the best smartphone that Nokia has produced till date, and no matter what comparisons say, the N900 comes real close to beating the iPhone 3GS, in some ways it does. The same old issue with the Nokia is the weight and the usability. iPhone scores there.
N900 weighs around 181gms, and has a large thick structure which isn’t the best for mobility. The good with the N900 is the strong OS + openness that the iPhone lacks, good browser and the physical qwerty (though Nokia screws up the spacebar again). One impressive thing the N900 has is the 600MHz processor and 256MB ram. This is one area where Nokia has been a miser since ages; however they give good backing to N900 which runs adesktop grade OS. Is this enough? Will the 768MB virtual memory help? Not sure, but the videos we saw looked impressive.
The camera and video recording specs of the N900 might be better but the iPhone scores with better usability and web integration. However, a 32GB smartphone with a strong OS for $650 is certainly admirable. The N900 is IMO the best from Nokia yet, but only time will tell how well it does against the iPhone 3GS. The App Store and slick UI of the iPhone are hard to beat. But Nokia vs iPhone doesn’t end here…
Just for fun: N900 and iPhone 2G (I also tried the 3GS, even that slips in)
A few things N900 badly misses:
1. Multitouch support
2. Lack of switching between Landscape mode and portrait mode. It works only in landscape mode
3. Lack of MMS
| Feature | iPhone 3GS | Nokia N900 |
Network2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 3G
HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
HSDPA 1700 / 2100 / 900OSiPhone OS 3.0Maemo 5DisplayTFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches3.5″ resistive touchscreenCamera3.15 MP / Autofocus 30 fps Video recodring with audio5 MP carl zeiss with dual LED flash, video recordingEDGEHSDPA suppored 7.2 MbpsHSDPA 10Mbps
HSUPA 2MbpsInternet BrowserMobile Safari Full HTML without FlashMozilla powered full feature browserMessagingSMS (threaded view), MMS, EmailsSMS, MMS, EMAILFMnoYESProcessor600 MHz CPU600 MHz, PowerVR SGX graphics BatteryUnknownLi-Ion 1320 mAh (BL-5J)ColoursWhite and BlackBlackConnectivityBluetooth AD2P (headset support only) Bluetooth P2P games WiFi, AGPSWiFi, Bluetooth AD2P, AGPS, Micro USB portMemory256MB RAM 16 GB/ 32 GB storage32GB storage, 256MB RAM, 768MB virtual RAMWeight135gms181 gmsOthers
- Water and Oil resistant oleophobic coating
- Digital compass
- Spotlight Search
- Landscape keyboard in all apps
- VoiceOver (Voice Controls)
- iTunes App Store
- Shake to change music
- 3.5 mm audio jack
- OVI Maps
- Voice commands
- Geo tagging
- accelerometer
- 3.5mm audio jack
- Photo editor