Nokia N900 – The Penguin Has Landed
You may have noticed that I’ve dropped off the side of the Internet somewhat. Life can get busy at times, especially for someone who sometimes gets muddled up with time management and priorities. Another compelling reason for this is that I recently bought a Nokia N900. And I’m still getting used to incorporating it into my day to day activities.
Getting It Home
Unfortunately, Nokia does not sell the N900 in Canada. In theory it might eventually. But I wasn’t going until the Canadian duopoly of Rogers and Bell along with the CRTC got around to doing so. So much for Canada being a leader in telecommunications technology. Instead I bought my N900 through Amazon and used Shipito to forward my parcel. Later I found out that buying from Dell may have been a cheaper and faster alternative. It took about three weeks but I eventually got my toy.
Hardware
I must congratulate the engineers at Nokia for coming up with solid feel to the N900. I would of preferred a metal body like my old N810. But the N900 is definitely not as flimsy and plasticky like my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. The touchscreen is quite sensitive and responsive much like the iPhone’s. The sliding keyboard also feels great. Each key nicely rounded, depresses in a solid quiet manner and gets illuminated in low light conditions. The 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss camera takes great pictures with good resolution and great colour balance. My 5800 in comparison took decent photos but everything was a shade of grainy grey. The auto-focus on the camera leaves much to desire. But it might be a case of my not knowing how to use the software. The N900 takes MicroSD cards, which helped with migration away from my old phone. The internal memory is a massive 32 GB. Sound quality of the speakers is excellent. Great feeling stylus as well.
I loved the large full kickstand on my N810. Apparently the preproduction units of the N900 also had this design. However the production N900s have a small kickstand built into the lower frame of the camera. It took my quite some time to find it. And since the kickstand is off-center the whole device wobbles on its kickstand. Not cool. The real scary thing is the micro-USB connector. The power adapter for the N900 recharges the device using the micro-USB. And the port itself is surface mounted to the circuitry. I’ve read quite a few horror stories involved where the port detached from the device! So I’m paranoid, and extra careful with plugging in the micro-USB cables to the N900.
Software
The UI on the N900 screams wow. The Compiz-like 3D views and effects win everyone who sees the device in action. A phone should not be able to look and act so sexy. The UI is intuitive and very finger friendly. Web browsing is where the N900 excels. The swirl zoom in and zoom out, smooth scrolling and fast rendering makes web browsing fun. The browser fully supports Javascript and Flash, so the experience is comparable to using a full desktop browser like Mozilla Firefox. The N900 also has a great PIM/contact management. Combine it with the Hermes app from Maemo extras, and you have an awesome contact management that integrates your contacts on various messaging, microblogging and social network services. Amazing. There are a few nice apps available through the repos and the Ovi store. Including the fun games of Bounce Evolution and Angry Birds.
It is not all roses in the software realm. The N900 while a mobile computer and all that jazz is still a mobile device. Space and energy constraints plague every mobile device out there. So there is a limit to how much multi-tasking one can do. Fair enough. But sometimes the device grinds to a slow halt with just a few apps on. Why? I get it why it happened when I copied my 6GB music collection off my MicroSD onto main memory. Maybe I need to restart the device once in a while? But why two browser windows, two instant messaging apps and a music player can stall the device… Also the Maemo5 platform used on the N900 is new, so there will not be the number of apps that Symbian S60, Apple’s iPhone and the Android app stores enjoy. Nokia has Ovi working for the N900, except payments are still missing. Hence my hesitation to say the N900 will work well for non-enthusiasts. It looks like Nokia also has similar feelings. Then again Nokia has said that Maemo6 will be the mainstream platform, with multi-touch support, app stores and all that jazz.
Thoughts, Ideas and Dreams
This review is reaching epic proportions now. In short, I love my little N900 mobile computer/Internet tablet/cellphone. It is definitely something I looked forward too. And I’ve owned a number of mobile computing devices already: Palm Tungsten E, Nokia N810 & Nokia 5800 XM. A great thing is that the device and platform has the potential of getting way better with time.
Related Links
- Aaron Seigo’s (Plasma KDE lead developer) thoughts on the N900.
- Yes, the N900 CAN control pole dancing exotic robots.
News – The Future of Nokia N-Series Phones, IP for Libertarians, Animating the Death Star
Once again, Dorian has dropped off the side of the Internet to work on stuff. So instead of an update, Dorian sends some interesting bits of news he found on the Internet.
Maemo is the Future of the Nokia N-Series
Just when you thought Nokia planned on using Maemo only for their experimental line of phones… future N series phones will run Maemo! This is great news for all the Maemo fans out there. And it looks like this will be happen in 2012. So all you who follow the Mayan calendar, while be able to ring in the new Mayan calendar cycle with nice Maemo-powered phones. 
Intellectual Property from a Libertarian Perspective
This is not news so much as a well written article by Stephan Kinsella discussing Intellectual Property from a Libertarian perspective. So if you’ve been following the news concerning the mess that is intellectual property, this article premises that it doesn’t make sense to have it, makes sense. Patents cause the most amount of problems, being so broad in scope. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the question should or should not the owner of a physical property have exclusive rights to their property. The fact it cause loss for a content creator or it is not acceptable behaviour by “society” is a moot point.
Dorian’s thoughts: Thats why all that I publish is under the Creative Commons license. I’d rather just putting things in the public domain. Unfortunately there is a double standard of what an individual’s rights to that of a corporate entity’s, and thats why some restrictions to protect myself are needed. I’d hate to go to court over something I originally published, being picked up by a corporation and then being hunted down by their lawyers for some IP infringement.
Animating the Death Star in Star Wars
Think computer animation is hard nowadays? Then check this video of animating the attack on the Death Star in the old Star Wars. Amazing.
News Flash – Linux Desktop Suck, Android is Not Linux and the Nokia N900s Dropping Out of Orbit
These past few days have seen Dorian scrambling to catchup and not blogging. Dorian still feels the need to fight his e-mails, update his “other” sites and organize his cluttered life, rather than update his readers on exciting developments he has worked on. Instead Dorian will continue writing in the third person, and highlight the latest and niftiest in Linux tech news… and hopefully he will get his act together soon. So lets look at whats buzzing in the blogsphere.
The Linux Desktop Sucks
First the Linux hater, and now some developers and power users state what they REALLY feel about Linux on the desktop. vanRijn experienced the beauty of sweet candy land that is the Mac OSX world and laments why we can’t see the same in Linux-o-landia. dkite proofs more an optimist, saying yes its broken and but will get better… someday. Also some finger-pointing to the manufacturers for not getting their act together, and states some heroic community coding is needed. Funny how Dell engineers are helping to make Dell machines running Linux able to recover themselves, just like under the most common desktop OS.
Dorian’s thoughts: The Linux desktop worked for me, on a laptop in 2002, so stop your bitching guys. I’ll agree the legendary saga that is fixing X and sound, etc. is reaching epic proportions. And yes devs from vendors are leading the way in many cases. But in some cases it seems easier to start from scratch as with Wayfarer or Moblin or PulseAudio. Still building a solid and expandable underlying architecture is hard, so everyone does so in a piecemeal fashion. And in traditional UNIX fashion, we argue and argue over what we want to build and how to do it. Instead of wringing hands, help fix the problem.
Android is Not Linux
Sounds like another bad recursive hacker pun, no? Looks like the guys at Google, took a Linux, through out the parts that worked-yes, shocking some parts of Linux actually work quite well thank you very much-and replaced them with their own jerry-rigged replacements.
Dorian’s thoughts: Why guys, why? Just learn to use the tools, and I’m sure the standard Linux stuff works pretty darn well on a mobile device. At least one real handset maker seems able to use the existing Linux stack, and run with it. Sure the UI needed a replacement and some optimizations are required, but rip and replace with crappier renditions? Not cool guys. Google needs to learn to work with the FOSS community, and not around it.
Nokia N900s Dropping Out of Orbit
So the N900 already launched… but Nokia started pumping out, shipping out their amazing N900s and stocking retailers with these pieces of mobile computing paradise. And unlike Google, Nokia knows how to build on top of existing Linux stacks and without stomping on existing FOSS communities. Not like a giant robot ravaging a city… Google.
Dorian’s thoughts: Remember about us Canadians! We’re that country above the US, and we’d like some N900s too, pretty please.
In Other News:
- A documentary on LugRadio? Kewl!
- The Khronos guys who brought you OpenGL, OpenCL and OpenSL E, want to bring you a standard windowing framework for Linux mobile devices: OpenWF.
- Big multinationals and big government want to fix copyright to work for YOU. YOU being a big multinational or a big government, of course. Cause another global over-arching treaties is a good idea. <smirk /> And this treaty will solve one of the world’s problems: the publishing industry’s losing their profit margin, which was the highest of any industry to being with. <smirk /> World hunger and peace can wait until next week’s meeting of “elites”.
OK, Dorian must end his newcast here and scurry back to his other work.
Desktop versus Mobile Computing
Despite my best attempts to avoid the desktop, I can’t seem to completely avoid it. Not that I can’t in practice. Rather the desktop proves to be mindbogglingly useful as a productivity platform. For one, typing with a full ten fingers really gets things done. Second, screen real estate is cheap and allows for vast expanses for a UI to cover. I can not understate the joys of working on a widescreen with a large resolution. The only greater joy is working on multiple HUGE widescreen monitors with massive resolutions. At work, I envy the graphics folk who get the large screens. Coding and graphics works becomes a joy. Third, the desktop or notebook out-competes in terms of sheer computing power. Thats one aspect that I fear will always plague mobile computing platforms.
The last advantage is *gasp* openness. Thanks to open source and open standards, I can freely arrange my desktop computing experience as I see fit. Yes, there is always room for improvement but mostly it comes to avoiding some icky technical limitations. And most of that is thanks to legacy code. Ugh. On the mobile, well… I tried to connect two apps together: a web browser and an office suite. Fail. Most likely a Symbian faux pas.
I have great hope that platforms like Android and Maemo along with more powerful and robust smartphones, will make mobile computing be as comfortable as desktop computing. But for now, hold on to that desktop… you’ll still need it at least as a harness for your mobile gadgets.
A Return to Mobility
As a happy owner of a Nokia 5800 smartphone, I quickly realized the potential of this gadget as a great pocket-sized mobile computer. Unfortunately, for the longest time I relied completely on wireless access points. With the lack of a physical slideout keyboard, this phone felt like a step down from the N810 Internet tablet. On top of that, while the Symbian platform is well supported. I really enjoyed both the UI and multitasking abilities of the N810. While the 5800 XM does allow for multitasking, it feels a bit uncomfortable to use. Now I won’t complain about Symbian because I understand that it is limited by its age and its original intended useage. I’m sure that Nokia and all the other Symbian players are working hard to keep the old workhorse going. But there really is a limit to what you can do with it. Hence my anticipation for the N900. Lets hope it’ll be available for Canadians soon.
Sticking to only wireless LANs has the downside of being offline most of the time. Plus it means using the office WLAN when at work. And I’d prefer not to for the obvious reason of wanting to maintain the separation of work and my personal life. So eventually, I bit the bullet and added a data plan from Fido. Everything seemed perfect, until I checked my phone bill. Apparently the data plan didn’t appear, and the bill was a lot larger than expected. Dismayed I contacted Fido, and stopped using data to avoid an even larger bill. You can imagine my elation, when a rep from Fido called me today, withdrew the charges and reinstated my data plan. Yes! So I’m back online in the mobile space, enjoying the Internet everywhere.
A Mobile Internet for a Frantic Lifestyle
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, and I hope everyone not had a great holiday but also found a myriad of reasons to be thankful for. I know I did.
But now I’m going to hijack that thought. I’m thankful that I subscribed to that data plan. Well, we’ll see how thankful I’ll be with the inflated cellphone bill. Thankfully I’m young, foolish, employed and single so don’t need to rationalize such purchases. Having the Internet in your pocket can be terribly convenient. There can be downsides though. Most sites scale down too well, onto a small screen that is. Thats where something like Nokia’s WRT can really shine. Consider it like a website thats been turned into an application. Its been done before for desktop browsers. But still a desktop with its fast connection, ample screen size and comfortable standard input allows for developers to sweep a good many UI and workflow decisions under the rug. Developing for a mobile device is far more demanding. Demanding not only terms of computing and engineering. But also demanding in terms of usability. And also the problem of handling offline and caching comes to mind. Fortunately for all you mere mortals out there, there are nuts like me who dream about the next big thing and how to make it actually useful. Hmm… Though I should do something about it. And not just write about these things. I have a few ideas, that I plan on putting into practice. In the meantime, I wish there was a WRT widget or decent S60 app for blogging…
The Madness Subsides
I apologize for the silence of in the last few days. Things really picked up at work, to the point of insanity. Fortunately yesterday I managed to get the component I was working on out the door. Still a good amount of overtime was required by the entire team to get our part done. Hopefully the client will be pleased with my initial contribution. I’m sure they’ll be satisfied with my latest work as I’m adding the final touches to that component. Another reason for my silence, is that I’m transitioning to using my cellphone as my main computing platform. It can feel cramped at times, but the portability is amazing. I’m sure it will be even better if I get a nicer device like the N900.
Ok, well all I have time for today is a quick update. I still have a good amount of work ahead of me, and very little time to do it in.
By the way, the new beta release of Kubuntu is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Definitely worth the upgrade.
Meet My Next Phone
I’ve been a huge fan of the Maemo system, since I got my hands on a N810. Now I can hardly wait to get my hands on an Internet tablet with phone capabilities: N900. The price is a bit prohibitive, and I have no clue when I’ll be able to get one up here in Canada. But the specs look amazing: http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
I can not say how excited I am by this phone. It matches up with what I’ve wanted from both a phone and a tablet. While I really enjoy using my 5800XM, the OS it uses: Symbian S60v5 and its hardware makes the device lag a bit. The N900 on the other hand, is built on an awesome platform (Maemo), has great hardware and processing power to do what I need it to do. It will really be mobile computing device that you can use heavily, while carrying it in your pocket. I wish Nokia luck with selling N900s like hotcakes. 
A Tiny Update
It is Friday. Feeling tired from the irregular sleep cycles of this past week. I didn’t move forward as fast I wanted to this week. I’ve felt distracted, tired and could not focus. Still the minutae of this week didn’t tie me down. Thanks to a friend my Polish writing improved in leaps and bounds this week. No regrets this week, and many things moved forward. And thanks to the same friend, I can see a positive glimmer of hope in my future. I plan on focusing on making my schedule sane again, and living a fairly active but normal life. No updates on the writing past a few notes, and ideas. No code updates either, aside from a steady tinkering with the justCheckers website. Enjoying using the new Firefox 3.5. It feels so much sleeker than before. Oh and thanks to the fine folks at Fido for having simple and sane contracts. Guess whose service is gonna get recommended to friends?
Kicking Tires
This week, I’ve started working on my delayed projects again. I feel exhausted from the week. But I also can not wait to play around with my projects.
Learning Qt
I’ve always admired the KDE and Qt developers. They make some of the most innovative and interesting technology in the consumer-desktop-mobile land. I’ve decided to pick up learning Qt and C++. So far I’ve read the beginning of C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (1st ed). I need to play around with C++, which I plan on doing it while using Qt Creator. One of my first major Qt experiments might be getting the TEA text editor working on my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. I know that Nokia just released the tech preview of Qt 4 for S60 devices. But I’ll give it a shot. Hopefully the GUI will port over nicely.
Completing justCheckers
Yes, the project that I left for dead still lives. I want to work on it, as portfolio material. I first plan on building a website in PHP (or maybe JSP?) that renders beautiful CSS and XHTML. And then I need to give the project much love. But I owe it to myself to finish this application. I won’t build any crazy game servers. But I want to make something totally configurable and fun. And in the process I want to create something that proves that I am a strong Java developer.
Writing A Collection of Shards
I am going back to writing. Unfortunately I need to start almost from scratch, since many of my written sections simply will not work. The ideas are there. I just need to get them down on paper.
Driving License
This one is the ultimate in the tire kicking sense. I plan on getting my driver’s license really soon. Aside from parking, I feel comfortable driving. Once I figure out all this parking stuff, then I’ll be ready. I’m exciting since this will give me a lot more mobility and flexiblity. I’ll be able to solve a lot of problems and have even more time to do things in the day. And I’ll be able to sleep and live in normal time periods.
