December 23rd, 2009

Review: Nokia N900 shows there's a web browser for that

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 5:05

The >Tracy and Matt’s Blog where you actually needed to enter a line of code to have the lid opened. Now that is a geeky unboxing.

Specifications

The Nokia N900 is the fourth Internet Tablet, following the Nokia 770, N800, and N810. There was a N810 WiMAX, but that wasn’t widely available and was just the N810 with a WiMAX radio. The Nokia N900 is the first to run Maemo 5 and also the first to have integrated cellular technology and as you will see these two new aspects really take the device to the next level.

Here are some of the key specifications of the Nokia N900:

• ARM TI OMAP3430 Cortex-A8 600 MHz processor
• PowerVR SGX 3D graphics accelerator with OpenGL ES 2.0 support
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE with 850/900/1800/1900 MHz support
• Tri-band WCDMA with 900/1700/2100 MHz support
• 3.5 inch 800×480 pixel resolution resistive touchscreen display
• 256MB RAM and 768 MB virtual memory
• Integrated 32GB flash drive
• microSD card slot for expanded memory
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP stereo support
• Integrated 802.11 b/g WiFi
• Integrated GPS with A-GPS
• Integrated FM transmitter and FM radio
• 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics
• 3.5mm headset jack with TV out support
• BL-5J 1320 mAh battery
• Acceleromter
• Dimensions: 4.33 x 2.35 x 0.71 inches and 6.38 ounces

As you can see the N900 supports T-Mobile’s 3.5G 1700 MHz frequency. It actually supports the http://jkontherun.com/2009/12/08/t-mobile-21-mbps-hspa-network-hands-on/">HSPA+ 21 Mbps service (up to 10 Mbps) as tested out by Kevin Tofel. I am regularly seeing 2 to 3 Mbps service here in the Puget Sound region and couldn’t be happier.

It is clear just from the list above that the Nokia N900 is one of the most capable devices on the market and is available at a very reasonable price for a completely SIM-unlocked device requiring no contract.

OTHER REVIEWS

Storage

So far, Android devices seem to have been targeting the low end market, with somewhat underspecified devices. For example, the G1 came out with a mere 1gb or storage space available (yes expandable with an 8gb MicroSD card, but still). The HTC Hero doesn’t even have any user-accessible storage other than what you can add through an MicroSD card. The iPhone comes in either 16 GB or 32 GB editions, but with no access to removable memory. The N900 comes with a 32GB flash drive and an external memory MicroSD port for an additional 16 GB of storage which make a total of 48 GB of available storage.

Other differences

There are many other differences for which I find the N900 a better option in my case, but I don’t have time to go into detail with all of them. Let me just list some of them.

• Micro-USB connector – Charge the phone through USB or transfer data to/from it as a mass storage device.
• Integrated FM transmitter – Play music from your device on your car’s stereo system (or any other’s) without any cables.
• Carl Zeiss optics camera – With Dual LED flash, CMOS sensor, and 5 megapixel pictures I may finally start using my phone’s camera to take pictures. It can also do very nice 848 × 480 pixels video with sound.
• Codecs – Basically, it will play just about any video or music format there is without having to convert it first. Some of the codecs will not be on the machine out of the box but will be easily installed latter.
• Removable Battery – This is huge for me. I almost bought the Archos 5 until I realized it has no removable battery.
• Desktop Shortcuts – Place a contact on one of your desktops and with a single click you can call, email the contact, or initiate an internet call.