The N900 is Nokia's first Maemo OS smartphone and it's their first Maemo version 5 device. Maemo is a Linux-based OS, and prior versions powered Nokia's non-phone Internet tablets like the N770, N800 and N810. Maemo has morphed significantly since the N810 and it's now more of a consumer device than a geek tool. The User interface is impressively modern, slick and fun with its cool sound effects, animations and transitions, and the ARM Cortex A8 with GPU is very fast. The N900 is in some ways a developer's platform since it's Nokia's first foray into what may become the eventual replacement OS for Nseries high end phones, but that doesn't mean it requires a degree in computer science or that it's not a pleasant product to use. It means that Nokia wants to attract more developers to their new platform since the world's abuzz for phones with strong app stores.
The N900 is an unlocked GSM world phone with EDGE that will work with any GSM carrier. It has 3G HSDPA 10 Mbps on the Euro 2100MHz band and on T-Mobile's US AWS 1700/2100MHz bands. T-Mobile users: this is definitely a phone worth looking at! We don't see that many cutting edge, high end phones with T-Mo's US 3G bands and it's pleasantly surprising that Nokia made one since they usually opt for the larger installed base of AT&T users and their 850/1900MHz bands. Do you use AT&T? You'll get EDGE for data but not 3G since the N900's cellular radio doesn't support those bands.
The N900 is full of flagship specs-- gone are the slow Symbian OS CPUs and paltry RAM. The smartphone runs on a 600MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU with hardware 3D graphics acceleration in the form of the PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support (same as the iPhone 3GS). The N900 has 256 megs of RAM and can use virtual memory up to 1 gig. It has 32 gigs of flash storage and an SDHC microSD card slot. The 5 megapixel autofocus camera has a dual LED flash and a Carl Zeiss lens that's up to Nseries standards. The phone has WiFi with seamless switching between WiFi and cellular data networks (no there's no UMA calling but there is VoIP), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with a full set of profiles and a GPS that works with Nokia's own Ovi Maps. The resistive 3.5", 800 x 480 pixel display has an accelerometer, ambient light sensor and a proximity sensor.
Maemo is backed up by a superscalar ARM Cortex-A8 processor to deliver a PC-like multitasking experience and a super-fast, fully interactive, Mozilla-powered browser that has to be seen to be appreciated.
You can also download heaps of great apps from the Ovi Store and the Maemo open-source communityMaemo Select, like Firefox, Qik, Twitter clients and games.
Technical Details :
Display
- 3.5 inch touch-sensitive widescreen display
- 800 × 480 pixel resolution
Web browsing
- Maemo browser powered by Mozilla technology
- Adobe Flash™ 9.4 support
- Full screen browsing
Camera
- 5 megapixel camera (2584 × 1938 pixels)
- Image formats: JPEG
- CMOS sensor, Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens
- 3 × digital zoom
- Autofocus with assist light and two-stage capture key
- Dual LED flash
- Full-screen viewfinder
- Photo editor on device
- TV out (PAL/NTSC) with Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U, included in box) or WLAN/UPnP
- Landscape (horizontal) orientation
- Capture modes: Automatic, portrait, video, macro, landscape, action
Video
- Wide aspect ratio 16:9 (WVGA)
- Video recording file format: .mp4; codec: MPEG-4
- Video recording at up to 848 × 480 pixels (WVGA) and up to 25fps
- Video playback file formats: .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp; codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263
Music and audio playback
- Maemo media player
- Music playback file formats: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
- Built-in FM transmitter
- Ring tones: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
- FR, EFR, WCDMA, and GSM AMR
