NOTE: I probably shouldn’t even be posting this. As I say later all images/specs of the N9 online are the result of unconfirmed rumors that are pretty widely contested for technical and logical reasons.
The current phone I would like to swaddle and carry around like a baby is the Nokia N9 (picture from SlashGear).
Nothing has been officially confirmed by Nokia yet. We’re not even sure the device pictured above is what the phone will look like (there are some pictures online of a black phone claiming to be the N9). EDIT: It sounds like the phone will be available in silver and black (the keyboard will be black on both versions).
Rumored specs: (found here, originally obtained here I think)
Holy crap I am really talking up the N900, a device that I’ve never seen and hasn’t even been released yet. It’s apparent I’m a Nokia fanboy, even though the only Nokia device is own is the N800. I thought I’d write a post that better explains why I like the idea of this phone so much.
In my N800 post earlier, I said this about Windows Mobile:
WinMo is an OS that has yet to acknowledge that most smart phones are now touch screen devices. That’s why every manufacturer of WinMo phones has their own interface, like HTC’s TouchFlo 3d–there are also third party UIs like SPB Mobile Shell (which I use).
I said this in comparison to Maemo OS 2007, which came out, well, in 2007, 2 years and 9 months ago. I still prefer that interface to any other today. It’s built around browsing and multi-tasking, and you could easily do nearly anything in that OS with a stylus or a finger.
John Herrman at Gizmodo has put up a review of Windows Mobile 6.5, which says the same thing about Windows Mobile, but more intelligently. After talking about HTC’s superior TouchFlo interface, he says:
Handset manufacturers have done more in the last two years to improve Windows Mobile than Microsoft has, which borders on pathetic. In the time since Windows Mobile 6.0 came out in February of 2007, Apple has released the iPhone—three times. Palm has created the Pre, with its totally new webOS. Android has come into being, and grown into something wonderful. RIM has created a touch phone and a revamped BlackBerry OS.
I just wanted to link to that review. I’ve been trying developer builds of WinMo 6.5 for a while now, and it’s surprising how little’s changed. How can the same company that’s working on the potentially revolutionary Courier ‘booklet’ be the same company that just crapped out WinMo 6.5? How many Vistas do customers have to suffer through before we finally get a 7?
Microsoft has the benefit of producing the most popular OS. When Windows Vista came out, how many people considered moving to Mac? A few, but I’d bet that most, like me, stayed with XP and waited out something better. Who’d give Windows Mobile a second thought versus the iPhone? And don’t BS me, I know the iPhone isn’t advertised as a business phone, but it is very business capable. Isn’t Microsoft worried that AT&T will one day lose exclusivity, resulting in the iPhone breaking even more records? Shouldn’t Microsoft be innovating their asses off instead of just putting a bag on the side of WinMo 6.1?
What you see before you is the Nokia N900 portable internet device and phone. Looks similar to the Nokia N810 internet tablet, but pictures are deceiving. The N900 is much smaller, about the size of my HTC Touch Pro.
The N900 has the same processor as the iPhone, a comparable graphics processor (slightly less powerful, I think), more RAM, 32GB internal memory and a microSDHC slot (expandable up to 16GB). It has a full 3.5″ jack for audio and video, it has an accelerometer, and it has a ridiculous capacity for multitasking. By “ridiculous,” I mean you have 4 separate desktops, you can have a handful of apps running, have multiple web pages open, be streaming music, etc. It also has Flash 9.4 support. Yeah, get ready for a lot more Flash capable phones in the future, it’s a deal-maker.
It’s battery life is rated for a ‘full day’ of of streaming music, surfing the net, watching movies, etc–what they call ‘full use’. The term ‘full day’ can be misleading, it usually means a full work day. People are reporting 12-13 hours with ‘full use’–using internet, GPS, and watching movies. Hey, with laptops ‘full day’ only means 8 hours.
A bigger selling point for the N900 is Maemo, Nokia’s open source mobile OS. Android is a cell-phone (and tablet?) OS based on Linux that may some day be expanded to work on netbooks and desktop PCs. Maemo is a tablet/cell phone OS built on Linux, and it’s essentially desktop Linux scaled down to work with lower resolutions and less powerful hardware. Both are open source, but Maemo is the more open of the two, and I’m told much easier to port to. I’ve never tried Android, though I’m anxious to. I have used Maemo (not version 5), and found it very satisfying. Here is a demo video of Maemo 5:
(PSST–The device used to demo Maemo 5 in that video is the N900) There’s a video of the N900 actually in use way down at the bottom of this post.
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