Nokia N900 review – Just four (4) reasons why N900 is the shitz!

My promised N900 review is long overdue. Thanks to the busy work schedule ‘forcing’ me to travel non-stop between few places and the  long holidays which I spent lazying around watching drama series, FB-ing (not so much now), tweeting and sleeping.

(Image source: GSMArena.com)

Well if you follow me on Twitter, I did tweet about my love and hate affairs with N900 especially the first few days after I got the device from WOMWorld Nokia.

(Image source: GSMArena.com)

I actually already finished my review of N900 last week but then decided against publishing it. I feel it is kinda too geeky and a bit long winded with me regurgitating memorized facts about every single component of N900, blabbing about the hardware, software etc. Other mobile review sites already did that and done a better job than me at it.

Bear with me, this is my very first real mobile review.

4 reasons why N900 is so awesome.

1. Multitasking monster.

N900 is built for this. Multitasking capabilities. Proper multitasking. N900 is truly a multitasking monster! In fact I believe Nokia is pitching N900 for its great multitasking capabilities as a strong selling point. With the great power of 600 MHz ARM Cortex – A8 microprocessor, 256MB dedicated high end RAM (Mobile DDR) and 768MB virtual memory, running multiple applications and tasks on this device is a walk in the park.

Opening, scrolling, and switching through multiple applications is really fast. On average, I have around 4-6 applications/windows open and don’t notice any lag. I can listen to my songs or internet radio with IM plugins running behind (Twitter, Gtalk, Skype and Yahoo) while surfing some web sites without problem.

You can detect a slight lag when you are opening more than 8-10 windows especially when accessing different types of applications. There is some waiting when opening data-intensive application like Maps or traffic-intensive web pages, rendering videos while opening web pages but that is to be expected.

N900 is very responsive and there are very rare cases where it won’t react immediately to you poking the screen. There is a humongous 32GB of internal storage which is more than what my first ancient computer gave me, and an option to add external storage using the microSD slot if you need more space.

You can access all the open applications through the Task Manager/ Application Switcher by tapping the top left corner. The user interface (UI) is organized in three levels. You have home screens, task manager/application switcher and main menu. A little bit on the home screens while we are at it. N900 has multi-screen setup – giving you 4 home screens, each of it is fully customizable.

Home screen 1 – Facebook, Witter, Petrovich, Conversations, Web shortcuts and widgets

Home screen 2 – Some of my regularly visited web pages

Home screen 3 – Gallery, Calculator, File Manager, Media Player shortcuts

Home screen 4 – RSS reader

Just click at any part of a home screen to access the setup keys and choose your customs shortcuts (contacts, applications, files etc) and widgets (showing, say, unread conversations) onto the home screen. (contacts, applications, files etc) and widgets (showing, say, weather forecast in real time) onto the home screen. To access the next screen just swipe your fingers across the display.

Arranging the widgets and shortcuts

Options for home screen setup

From home screen, tapping the top left corner once will bring up the Task Manager/Application Switcher and tapping the top left corner again will open the main menu. The extra step added between the homescreen and the main menu is reserved for the task manager will be skipped if there are no applications running in background.

Task managers/switcher showing running applications

Main menu – 1st layer. Access 2nd layer by tapping More..

2. Web Browser

This is one area where N900 is really impressive. N900 is an internet tablet with phone capabilities. Its predecessors were built for mobile surfing experience so naturally we expect N900 to do better in this aspect.

Start up screen for web browser

N900’s browser – Maemo Browser boasts built-in support for Adobe Flash 9.4 as well as full AJAX, multiple pages capabilities, visual history, automatic form filling, password manager, desktop web shortcuts, RSS feeds, download manager, bookmarks import.

The web browsing experience on N900’s Maemo Browser is closer to what it’s like using a computer than other phones, giving a new meaning to desktop-like browsing. Web pages rendering on a a 3.5 inch touchscreen display with WVGA (800 x 480 pixel) resolution is just… too pretty to watch.

Available shortcuts when not in full screen mode

Download manager

N900’s 267 pixels per inch (ppi) display making every page looks so crisp, sharp and clear. A little comparison with other touch devices:  Apple iPhone 3GS: 165 ppi, Nokia N97: 210 ppi, HTC HD2: 217 ppi, Motorola Droid: 265 ppi. The more pixels you have in an inch, the more information they can represent, and hence the clearer and sharper the picture.

Browsing history

The page rendering speed is impressive. If you are not running other application and just the web browser, it is blazing fast. Pages with decent amount of images will load in 3-5 seconds.  Thanks to the Adobe Flash 9.4 plugin, it will show flash objects like ads, embedded videos, or even games.

This is one of the most important feature of N900’s Maemo Browser. While most other mobile phones are using Flash Lite support, N900 comes with full Adobe Flash 9.4 and will also get an upgrade to Adobe Flash 10.1 with hardware acceleration when that becomes available. There is no other mobile phone that can render flash pages as smoothly, fast and good as N900. Period.

The resistive touchscreen on the Nokia N900 is very responsive. It reacts quickly to the touch. It is not as sensitive as iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen (obviously due to the different type of touchscreen technology used, duh!) but far better than any resistive touchscreen I have tried before – say Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XM. I find no problem molesting the screen with my fingers. Most of the pokings can be done using your fingers and if you need more accuracy, there is always the stylus to save the day.

Zooming in or out of a page in N900’s Maemo Browser is done by making a spiral gesture with your finger. Zoom in by drawing a circle clockwise and zoom out by making a counter-clockwise circle. Another option for zooming is by using the rocking buttons on the side of N900 (also used as volume up and down buttons, depends on the application)

Double-tapping on a website element zooms it in to fill the WVGA resolution of the display. Another double tap and you are back at where you started. To enter or deactivate full screen mode, tap once on the screen for the controls to appear. Tap at the little icon on the bottom right will give you access to other shortcuts – status area, task manager etc. Panning and zooming is really fast and accurate. Panning is pretty smooth, just drag your finger over the screen. Pressing the screen and hold gives you some page options to select.

Options available for web page

You can open as many tabs (windows) and each of them appears and a different application in the task manager but of course limited by the available RAM memory. You can also tweak the memory cache size up to 50Mb (default is 5Mb) Don’t worry, I have tried opening up to 12 tabs without much hassle. Why on earth one needs to open so many windows anyway?

The QWERTY keyboard is a blessing! It enhances the web browsing experience greatly. You can type the address of the page you want to visit and press enter without deactivating the full screen mode and clicking the address bar. You can pan the page using the arrow buttons, just like how you do it at your computer. There are combination of shortcuts you can use like Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V to select, copy and past text fragments. Just select a fragment of text on the screen with your fingers and then use a combination of shortcuts to copy it.

What else? The browser can save passwords, auto-fill in forms for you, the download manager can resume interrupted downloads, you can view RSS feeds directly on the browser and add more subscriptions on the go.

Then you have plug-ins/add-ons and extensions, just like what we have for Mozilla Firefox browser on the computer. The plug-ins/add-ons allow you to add new functionality to the browser, which is AWESOME! For example, I installed the Greasemonkey extension and Power Twitter script add-on to enhance the options for my Twitter web page. I don’t think there is any other mobile browsers including Apple’s Safari with such feature. Pwned!

Settings for web browser

Add-on installed for web browser

N900’s Maemo Browser is the most awesome browser I have ever came across. User friendly and speedy browser and the best thing is, you can do a lot of  customization thanks to the presence of various plug-ins and extensions.

3. Contacts and Conversations – Seamless integration of social networking

N900 is truly a device built around social networking. The Contacts application in N900 serves as consolidated social networking, instant messaging and VOIP contact list – all in one place. Its feature-rich Contacts offers a seamless integration with online services thus allowing you to add entries for many popular instant messaging clients out there such as Gtalk, Jabber, Skype, Ovi Nokia, Yahoo. MSN etc.

List of online services installed and enabled

Out of the box, you have Skype, Google Talk and SIP but this is expandable by installing plugins. For example, I installed a plugin called ‘Extra protocol plugins for Conversations and Contacts’ which enables me to add other online services like Yahoo, Twitter, MSN, ICQ, AIM etc. You can sort your contact by their availability and medium, see their current statuses in these messaging services so you can write a quick message or two.

Finding contacts by group

For messaging, Nokia N900 consolidated all the messages in the form of a chat, grouped into SMS messages and IM messages. All the messages from the online services accounts you enabled will appear in the Conversations – IM and VOIP messages – Yahoo, Google Talk, Skype chat messages, Twitter @replies and #hashtags etc. How does it feel to get IM chat messages, Twitter @replies on the go? Awesome, I must say. Tiring too. To hear the notification sounds because you forgot to disable/disconnect the accounts.

SMS messages, IM messages, Twitter @replies consolidated under Conversations

4. Applications.

The true potential of N900 lies here. Its open source platform. N900 has been launched just little over 1 month and it has already quite a number of applications available. You have all kind of applications grouped under categories like  ‘Desktop, Multimedia, Graphics, Location & Navigation, Office, Programming, Internet & Networking, Other, etc.’ offering you various features ranging from enabling screenshots, adding widgets, IM and VOIP clients, emulators, ad blocking plugin for browser, virtual private network (VPN) daemon, protocol plugins for contacts and conversations such as Twitter support, blogging clients, torrent clients, games, media players and codecs, etc. The list of applications is impressive for a very new device like N900.

Application Manager for N900

List of installed applications

You have to be a little resourceful (read: geeky) to setup the repositories for the applications, but nothing is too difficult with a little Googling, right? Out of the box, the application catalogues enabled for N900 are Nokia Applications, Nokia System Software Updates and Maemo Extras and I added two more catalogues – Maemo Extras-testing and Maemo-devels (at my own risk, of course). The other two catalogues contain applications under testing or development phase and it is not advisable for normal users to install those applications due to their probably unstable, buggy nature.

Application catalogues

Setting up an application catalogue

Notification of updates is very well-managed and it is also very easy to install an application. Just open the application manager and it will update all the available applications for download, you just have to choose any of those. It is pretty self explanatory from there on, tapping on any of the installation file and follow the guided installation process and walla!!

Let me see what are the applications I have installed and tested for my N900. Petrovich – an application allowing you to send arbitrary files over Bluetooth, Email or “Sharing services”, Transmission – a Bittorrent client, Twitter plugin for Contacts and Conversations, Witter – a Twitter client, Simple FMTX desktop widget – a FM transmitter enabler/disabler widget, Qtirreco – an IR remote control, Pixelpipe Upload and Share – an awesome sharing service, Qik – a video sharing service,  Greasemonkey addon for web browser, FM radio player and many more, too lazy to list out.

Transmission, one awesome Bittorrent client!

1 reason why N900 is not so awesome, yet.

Battery life.

To be fair, apart from all the greatness and praises I made above, there is one annoying weakness that is plaguing N900 (and many other great mobile phones out there), retarding my generous ability to love N900 without er, boundaries? Its battery life is quite disappointing, which I sort of hmm, expected for a power hungry device like this.

Out of the box, Nokia N900 comes with a 1320 mAh battery and it lasts me 6-8 hours on average with activities like checking email, surfing web pages, listening to songs, tweeting, chatting on IM services, taking photos etc.

N900 is built for power user and with all the multitasking, pretty touchscreen display, and its seamless integration with various online services – all this which naturally will put heavy load on its battery life, I wish Nokia will include a better battery, one that last a little longer to enable its user to truly experience the wonderful capabilities of N900.

Conclusion.

N900 is the shitz!!

ps: I really wish I can do a video review for N900, I will try to do one when I go back to Miri next week. Before this, my video guy was damn too busy with his wedding and I don’t have a decent gadget to take a video, ehe!

Posted in 2 cents, Gadgets, Nokia, Reviews, Social Media, Twitter | 41 Comments »

N900, just a little teaser…

Finally, after so much troubles for the past 2 week, I can be properly aroused now… just by holding Nokia N900 in my hands!!

My lousy Nokia 5230 camera really doesn’t do justice to N900’s 267 ppi resolution. It’s really amazingly sharp. Higher pixels per inch (ppi), the more information they can represent, and hence the clearer and sharper the picture.

For comparison, Apple iPhone 3GS: 165 ppi, Nokia N97: 210 ppi, HTC HD2: 217 ppi, Motorola Droid: 265 ppi

I am quite busy at the moment and don’t have a decent camera to do justice to its beauty so I shall wait till I go back to Miri for a proper ‘N900 photoshoot’.

For now, I’ll just share some screenshots I took with the sexy beast. I will do a proper review later after I am done playing with it.

Menu in N900

Status bar for N900, you do all the settings for internet connection, turn on/off bluetooth, profiles, IM status, and volume. More options by installing widgets/applications. Like that ’screenshot’ button was added after I installed this ‘Load applet’ application.

N900 dashboard showing 5 running applications (er well somehow I actually only running 1 app – web browser, but total 5 of them haha! But you get the idea. All the running applications will be shown when you click the blue icon on the top left)

Bookmark area for the super awesome Maemo web browser

I’ll make a bold call, N900 is the best browsing device so far Same browsing experience given by computer at a smaller scale. The web browsing experience is closer to what it’s like using a computer at home than other phones.

The map is showing my actual location, in the dog’s mouth. Haven’t really test it.

N900 music player. Quite amazing. I was fiddling with its internet radio last night. N900 has a FM transmitter too. Not yet try I need to find enough songs and video to fill up its 32GB internal storage 1st..

That’s if for now. I will come back sharing more good times and bad moments with the N900. Have a great weekend beautiful people!

ps: Flying back to Miri tonight!! I can’t wait!

Posted in Gadgets, Photos, Reviews | 14 Comments »

Giving a good fight because.. hmm I’m a big fan of Fight Club? :P

Another rambling post.

This is to answer few questions by friends especially after I posted my ordeal with the customs yesterday. Many friends commented in my Facebook Notes and asked me in Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, MSN, Twitter these few questions:

“All these trouble for WHAT again?”

“Why do so much since its just a trial unit? Send it back la. Wasting money only.”

“Aiyoh.. is it worth all that trouble just to test the product?”

Well you get the idea. My friends were asking me why would I want to do ’so much’ and why I need to ‘trouble’ myself to such extent just to get a trial device which I need to return back later. And also, why I need to waste my money paying for this and that just to get the clearance.

Money. Well, WOMWorld Nokia has agreed to pay for all the related charges so I don’t have to pay any, but that is beside the point.

The point is, you guys are asking the wrong question. The question should be;

‘Why this particular customs officer makes it hard for me just to get a trial device?’

‘Why he created so much troubles and unnecessary problems just for ONE TRIAL device?’

My dear friends seemed to suggest that the best solution is to give in. Sorry but I have to disagree. If by giving in to such ridiculous request is a solution, then indirectly I am helping to keep this kind vicious cycle in perpetual. We always blame the system every now and then but we choose to do nothing when given the chance to do so.

And why is the tendency to blame the victim eh? Just like how some people blame rape victim for walking alone, dressing sexily or provocatively etc, snatch victims for bringing the handbag, walking on the wrong side of the road or just being ‘careless’?

Well I may not be exactly a victim here, more like a disgruntled customer/citizen wanting to be treated fairly but you get my point on ‘blaming the victim/helpless’ mentality prevalent among some Malaysians.

Allow me to sidetrack a bit and touch on a favourite topic among Malaysians. Corruption. Since I have so many comments directly or indirectly hinting the possible element of corruption in my dealing with the customs, I think it is only fair for me to write a little bit on that.

Malaysians love to paint the many enforcement units as a corrupted bunch of scums. To be fair, Malaysians also play a big part in making them as such. We are guilty if we bitch about the system and do nothing when given the chance but keep feeding the system, indirectly or directly.

The analogy is simple. If I ask and you don’t give, there is no deal, right? Morality is relative here, who is more guilty – the giver or the taker – is up for debate the point is both are guilty of the act. It is a vicious cycle and people are making their decision to keep it in existence with every actions they would take without them realising it or not.

Back to the complicated, troublesome customs procedures I need to go through to get my N900. Did I ask for, or want to have such complicated procedures, troubles and problems to go through just for a trial device? Who creates the problems and troubles in the 1st place? Did I not comply to the necessary requests and yet was given a hard time by the officer?

Of course, given choice I would just sleep at home and let it go. Hell I would not go to work if I am given the absolute freedom and liberty to choose. But, I need to. I am fighter, I would like to think as such. It is a waste of my good education *cough cough* if I don’t put it to good use. We should do our little bit of fights and not letting bullies trampling us with no resistance at all. Keeping silence, is not always the best option. It is only apt for me to share these wise words to decribe political apathy;

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–

because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–

because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–

because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–

because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me–

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

(A popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller)

To be honest, it is actually not so much a trouble for me to make few calls, surfing some websites, checking up the related acts and procedures and then explaining things in a understandable language so that the relevant people can weigh in my side of the story and judge things as it is.

Thank you my good friends for the concern. I love you people and I also expect more of myself. And I think I just killed more people with the length of this post. Reading is good for you, people~!

ps: With my awesome negotiation skills *grins*, who knows I may get the device after I trial it?

Posted in 2 cents, People, Personal, Politics, Quote, Rants, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

N900, almost there!

A very long rambling post.

So if you are  following me on Twitter or reading my Facebook status updates for the past few days, you must have noticed my ramblings about getting customs clearance for my N900.

9 days have passed since I wrote my previous post and I haven’t get a chance to hold the sexy beast in my hands. When I wrote my previous post, the device was already in Singapore. It reached Kuching on the next day – 30th November 2009 which is also *cough cough* my 27th birthday. *throws confetti*

I received a call from DHL Express in the afternoon informing me that the N900 was denied clearance because of the lack of necessary documents. So for anyone out there who needs to know;

1. For any telecommunication device to be imported into Malaysia, the importer/recipient must first apply for the permit of import/license as specified in the Customs Act. This is apart from the usual customs duties, taxes etc. And for telecommunication devices, the license/permit application is made to the Statutory Body called SIRIM Berhad.

Actually it is best for you check with customs beforehand if you want to import anything from the oversea or anyone is going to send you anything from oversea on the paperwork required. I admit my mistake for not doing the necessary paperwork even though I clearly aware that WOMWorld Nokia is sending me a trial device which in this case needs a permit to bring in.

My excuse? I was not quite sure whether WOMWorld Nokia would send it for real at that time. (And also hoping for some sort divine interventions for the shipping to be smooth all the way hehehe)

Back to the story,  so I applied and paid RM100 for the permit. It was all done within one and a half day, thanks to the very efficient SIRIM Berhad officer. Originally the permit amount is RM200 but I stressed that the device is not belong to me and it is only for trial purpose so I was given the RM100 discount. SIRIM Berhad is so generous. *weak smile*

2. Now, if you bring in things (intentionally or unintentionally – ignorance is not an excuse under the law) without permit, that is considered as an offence. You’re violating the Customs Act 1967 (revised 1980) and can be penalised for that.

So I was informed beforehand by a DHL Express agent when the N900 was stuck in customs that I would need to apply for SIRIM permit and pay a certain amount of penalty, minimum RM100. Imagine my horror when I was told I need to pay RM1200 for the penalty. Niaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaaaaah!

DHL Express asked me to liase directly with the customs officer after they failed to explain my situation to him – it’s a temporary export, trial device etc. So I called up the officer, which I shall not name for now (yet) and talked to him.

We had a very long chat and even though I explained my side of the story and everything, he refused to change his decision. When confronted with such ridiculous amount to be paid when it’s only a temporary import, he brushed it off and quoted the ‘Section 135 – Penalties for smuggling offences’ to maybe intimidate me. He said customs has the right to penalise me up to 10 times or even 20 times of the custom duties amount based on the declared package value.

The N900 package was declared at 400 GBP – roughly RM2240 and the custom duties is about 10-15% = RM224 to RM336. He told me he was being generous to compound me only about 5 times the custom duties.

I perfectly understand I have committed an offense and I should be penalised for that but RM1200 compound is just ridiculous especially when it is just a trial device, which I can only play for few weeks before sending it back to WOMWorld Nokia.

I then asked the officer to provide me the necessary ‘black and white’ for me to inform WOMWorld Nokia and ask whether the company will bear the costs on my behalf. But he told me if he issues the compound, I would need to settle it within 3 days or customs would seize the item. WTF?! He was not being helpful at all and I was quite disheartened at that time so I just thanked him for everything and I would see what I could do to solve this problem.

By then I already decided I would reject the shipment and ask it to be sent back to WOMWorld. Maybe do it properly when given another chance at it in the future. So I wrote a long letter to WOMWorld explaning the situation and thought that awas it, end of the story.

Somehow, I was really annoyed and angry being treated that way so yesterday afternoon I looked up Royal Malaysian Customs Department website and found some contact numbers and call them up. I managed to talk to a very senior customs officer in charge of the import/export department and asked for his opinions and advices. He seems to understand my predicament and ensured me this can be settled in a more pleasant way and gave me a personal number of one customs officer to call.

I asked him, “This customs officer is in charge of Kuching?” which he replied “Not only Kuching, he is in charge of Sarawak”. So I called up this high ranking officer and found out he was on vacation but still answered my call anyway and told him my story.

To cut the story short, he promised to talk to his subordinate and clear this matter for me. He even called me in the evening around 7pm to tell me he already clarified the matter with the previous ‘not-so-friendly-and-reasonable’ customs officer and said I can go and collect my package anytime.

Then this morning, I called up the ”not-so-friendly-and-reasonable’ customs officer again. He didn’t sound very happy obviously because for each questions I asked, he answered in a short one liner – Ah. Okay. Hmm. Umm. He didn’t say no to my request and only ‘aye aye’ when I told him I that DHL would go and collect on my behalf. Then I called up DHL and asked them to make the necessary arrangements for me.

So I thought, finally I can get my N900 to play with and even tweeted about it. Then I received a call from DHL saying the officer still refused to clear my package and tried to call me but couldn’t get me. I was in a meeting and I didn’t get any missed call so I told DHL to tell the officer to call me again.

The ”not-so-friendly-and-reasonable’ customs officer called me up and then said he will only release the item if I go to see him personally. This is because, the ‘instructions’ from his boss is to hand it to me personally so that he can explain to me on ‘how things work’.

So I have no choice, I have to make a quick stop at his office this Thurday on my short trip to Kuching. I hope I can get my N900 by then. N900, almost there!

Thank you for reading. I bet most of you drop dead after the 3rd or 4th paragraph

Posted in Me, People, Rants | 7 Comments »