Mobile

Nokia N900 Maemo Is A Phone, Makes The N97 Look Silly

11:17PM August 27, 2009 | John Herrman

There’s been a lot of talk about the N900 Maemo “tablet”, especially about how it looks suspiciously like a phone. And even if Nokia (inexplicably) plays it down in their now-official announcement, that’s exactly what it is: an amazing-looking handset.

Beyond that Maemo OS we’ve been asking for on a phone for the better part of a year, the N900 is, as Nokia phones tend to be nowadays, a healthy piece of hardware. It’s got a 3.5-inch resistive WVGA screen, ARM Cortex 8 processor, and 1GB of RAM, and is crammed with 32GB of internal memory with a MicroSD slot for expansion, GPS, an FM transmitter, a 5-megapixel camera and a gagillion-band cellular radio, including, crucially, support for T-Mobile’s 1700MHz slice of the spectrum.

Since Maemo is based on Debian Linux, the software selection should be interesting. Stock, the N900 will ship with Firefox (Fennec, I assume) and Flash support and an panel-based multitasking system. Maemo is new in a phone context, so there’s no way to guess how it’ll fare against the other major smartphone OSes in the real world, but it sure as hell looks a lot more exciting than S60, for what it’s worth. Nokia: Maybe not doomed!

The N900 will launch “select markets”—all of which sadly seem to trade in Euros—for €500, or about AU$850. [Nokia via BGR]

Comments

  • Peter

    August 28, 2009 at 6:18 PM

    Do want!

  • marztar

    August 28, 2009 at 7:51 PM

    oh that looks slick.. i jus bought a hero from ebay this one looks worthy of a weeks wages too!

    check ebay someone has got something for sale..

    http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NokiaN900-org-PREMIUM-DOMAIN-NAME-Nokia-N900-simply_W0QQitemZ160358734658QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2556201b42&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177

    cleverman or conman!!

  • ObviousT

    August 29, 2009 at 2:43 AM

    Doesn’t €500 make it cheaper than an N97? That doesn’t seem right…

  • Louis

    August 31, 2009 at 5:04 PM

    This does look, nothing has tempted me to change from android laterly, but if this phone is half as good as it looks, it might just sway me.

  • 55thjam

    September 7, 2009 at 11:34 AM

    Well Ive been looking for a good handset for a while cause my N95 8GB is gonna be out of plan pretty soon. And N900 is definitely gonna replace it. Nokia rocks all the way. Finally a iphone killer.

  • Kenny

    October 7, 2009 at 10:43 PM

    Fabulous Smartphone/browsing device!

    I sure hope it can do HSDPA faster than the N97 e.g 7.2mbps or better. Half the Samsungs already do, as well as the Nokia 6720C

    I would definitely go for an N900 with full NextG compatibility.

  • Lipka

    November 5, 2009 at 12:45 PM

    Not a very convincing video to get people wanting the phone. They need better marketing. I got an iPhone and N97. But the video doesn’t make me want to replace my N97 (though I prefer N900 over the N97).

    The user interface still looks too complex. They need something quick and easy if they want to compete against iPhone.

    N97 is more a business phone to me. It is alright for general use. iPhone is more an entertainment unit in a pocket. So Nokia, what is N900 all about?

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