Browser speed of Opera Mini is faster than iPhone, too. Is it better? NO. And neither is the iPHone over the N900. The iPhone can't go to every site, watch most videos, or use Flash apps. The N900 is compatible with more of the web than any other device out there. If Flash was disabled, it would be even faster. Of course you'd be fast if you blocked features that would slow you down, like Flash, which is the foundation for a majority of the content online.

@ Holyshite3,

First off, realize the device hasn't even been released yet. But let's humor each other and see how long it takes for the N900 to get MMS. Nokia announced that it will be added, unlike Apple, that claimed it was an outdated technology, then turns around years later and adds it.

As for portrait support, it, too is planned for some core apps in December. Full ASR may not be added, but Maemo 6 is probably going to run on the N900 too, and it is coming in exactly one year. Ovi Maps 3.0 will ship on the production devices. Maps 1.0 was just for the preproduction models.

Maemo as a PHONE OS is in fact new. So some features are new to it. But what software is missing, as you say? Nokia has been pretty clear as to what is coming later, and they're known for adding features and apps during the life of the device.

Why bring up Android when comparing app development? Maemo allows you to install apps from anywhere, just like Symbian devices. You can also have your own repository, and use APT to deploy them. You know, APT, the part of Linux Google decided to ditch? You can install .debs from anywhere with the command line as well. And UI development for Android apps should be simple. ITS JAVA!! I'll stick to low latency code anyday. From all of the Android and Maemo developers I talk with (I'm a member of both developer communities...), it seems they all see Maemo as a better option, allowing more rich applications, and the only missing link is monetization, which Ovi will bring soon. You don't even need the SDK for app development, since its typical Linux development for the most part. And devs can do app development on Windows...
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32537
...Linux, or Mac using VMWare, or even on the device. Have you ever done any Maemo development? I'm not a dev, but I am learning fast that you aren't totally right. You can develop apps for Maemo on almost any platform.

"Tell me: how is the N900's hardware capabilities any better than Motorola's Droid?"

I didn't say the hardware capabilities, I said device capabilities supercede anything out right now. For a little taste of what I mean, try and see how many apps you can run at once on the Droid, what video and audio codecs you can use, or how easily you can use the Terminal for CLI device manipulaton. Maemo is the first deskop OS optimized for finger control. Android is a smartphone OS, nothing near the power of Linux. Do you disagree?

Let's see. Which has better battery LIFE? Which has better pixel density? Which has the better keypad? Which has the better imaging hardware and optics? Which has a commercial Infrared transmitter for universal remote apps? How can you judge build quality when neither device has been used for any long term testing? Metal isn't the indicator of better build quality, though I do admit Moto makes good solid devices. But hardware is nothing without software.

If you think the Android Contacts app is anything close to the Maemo Contacts app, you need to quit babysitting the blunt and let someone else hit it! Does it show presence for all of your IM networks, social networks, etc.? Does it allow you the choice to make SIP or cellular calls? Do the contact images sync with your Twitter and Facebook profile photos? You seem cool with looking cute, but what can it do that any other phone or portable desktop can't? UI isn't everything, and function is more important. SE's new UI is cool, but so what? Put a wig on a pig, give it lipstick, and its still a pig.

"So anybody can read your GPS-location without your permission? Read and Send all your emails stored on the
phone? Android Market shows you EXACTLY each permission the app needs. And no control, means a lot more junk,
trojans and virusses?"

Has this been happening anywhere? The only time I've heard of mobile apps going rogue like that is the iPhone dev getting phone numbers. You made some point, but let's revisit them once these devices are in the streets. Android has a ~5% market share and many OEM partners after a year. Maemo has 0% right now. Let's see how well the N900 sells.

putting it that way, tnkgrl, makes more sense. But overall, do you feel those other devices in total are far more functional and better than the N900, or is the N900 so far ahead of the game?

Please say you meant this Chris, tnkgrl... Don't let CZ get away with his contrived clowning...

@ surge,
I'm not surprised you found my post TLDR, nor with your dishonest appraisal of it as a "nice" novel. You obviously didn't like or agree with it, but saw fit to give an insincere and dishonest appraisal of the N900. You don't seem to be one to go in depth or be very thorough, and even though I've been a Chris Z fan for years, I'm so past questioning your lack of integrity and objectivity.

What'd you do, give my post the cursory lookover without getting to the information that would mostly help you and others? So this is your modus operandi, huh? That's pretty telling, although I don't believe you didn't read every word as you dishonestly claim. Just like this review, your reply set out with a purpose, an agenda, even, which was to accentuate the seemingly negative while keeping the US market in the dark on the advancements and positives, which far outnumber the other points, which mainly were to compare the simplistic and narrowly targeted iPhone with the N900, which isn't just a smartphone, but a portable desktop device.

Being this is the first portable desktop designed for use with finger touch, I don't see how a cursory once over of only a few minutes could ever give you or those interested in the device much insight. You observed the device from the perspective of an iPhone user looking only for the features commonly shared with the N900, since you think these devices are of the same class, when you should've been mentioning touch enabled netbooks and other multitasking, portable desktop choices as well. I think the iPhone should've been the last device chosen as a reference point. Where were the comparisons to multitasking QWERTY packing devices with high end imaging hardware and free access to all hardware for developers?

If you want to know why a resistive screen was used, do some research like me and all of the real tech reviewers out there. You'd know that a resistive screen is more versatile, allowing use with any solid device as well as fingers, fingernails, and even a toothpick. A resistive screen allows for more precise selection of small objects, instead of capacitive, which needs screen elements to be larger. Which do you think is more precise, the pad of your finger or thumb, easily a square inch, or a fingernail, fingertip, or other solid object used as a stylus/plectrum? It really comes in handy when using handwriting recognition or applications made for the desktop environment that aren't optimized for touch. Is this the first you've heard of this? I'm happy to school you.

Now here's a lesson for you. Think of resistive as using a pencil on paper and capacitive as a Bingo marker. You may have to press a little with the pencil, but its more precise. The Bingo marker is easier to write with, but not very precise at all. Choose your poison. Both are good at certain things. I know you used resistive screened WinMo devices a few years back, and the debit card slot at your local 7-Eleven. Did you suddenly get brainwashed on how they work? Don't make yourself look like a bigger idiot. It was funny during the first Engadget show, but now it is sad and contrived.

Now I get the responsiveness qualm, but some find capacitive TOO sensitive, which is why you had to learn to use such a light touch to avoid accidental presses. Multitouch is a plus, but was there any function that wasn't available on the N900? You COULD zoom using gestures as well as the dedicated zoom buttons on the side of the device. I'm not a big fan of multitouch because it throws all of the one handed usage research out of the window, and requires two hands, a big knock on the iPhone an other "pinch to zoom" devices. Once Stantum gets resistive multitouch out there, we can kill this silly debate.

I'm glad you're aware of Nokia's winning formula. Nokia is the global leader, and most people prefer them to your iPhones and other capacitive models. And Nokia devices have more features than any other, so how are they expecting you to settle for less? Isn't it Apple, that has the OS with the least features (ok, maybe not less than WebOS yet), the least access to hardware, and the least willingness to listen to the users (How long have they begged for multitasking, a keypad, a higher resolution screen, VOIP, tethering, video calling, alternatives to default software, etc.?)

Now where are these better specced devices out there with less bugs? (let me guess...The Moto Sholes and its clock busted camera focus issue?) If you know anything, hardware isn't the only part of specs. Software is what makes the hardware work, and if a device has 4GB or RAM and a 2Ghz processor, but runs Palm OS, and another runs Maemo or Ubuntu, whatever, on a lessor platform, only a fool would say the Palm device was better specced, because you judge the performance of the device in action, not just read spec sheets. Otherwise, cars with high horsepower would outsell cars with better handling everytime. It doesn't work that way, bro...

how exactly does this pertain to Ngage??

I've got to call out Chris Ziegler on this review just a little. I'm so happy you decided to not compare this device to other lesser devices or OSes out there. But I still have some niggles and points I need to make.

There are various video reviews, previews, demos, and hands-on interactions of the N900 online. I'm sure I've watched them all, or at least the major ones. I must say, almost every demo talks about how responsive the screen is, and some have even called it "capacitive-like" or "nearly as responsive as a capacitive display". About the ONLY ones with "negatively tinged" reviews are CZ and Om Malik. They seem unable to get a resistive screen to work, despite having reviewed at least dozens, if not hundreds, of resistive screened devices over the years. Perhaps your nerd muscles need a workout. I suggest the workout DVD "Carpals of Steel" to get that swiping motion up to par. And using the stylus won't require less pressure. Resistive screens are like paper, and the finger is a pencil. You have to press ever so slightly for it to register, and if a kid can do it, you have to question how much skill Chris really has. Notice he has no problem swiping the display early in the video, but as soon as he gets to the display subject, he can't get it to scroll. Give him an Oscar, this master thespian is on a roll!

Chris, like Om, is too fixated on the simple feature sets of the iPhones and G1s of the world, and their reviews fail to look at the N900's precedent setting capabilities that supercede anything available in the market today. Missing was any mention of the open source ecosystem and community behind the Maemo OS to allow the fast implementation of features and apps in days or weeks instead of months and years. Missing was mention of the availability of high quality free software via the APT powered Application Manager, a veritable App Store on steroids without any approval board to control what users want on their devices. No mention of the customizability of the OS, or how all of the hardware was openly accessible to developers without limitations.

I don't think it was very responsible to make such a snap judgement based on a preproduction unit. At least you did make sure and say that it wasn't a final unit, but did you ask if certain features would be added in the final build or ever? Of course prerelease firmware would lack features. I've never heard either Chris or Om call the iPhone or Android devices feature incomplete, when we know they still lack features out of the box to this day. But the N900 is "raw"?? And how is the current status of the Maemo OS called a "hack"? Besides lacking MMS and Screen Rotation for most apps, what makes it so raw? And lacking MMS and portrait mode for most apps means it isn't really "a true smartphone"?? Are you kidding me?! So the non multitasking iPhone isn't a smartphone, but the multitasking, phone calling, 24 live apps at a time, Flash toting, plugin supporting media player packing N900 made by the inventors of the smartphone as we know it today isn't!?! I smell FUD, sprinkled with just a dash of "out yo' bleepin' mind", and its coming from Engadget.

Did you bother telling the public that Nokia has committed to adding MMS, portrait mode for web browsing and other applications in Maemo 5, well before Maemo 6? I did like the comparisons to the N8xx and N97, which set out to pack as many features into the package, are its closest comparable devices, and NOT the iPhone and "Droid", which look to streamline and control the feature set of the device. I am waiting for either Chris or Om to say how the stylus is unecessary unless using software not intended for the N900, that any solid device can work as a stylus alternative, from a finger or toothpick to a car key or corner of the handle of your eyeglasses, and is an advantage over all capacitive devices since they can never use a stylus.

You found many quirks of the N900 far different than most of the common devices out there. Did you ask the reasoning behind these differences? Like why the space bar is on the right instead of the center? I'll bet using it for a few weeks would make it pretty evident. It allows for less thumb travel and finger fatigue when typing for extended periods by placing the space bar at a position where the thumb rests, just like the space bars on desktop PCs. Another actual value adding, accessibility feature you failed to expose, even after all of the information available about these design choices and how they'll benefit the end user.

Now come on and show us the main features users will use on any smartphone, like the available apps or methods to use Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, RSS readers, email, media sharing, messaging, phone calls, and audio/video features. And maybe start mentioning that all of the high end camera phones have thicker sensors and equipment, and will usually be thicker than a typical smartphone with a middling camera.

This isn't Tear, but a Mozilla based browser using the Gecko rendering engine. And the processor has helped make it alot smoother and faster than your average device.

@ JayMonster,
Did I miss something? You might want to read my post again, because I don't see anytime I called anyone a name of any sort in my posts. And I don't mind emotional choices. I'm pretty emotional about my tech choices, too. But I base my emotions on convictions built from research and principles, not sentiment. And I don't try to use my emotions as the foundations of pseudo facts. But I'm happy to have gotten you to laugh. The mirror doesn't always do the trick when you're too blind to read my posts, but my unintended jokes are pretty successful on you, for some reason. I find that more funny than anything.

Does Nokia revamping the UI, adding a new official third party app framework, releasing the Symbian OS to the open source community, releasing a high end device on a Linux OS that's also open source, recommitting to GPUs in future devices, recommitting to reclaiming the imaging crown, launching netbooks, and implementing their web services strategy count as "staying the course" to you? Maybe I don't know what the term means... Or is it you? Moto lost by not looking outside of WinMo for smart devices fast enough, and letting its feature phone platform grow stale with no new features in years. It was their software, not hardware, that was the issue. You can still buy a Razr in the US! Its pretty hard to find an N95-1 and near impossible to find the N90 in the US, and they came out AFTER the Razr. Nokia has done nothing similar to Moto, and hasn't seen any results remotely similar, either. Do you forget that Nokia is STILL the leader in the smartphone space by a country mile?!

I think there's room for many smart OSes, and I think the only loser will be Palm's WebOS, which doesn't have the carrier support, robust app frameworks, or differentiating factor to set it apart. But we'll have to see more. Rome wasn't built in a day.

@ Plexus,
Thanks for the reply. You made alot of points, but you overlook certain facts and analysis of the market. I'm confident that I do in fact have it spot on based on my research. Nokia sells alot of smartphones in various price points, and many are in the low to midrange. What you don't get is that gaining customers is almost as good as gaining profit. Indoctrinating a user to your platform allows a certain percentage of loyalty, no matter how great or small. And some of these entry level device users will ugrade to a higher end model later.

As for the emerging markets, it is these markets that will see the most growth, and the source of the next billion mobile users over the next 5-10 years. India, China, and the African nations each have more people without mobiles than the entire US market! China has more prospective consumers than twice the US population! Imagine the 500 million in China buying devices. Think they want or can afford a $650 iPhone or the $250 5800 XM, which has comparable specs and a soon to be open source OS?

Apple might command 1-2% of the emerging Chinese market, for 5-10 million devices sold, versus Nokia's manufacturing capacity and pricing structure to command 30%, or 150 million devices sold. Now Nokia could earn $2 for each of those consumers for a $300 million revenue boom. Apple would need to earn $30-60 per customer to match those numbers, and with the smaller amount of consumers, they are taking a higher risk, and are more exposed to any market fluctuations. Imagine if a national disaster occurs, and Nokia only reaps $.50 services revenues per consumer, and from only 50% of its consumers. That's $37.5 million. Now if Apple got $10 per customer, and from only 50% of its customers, they're looking at $25,000,000 -50,000,000. Economies of scale always win. Slim profits are good when on a massive scale. Ask WalMart...

I also will say Nokia sells a large amount of high end devices, having sold many N97s already, We'll see how well the N900 does, especially once TMobile starts carrying Nseries models and at&t begins to implement the Ovi Store, both happening in 2010. I don't think anyone beside the iPhone sold over 3 million devices, but the N97 sold as much. They don't need it to sell like hot cakes, since they aren't hedged against one model. They have a multidevice approach to addressing the markets, and it has worked well so far. I don't see any Huawei or LG building a better device than Nokia at any pricepoint but the highest, and I doubt they have the expertise, manufacturing capacity, or loyalty to make anyone fear them yet.

The N95 was indeed the most iconic device of the decade, although Americans mostly missed out on that era. But Nokia didn't stop innovating. They have the best smartphones for under $300. They worked on their services, which other manufacturers depend on Google for. They stalled development of Symbian to retool, and in the meantime brought you a Maemo powered N95 successor. Everyone has tried to make Linux/Unix on a mobile possible, and LiMo is close, but Apple and Android failed miserably in comparison to Nokia's homerun N900. In the meantime, the N97's new firmware has made it sing compared to when it was released, and no one else has released an S60 5th Edition device with a full keypad and such a high grade camera in one package, and no phone can out feature the N97 even today. I'd like to compare the Hero to the N97, and you tell me what the N97 CAN'T do the Hero can, and I'll make a list of what the Hero can never do the N97 can. It may not be as cute, but I'm about productivity and function, not beauty pageants. Your preferences may differ, however.

Just because Symbian is 10 years old means nothing in relation to touchscreens. BSD is far older, and its fine for the iPhone. A UI is like a jacket, and can easily be replaced. Nokia just didn't waste time knowing they'd be revamping the entire OS in just a year. Once Symbian^4 is released, your statements will not seem so smart. What do you really know about Symbian? It seems you confuse Symbian with S60, which is a soon to die UI of Symbian. In fact, Symbian has a longer history of touchscreens than any of the current mindshare champs via UIQ, so saying Symbian is inadequate for touchscreen devices is just neophyte conjecture. You made no mention of APIs, app frameworks, processor cycle or memory handling, or anything a real synopsis of an OS should entail. You ony mention the UI, which is an interchangeable part that is scheduled to be changed soon.

You act as if the N900 was a response to falling sales, which everyone experienced during the release of the N97. That's a foolhardy proposition, since the N900 development began when the N95 was released. So you're not entirely accurate in your assumptions. Maemo has been in development for years, and is an answer to firmware hacking by gadget enthusiasts, and a complement to Symbian and its Qt strategy, not a detour. Symbian doesn't need to be patched, just redressed.

Who creates these ideas you put out here? I think you just have alot to learn about mobiles, but you at least have done some research. I just suggest you do more. For instance, Palm doesn't have any benefit to Nokia. Few patents, a nascent OS with many functionality holes and a limited, weak application framework, 3% market share, and less carrier penetration in the US than even Symbian. I'm willing to bet ahead of time that Symbian outsells Palm's WebOS in 2010 at least twofold. Look for WebOS to be either open sourced, killed off, or just forgotten altogether. The only reason they've started the Nokia rumors is to boost their stock price. Trust me.

The HTC HD2 is a fine device screen wise, and I'm not afraid of Windows Mobile, but if not for the large screen, I'd prefer the N97 myself. Hero's cool too, and I'd take it over the HD2 as well. The Ovi Store stuff will just take time. It isn't a long term strategy, though, since the apps of the future will be browser based, and whoever has the best browser wins. Its all about web apps, services, and cross platform development. And Nokia has this ecosystem set up perfectly. So Nokia isn't going anywhere any more than Blackberries, which have a far worse OS and app framework. So get used to them. Nokia IS the winner in the smartphone segment, Symbian is the Swiss Army knife of the smartphone world, Maemo is the SUV, Qt is the Java of the next decade, and I'm the one that told you first! If you're so excited about Android but not Maemo, you have plenty to learn about OS architecture and what developers like.

I'll see you on the Nokia aisle, bro. You'll be back soon.