August 27, 2010
By Peter van der Merwe

*Update*

Competition closed:

Congratulations to Dewald Noeth who received  most  votes declaring him as the proud new owner of the Nokia N900.

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Last month we threw down the gauntlet to you in a big way. Tell us why you should review the new Nokia N900 for two weeks. Review the beast. And the best review wins it. It was that simple.

As you can imagine, we had a fair old flood of entries. People screaming “Pick me! Pick me!”. Crowds massing outside our offices. It was not a pretty sight.

But, as with all good competitions, we had to pick three finalists. And now, dear reader, it’s up to you to tell us whose review is worthy of winning this turbo-charged, supergeek internet device.

Will it be the music-loving Shakira Akabor? The self-appointed intermediary between technology humanity, Nadia Assimacopoulos? Or will Dewald Noeth’s deep dive into the heart of the machine win your vote?

Voting is easy. Simply look to the top right of your screen, point your cursor over the poll, and click. You may not hear them directly, but someone will be thanking you.

But enough of this carefree badinage. Onwards, brave readers! You have blogs to read. Decisions to make. Votes to cast. Go do it. Now.

Shakira Akabor’s N900 Review

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The Nokia N900 exceeded all my expectations!

The first thing I noticed is the 32GB phone memory. Fabulous news for a music junkie like me. And not only can you listen to music with provided earphones, you can even play it on your FM radio by transmitting it on an FM frequency.

The 5mp camera is quick and efficient; superb as far as phone camera’s go.

Web browsing on the phone is a marvellous experience when using the stylus, made even more remarkable by the little stand at the back of phone, elevating it to a readable angle on any flat surface. With Maemo applications, the sky’s the limit for the capabilities of this amazing phone. A remote control for the TV, a remote desktop connection to your PC and an eBook reader are just a few of the possibilities.

The only drawback is the size; the N900 is slightly bulkier than most phones of its kind. However, it’s easy to overlook this factor when you consider the multitude of functions on this phone. On the whole, I found the N900 to be a smartphone on steroids. Seriously.

Nadia Assimacopoulos’s N900 Review

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When given the opportunity to review the Nokia N900, my first thought was, “awesome”. I am surrounded by technologically aware individuals and have always been able to act as the translator between tech and layman. I figured the N900 would be the perfect challenge. It turns out I needed some help myself – and to try explain this phone in basic terms would be minimising how brilliantly it works.

The N900 uses a new operating system called Maemo. It’s Linux based and quite different to the previous Symbian that Nokia has been using until now. It offers a resistive touch screen with a beautiful keyboard that smoothly slips out.

I’m a stickler for battery life and it’s not *that* fabulous, but considering all the phone does, the fact that it lasts more than a day is impressive. The call quality is brilliant, crisp and clear. Internet browsing, emails, messaging, and other ways to keep in touch are easily accessible and work seamlessly. While the apps are not quite like the iPhone and Android in terms of quality and quantity, OVI is definitely a good starting point. In fact, I would argue that the N900 is more of an internet tablet that allows you to make phone calls, rather than the other way around.

My word of caution, however, is that this phone is built for someone who understands what the Command Line is, and knows how to use it. It would be somewhat wasted on someone who uses a phone only for calls and sms’ (although to be fair, the calls would be crystal clear). The menu and interface are not quite as intuitive as Symbian, making it complicated for the technically disadvantaged.

Basically, to act as a translator for this phone would be heresy, it should be enjoyed in all its tech glory for those who use Linux regardless and would appreciate just how great a phone this is… without having to read my review.

Dewald Noeth’s N900 review

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First of I would like to thank Nokia SA (Ringaz) for the opportunity to review the phone. The Nokia N900 is so much more than just another smart phone. It is a tablet computer in your pocket.

Look and feel:

The beautiful black phone has a resistive touch screen which I found to work better than most other resistive touch screens. It has a slide out 3 row QWERTY keyboard, but it also has the option to use the on-screen keyboard. This does however make the phone a bit bulky. It is a few grams heavier than the HTC Touch Pro2 that also has a QWERTY keyboard that slides out. The 4 screen panoramic desktop is awesome! It can be completely personalised with your favourite wallpapers, contacts, shortcuts and widgets. The Multi-tasking capability of the phone makes it great for those, like me, who like to do more than one thing at a time.

8/10

Communication:

The integration with skype and other IM service makes it easy to keep in touch with everyone and it has a wonderful conversation manager that keeps track of your conversations by sorting them by contact and then by date. It works fantastic. The downside, there is no built in MMS tool. You have to download and configure a program called fMMS. Contact your service provider for the settings. The email function is great. With the push service for exchange you can stay up to date with everything, but if you have a large mailbox like gmail, I would suggest using POP3 instead of IMAP since it can get really slow.

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Networking:

The Phone has HSDPA capability up to 10Mbits (that is fast) as well as wifi (802.11 b/g), meaning you can stay connected where ever you are! The browser has Mozilla technology, therefore you experience the “browsing from PC feeling” and it has a great zoom feacher. You tube video’s play perfectly with the Adobe Flashplayer integration. The phone, in good Linux style, connects to a repository of games, programs and tools that can be installed at a touch of your thumb. Extra repositories can also be added to expand your playground. There is something for everyone, even a recipe program for your mom.

My Overall feeling:

The Phone is fantastic. My biggest issue however is the battery life. I could not get it to last me longer than 8hours. There are tools though to help out, like the Wifi switcher which you can use to switch off the Wifi. The 32Gb means that you don’t even need to use a microSD card, but if one need to expand you can use up to a 16Gb card. The sound is awesome and the 3.6mm Jack makes is easy to plug in my favourite earphones if I don’t want to use Nokia’s. The camera is great, though I would have wanted a xenon flash.

The initial setup took a lot of data (something Nokia should attend to). Be sure to have a good data plan or use a Wifi network to do this. This might be where BlackBerry has an upper hand with there BlackBerry service packages.

For the Linux experts and geeks out there: Maemo is Debian based, making it putty in your hands to play with. Should one hit a bump the kernel can be flushed and everything should be back to normal again. There is a massive community on the net available to help out when needed.

I’ll give this phone a….

8,5/10

Tags: Competition, N900, Nokia, Review