Nokia N900 - First Impressions

So, yesterday UPS brought my new N900. For those of you who've never heard of it, it's Nokia's "alternative" smartphone. So much alternative, in fact, that the manufacturer refuses to call it that way. It's a mobile computer with phone functionality. Which is exactly what I was looking for.

You see, I've been using smartphones for years now, and I always found them severely wanting to the point of being barely usable and in general not worth the hassle. That, though, is my particular use case and others, with different needs, will reach different conclusions.

Since the assumptions of my use case are a huge part of my desire to have the N900 and tip the balance on this set of impressions, let's go over them first.

I am a geek. I own about three dozen computers in all shapes and sizes. The largest one is a rack full of equipment in a data center, the smalles a BASIC stamp. I write a lot, communicate a lot, listen to music, watch videos, take pictures, and constantly surf the web for research.

I am no different than most geeks in that the voice functionality of my phone is my least favorite feature on it. Just like the generation after me, actually, two or three after me, I much prefer sending text messages to spending time on the phone. I used to say it was because I have an accent, which makes it hard to understand me. But, really, it's just because I hate talking to a little box while I can't see any of the emotional expressions in someone's face.

[For reference, I have the same reaction in a movie theater, when the guy next to me plops himself down in the seat with chili fries while the movie is in the middle of a love scene.]

I am dismayed at my current phone service provider. I am charged $69 a month for 900 minutes of talk time I never use, have a mandatory $34 charge for smartphone data use, another $15 for limited SMS texting, and had to choose between a phone that works outside the U.S. or a camera.

Worst of all, while I pay a ton of money for mandatory Internet data, when I actually try to connect my computer to the Internet via the phone, my provider wants another $30 to provide me with exactly the same thing I have already paid for. All in all, I am paying about $150 for a useless brick that I use occasionally. And to make things worse, all the power that thing uses makes it drain its batteries within 24h.

OK, that's untenable. Let's see what's wrong with the picture:

• A phone needs to be able to put itself into a mode where, when unused, it'll last for a week. Get a clue, smartphone manufacturers! It's not that hard! Have you ever seen a Kindle? The long battery life alone is a killer feature!
• The Internet access on the phone is useless, because half the sites don't work in the browser. Using Opera instead of the BlackBerry browser makes life a teeny little better, but nowhere near good. iPhone users: explain to Steve that you abso-&!%@#-lutely need Flash.
• Really, making people pay for SMS is plain stupid. The low bandwidth requirements and 0 requirements for synchronicity mean that you can run as many SMSs on any wireless network without feeling the pain. Fleecing the customer (because that's what it is) is in the long term an outstanding way to get them upset at you.
• In the long term, voice will just be a feature running over a common carrier Internet. There is no reason to assume that there is anything special about voice communication. As a result, VoIP applications will rule the world. In the short term, please don't disrupt Skype traffic!
• In the same vein, a phone that doesn't switch automatically to a cheaper wireless network is just plain dumb. I mean, seriously, if the phone knows how to connect to the Internet, it should also know how to route your voice packets over it.
• Contracts. They are evil. They are stupid. They are anti-competitive. AT&T was broken up over shenanigans similar to 2-year contracts. I've had my share of problems with contracts - including (*) an automatic 2-year renewal after my phone was stolen, (*) an early termination fee for a contract whose term had already expired. In general, contracts are bad, but the atrocious customer service that comes with your phone contract makes them much worse. Of course, the reason they don't fix the customer service is that you are tied to them by your contract.

The list is incomplete. But here is what I think my use case will look like:

• A cheap phone on a prepaid plan for emergency communication. By "emergency," I don't mean 911, but being out of reach of a wireless 802.11 network, which is where I spend most of my working time and where I am always when I want to perform real work. The emergency phone is just there so that people can tell me they need to get in touch with me. Since it's an emergency contact, it would come on a prepaid minute plan, not on subscription plan. It would include SMS. The phone would be the kind you dump in your backpack and don't worry about for a week. Charge it when you do your laundry kinda thing.
• A laptop. The deciding factors on the laptop are (*) weight (under 3 lbs), (*) keyboard (big enough, responsive enough, sturdy enough, (*) screen size and resolution (>10", >1024x768)
• A server configured to be accessible from the Internet in a secure fashion. I use a fast HP desktop at home. It runs Kubuntu, is configured for ssh access, and I use it whenever I need something compiled or done fast.
• A device that allows me full access to the Internet and everything that comes from there when I am on the road. It need to be fully competent, fully connected, quick-booting, and very, very small.

Devices I'd rather have separate are an eBook reader (because I read a lot) and music players. The plural is because players are so cheap, I'd rather have one for each use case (= activity).

So, how do I address the last device? There are several options:

• iPad: great form factor, although a little big. With 3G connectivity, it suffices the needs of being always on. The problem is that it's not only NOT a fully fledged device, it is lacking in some core ways, most notably the finicky browser support and the lack of multitasking.
• iPhone: seriously, I have lots of friends on iPhones. They are totally excited about their iPhones, and I can see why. I hate that thing. Just looking at them. Looking at the super-crappy pictures it shoots, so out of focus and low-res that you can tell they were shot with an iPhone from a mile. Looking at the way every browsing session becomes an exercise in pinching-poking-slanting-twisting. Loooking at the way my friends have memorized what sites work and what sites don't. Looking at the way they tell you this that or the other thing doesn't work because Apple hasn't allowed it to happen on an iPhone. Seriously, people? You like a nanny? Get a nanny. For the money you spent on your iPhone (and especially on the special cables, chargers, etc. that you need), you can easily afford a naughty nanny.
• A teeny netbook. You could go for a EEE in the original 7" form factor. Nice try, unfortunately the screen resolution stinks, the thing is way too heavy, and the booting is as fast or slow as the OS you install.
• A smart smartphone, like the N900. A-ha! That's the one. It's small, barely bigger than an iPhone, but it runs a blazing fast OS that makes life really easy. It carries GSM connectivity built-in that makes it universal. It has a decent screen resolution (800x480, for a total of 384,000 pixels (compare that with the iPhone's 153,600).
  

So, after I started up my N900, I already had the idea that the idea of the device was what I wanted. But was the implementation going to stand up to the idea?

I read a bunch of blogs before buying. I looked into all comments available, trying to make sure the software would stand up to my requirements for usability. There were plenty of people griping. I held back. After a while, the pressure started getting really bad: I was still spending $150 a month on a device I barely use and that I fundamentally hate.

So I went out and bought one. I got a decent price ($500) and really felt like it. But I was still quite concerned about usability.

I turned it on. I haven't looked back. I love the N900. It's easy to use, easy to understand, and most of the reviews that were negative on usability were complaining from the point of view of someone that has spent no more than 30 minutes with the device. Sure, at first you are totally lost as to how to do things - but until you were told that's the way to do it, would you have pinched the screen of an iPhone?

The browser that lives on the N900 is Firefox. It's not some mobile version of Firefox that doesn't work with this that and the other site. It's the real thing - so much so that some extensions are available for it already (AdBlock comes to mind). I've tried all sites I could get my hands on, and all the ones I need work. Even better, you (a) don't have the same need for resolution changes, thanks to the high resolution of the device, and (b) get used to twirling instead of pinching in about 2 seconds. When you want to zoom in, you turn your finger clockwise. If you want to get out, you turn counterclockwise.

The interface is quite intuitive in a playful way. When a dialog is modal (which means it demands attention), the background becomes fuzzy. You get out of a dialog by clicking on the fuzzy area. It's as simple as that. No need for a dedicated cancel button.

The underlying Maemo OS is a variant of Debian Linux, just like the Kubuntu I use on an everyday basis. Sure, the apps that run on it are mostly not the same I'd use on Kubuntu, but that's a matter of time and patience. What this means for the user is that software installation, configuration, and selection are not moderated by Nokia or Apple - they are up to you.

For whatever reason of theirs, Nokia decided to add a keyboard to the device. I think that's probably the worst decision they made, because it add visible bulk to the device (which is much thicker than it needs to be) while adding very little to the functionality. Even with the kayboard, I much prefer the huge on-screen keyboard. The keys are bigger, the display clearer. Now I just have to figure out how to confirm predictive input.

Another gripe that I have with the iPad shows that Nokia understand the market a lot better than Apple: the thing comes without any of the gizmos that are what makes the iPhone so popular. Essentially, what you want in a "mobile computer" is all the possible sensors imaginable: video camera, photo camera, GPS, bluetooth, touch sensitivity, accelerometer, microphone, etc. The thing is connected to the Internet, so all the processing it couldn't do on its own, you can just offload to a server.

There are a lot of iPhone applications I love because of that: barcode readers that use the built-in cam; tuning forks that tell you when your guitar has the perfect pitch; location browsers that tell me that my soul mate is within reach. You know, just the gamut. The iPad is really dumbed down that way, but the N900 has pretty much everything you'd like. (The webcam functionality seems to be limited at this point.)

I am pretty much done with my first impressions. There are still two points I need to address - one positive and one negative. Let's start with the negative one first: when an application decides to freeze, it's incredibly hard to figure out how to get out. GMail IMAP, for instance, tends to freeze up the email client (IMAP and GMail with its enormous folders are a bad match anyway). You have unfortunately no way to tell whether the app is (a) frozen or just busy, and (b) what to do next. The only solution I've found so far is to click the menu bar on top, where only the status applets (for battery, bluetooth, etc.) seem to work.

Closing on a positive note, and agreeing with pretty much all online reviews, the Skype support is simply amazing. Using Skype on a computer is nice, but using it on a phone is out of this world. You get the clarity of the calls that you are used to, but the convenience of a phone.

I set up my Skype account to allow calling and being called from landlines and mobile phones. The cost is a fraction of what you'd pay my current wireless provider, and it works just wonderfully. Maybe it's that I spent half the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics calling myself from the Blackberry to the N900 to check on quality, but I am just in love with the functionality, the cost, everything about it.

I say that as soon as the N900 has a few more and more useful apps in (the) store, it's going to be the thing to have, no questions asked.