Gadgetory

hey guys welcome back to the second part of the review alrighty we went through the basics now let's check out what else in the Nokia n900 has to offer I'm a guy who enjoys the simple things in life a good movie a cold glass of beer and the occasional new gadget to fiddle around with the n900 definitely has that new gadget appeal it feels fresh enough to keep me interested but let's check out the software included on the device so what do you want access to the program's been you just tap on the icon on the upper edge of the screen when you hit it once you've shown the program that are already open I'll get to this feature a bit later but now let's check out the apps the application menu icons are pretty much the same as on the Symbian which surprised me a little bit because not too big a fan of the Symbian icons it's a matter of taste of course but some if you have a screen that's capable of sixteen point seven million colors why not use a bit more than just five of them while the icons themselves are familiar the program themselves have changed a bit the instant messaging program is now called the Nokia conversations and while we're here let's type a quick message and take the keyboard out for a spin the keyboard actually isn't half bad the top row of the keys does feel a bit cramped but typing is fast and precise I haven't come across a device that beats a keyboard on the touch pro2 but the keyboard on the n900 has a very similar feel to it overall it's an OK keyboard not great but ok the email application on the n900 is actually pretty straightforward and functional you can add several email accounts which is always nice I think I have about 5 active email accounts right now so I need a very good system to keep them all in check and I think the n900 provides this the only thing that's really missing is a push email function ok let's get into the more appealing features the camera on the device is what I've come to expect from Nokia it has pretty much all the functions of your average pocket camera and it takes very good pictures at highlight low-light shots are a bit grainy but better than I expected and the flash that's a very good job in smaller spaces the photos application has received a functional update it's much better than the software on the n97 and flicking between pictures is now fast and easy and as you can see portrait mode is available in the photos application the Miami 5 media player application is actually a three in one package EAL it consists of the music player video player and internet radio the icons have a nice look and it actually reminds me of the cross media bar on the ps3 or PSP the music player is pretty basic stuff there's a nice catalog of cover art and the interface seems pretty solid the stereo speakers on the device are a bit mediocre they go pretty too high enough volume flat some thankfully the inner ear buds that came with the device are actually excellent and that 32 gigabytes of storage provides sufficient space for your music catalog the video player on the device is actually pleasant surprised not only is it very functional it supports divx xvid and h.264 which makes the n900 a very capable media playing device this kind of wide support is very rare for a built-in player so I'm fairly impressed the 3.5 inch display within sixty point seven million colors is very suitable for video playback and the devices hardware's capable of handling bit rates up to five megabytes a second without skipping frames and losing sync of the audio for the sake of comparison that n97 had trouble handling bit rates that exceeded two megabytes a second a new and very cool built-in app is the internet radio where we find a nice selection of channels from around the world it only takes a few seconds to connect to a channel and the quality is actually not bad the internet radio application seems to work almost perfectly so it's a nice addition to the software line-up of a 900 man this song locks the nokia obese tour is yet not available for the n900 which is a bit disappointing but the device offers a variety of downloadable open-source content through the mono application manager it's not as varied a selection as what you find in the Android Market but there is an ok selection of games and applications alrighty next is a feature that I've been getting a lot of questions about in advance how is the Mozilla browser and yes you heard correctly the browser is based on the Mozilla platform most commonly known for Firefox the browser has flash support and handles videos nicely loading times on the browser are I'd say equal to what I've seen on the upper mobile browsing even the heaviest of pages is very fast but there is some boxing meaning that it can't always handle the content that screen streamed in but overall browsing speed feels solid there's no lag when scrolling down the page and it's precise and responsive there's no multi-touch pinching because it's an old resistant screen but you can zoom in by twirling your finger but I kind of prefer the more masculine DoubleTap which seems to work ok multitasking is one of the more advertised features of the n900 and I'm fairly impressed at how it works as I mentioned when you hit the applications tab on the desktop you're first shown the open programs selecting between programs is as simple as it gets and the n900 does it with impressive speed let's find out how the device handles multiple programs open in the background alrighty we now have about 16 applications open and the device is still trading along nicely some minor signs of slowdown that's expected and I have to say it's pretty impressive for a handset on the other hand closing programs is a bit trickier hitting the small X's on the open applications icons can be a bit tricky with fat fingers like mine so the stylus comes handy once again but overall multitasking is made simple and fast on the n900 ok before we wrap up this review let's check out one of the more unadvertised features the FM radio transmitter the transmitter does what it's called but transmits FM radio single split you can pick up on any radio so you can basically have music playing off your device and receive it for example on your car radio so what you want to do is select a transmitting frequency and set the device to transmit and then search for the correct frequency on and in this case my trusty old coach coachy it's simple enough to set up and it seemed to work great and as I mentioned it works on any device I was planning on doing a test on my own crappy car radio but it was actually paralyzed by the cold so I had to use the radio on a friend's car unfortunately no I don't have an image LCD panel in my own car I wish I did maybe nokia could sponsor doing this FM radio transmitter is fantastic but seriously it is actually very good it transmits up to five meters for 15 feet and the sound quality is surprisingly good it's a very handy wireless alternative if you don't have a bluetooth capable radio but overall I'm enjoying the n900 more that I like the n97 which I think did not have sufficient of hardware ARM Cortex processor makes all the difference the n900 is very fast in almost every aspect the mom of five interface was a pleasant surprise it's not as flashy and elegant as for example the HTC Sense but the mime of five UI is very functional icons could be a bit more finger friendly but the overall experience is satisfactory the biggest fault of the device is the lack of single hand usability but I recently found out that portrait mode will be added as an update and early spring 2010 so we'll see how that turns out even though it's not a perfect device more work in progress the speed and functionality of the interface make the n900 a very solid handset which I can definitely recommend checking out and that's pretty much it for my review catch you later LP signing out