Went to the Nokia N900 blogger preview which took place at Segafredo located at 51 Telok Ayer Street, #01-06, Chinasquare Plaza. First off, the Nokia N900 will be launching in Singapore at the end of March 2010. No local pricing is available yet, but elsewhere the RRP is US$649 = S$911.78.

Nokia N900
Nokia N900
Nokia N900 Screen
Nokia N900 Screen

Specifications

  • Processor: ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz
  • Memory: Up to 1GB (256MB RAM + 768MB virtual memory)
  • System: WCDMA 900/1700/2100 (HSPA), EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
  • OS: Maemo 5
  • Dimensions: 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm (L x W x H) *19.55 mm at camera area
  • Weight: 181 g
  • Display: 3.5 inch widescreen (800×480 pixels) touch
  • Battery: Nokia Battery BL-5J, 1320 mAh
  • Storage: Up to 48GB (32 GB on-board, 16GB expansion via microSD memory card slot)
  • Video playback: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid up to WVGA (800×480) resolution in 25fps. WMV up to VGA resolution in 30fps. Flash Video streaming in browser
  • Music playback: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, M4A, WAV, WMA
  • Main Camera: Carl Zeiss Tessar Lens
  • Image capture: Up to 5 megapixels (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7 million/24-bit color)
  • Video capture: MPEG-4 WVGA (800 x 480) at up to 25 fps
  • Aperture: 2.8
  • Focal length: 5.2
  • Flash: Dual LED camera fash and video light

Operating Times

  • Always online: Up to 2-4 days (TCP/IP connected)
  • Talk time: Up to 5hrs WCDMA, 9hrs GSM
  • Active online usage: Up to 1+ day

Connectivity & Data Services

  • WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g with UPnP support
  • BT 2.1 with support for stereo headsets
  • Integrated FM transmitter
  • Integrated GPS with A-GPS
  • Nokia AV connector 3.5mm for audio input/output and TV out
  • Micro-USB 2.0 high speed for file transfers and charging
Nokia N900 QWERTY Keypad
Nokia N900 QWERTY Keypad

Thoughts

  • The N900 is VERY responsive because of the ARM Cortex-A8 processor
  • The ability to multitask and run background programs is a plus point, the product manager tried running up to 27 background applications and it doesn’t lag
  • It support flash
  • Interesting gesture to zoom in and out using the browser. Swirl clockwise to zoom in and swirl anti-clock wise to zoom out
  • No dedicated hardware button to access the menu
  • Need 3 steps to access other menus. Need to press the “application window” icon, then followed by the “6 squares” icon and then the “more” icon
  • The apps are open source, hopefully this will encourage more developers to develop for Maemo
  • Supports updating of 3rd party apps easily
  • Incoming notification such as SMS are non-obtrusive, it will appear for a while at the top then fade away
  • It is 1.5x thicker than iPhone because of the slide out QWERTY keypad, but the height and width is about the same
  • Price is pretty steep if directly converted from the US$649 RRP

More Photos

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Nokia N900 UI Walkthrough