Getting Close to a Desktop with the Nokia N900

One can’t fault Nokia for wanting to put the power of the desktop PC in the palm of your hand.  The Finish mobile phone giant and world leader has been attempting to do just that since coming out the N95 smartphone and its Maemo-run internet tablets.  Now, Nokia has managed to put the two together using the fifth generation Maemo OS that now supports telecommunication features on a mobile phone – the Nokia N900. Expect this to retail at the ?499 SIM-free price point by end of November or early December.

Desktop PC Look and Feel

The Maemo OS,that Nokia first used in its Internet tablet tablets gets a fifth edition enhancement that now support phone functions as well as true multitasking capability you find in desktop PCs.  Whereas its predecessors where not mobile phones, the N900 represents a fusion of the internet tablet and the phone plus other features that define a complete mobile phone experience.

The new Maemo 5.0 OS is the main transformation engine that allowed Nokia to bring its sophisticated internet tablet technologies and multitasking prowess of the OS into the smartphone.  This allows users to jump for one phone app to another or from one internet site to a phone app without existing multitasking features that are quite familiar in desktop PCs.

The N900 processors allow much of this to take place. Apart from the powerful ARM Cortex A8 clocked at 600 MHz running the Maemo Operating System and phone applications, the handset uses a 3D graphics accelerator that supports OpenGL ES with the PowerVR SGX530 form Imagination Technologies.

Its camera image processing, telephony and data transmission functions are offloaded form the main CPU into a separate EMS320C64x processor running at 430 MHz.  This trio of processors makes the N900 one of the most powerful handsets in its class and certainly bridges the gap between mobile phones and PCs.

Multimedia Experience at its Finest

It starts with a brilliant and expansive 3.5” resistive touchscreen with 16:9 aspect ratio on a wide VGA display.  Movies now commonly made in the same aspect fill up the entire screen for a truly engaging movie watching experience on the road.  It sports an upscale 5 megapixel autofocus camera using Carl Zeiss optics that simply puts it among the finest in camera smartphones.

There’s geo-tagging courtesy of its integrated A-PS features with complete Ovi Maps.   There’s Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP to give you wireless stereo earphone capability as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack should you prefer to use our high fidelity headphones.  There’s stereo FM as well t augment a touch-friendly media player supporting all the popular audio, video and photo file formats.

A Great Internet and Messaging Experience

The Nokia N900 makes working over the internet a no-wait activity since it’s a 3G with HSUPA/HSDPA data connectivity.  You also get benefit from 54 Mbps wireless broadband speeds of up to 54 Mbps from its WiFi 802.11b/g feature that allows you to surf online in any WiFi hotspot anywhere around the nation.

Leveraging on the capable technologies behind its Internet Tablet N810 predecessor, the Maemo 5.0 OS gets a seamless integration with the Mozilla-based Firefox for full internet browser supporting Adobe Flash 9.4.  Now emailing over the internet becomes a breeze as well with Nokia combining into one view an inbox as many as 10 separate email client accounts.

Altogether, the N900 has what it takes to make to the top of the heap. At a hefty 181 grams on a body that looks more like a cigarette case, it can be crowd drawer just for its sheer size and power.