Despite the fact Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced that its N900 will sell for $649 in the U.S., the good ol’ Amazon is offering the Maemo-powered device for $480 ($479.99 to be more precise). As you probably already know that money buys you one of the most capable smartphones on the market today with features that include tons of storage (32GB), GPS, WiFi, great 5-megapixel camera, and so on. Exact shipping date is unknown at the moment, but I assume you won’t have to wait for too long to grab the N900, in case you want to.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

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The Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900 inches closer to a retail launch today with Espoo’s announcement that they’ve started shipping their N900 to distributors and retailers. Nokia recently missed its initial October 2009 window for shipping the N900, so today’s announcement is great news for fans of the N900’s 3.5-inch touchscreen, powerful ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 5-megapixel Car Zeiss camera and Maemo 5 OS. Nokia says that the N900 will soon be available in retail stores with an estimated price-tag of €500 EUR. We had a chance to go hands-on with the N900, read up on our impressions here.

“The Nokia N900 has generated a lot of interest since its public launch in August, which has been reflected in the device preorders,” says Jose-Luis Martinez, Vice President, Nseries, Nokia. “What’s exciting is the Maemo software, which takes its cues from the desktop computer and offers a full browsing experience like no other handset. We believe the Nokia N900 will be a very compelling device for people who are passionate about technology.”

Nokia has officially announced that they’ll be launching a completely revamped Maemo 6 OS next year, which is expected to blow Maemo 5 out of the water, but won’t work with the N900. For some, that’s not going to stop them from picking up an N900 this year. Will you be picking up the N900 with Maemo 5?

Full press release after the break.

ESPOO, Finland, November 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The shipments of the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900, Nokia’s latest mobile computer based on open source Maemo 5 software, have now started. The Nokia N900 will be available in retail stores in November with an estimated retail price of EUR 500, excluding sales taxes and subsidies.

“The Nokia N900 has generated a lot of interest since its public launch in August, which has been reflected in the device preorders,” says Jose-Luis Martinez, Vice President, Nseries, Nokia. “What’s exciting is the Maemo software, which takes its cues from the desktop computer and offers a full browsing experience like no other handset. We believe the Nokia N900 will be a very compelling device for people who are passionate about technology.”

At the heart of the Nokia N900 is its powerful ARM Cortex-A8 processor and up to 1GB of total application memory. Users can browse the internet the way they would on any computer and keep dozens of application windows open simultaneously on the dashboard. The panoramic desktops in the Nokia N900 can be personalized with widgets, contacts and shortcuts. Pictures and videos taken with the 5Mpx Carl Zeiss camera automatically show where they were taken, and users can add their own description tags to make searching the photos even easier. SMS and instant messages are organized as chat flow and people can convenienty switch between the multiple conversation windows. The built-in 32 GB storage is big enough to store up to 7,000 songs or 40 hours of DVD-quality video, and it can be expanded up to 48GB with an external microSD card.

Nokia works closely with the developer community and has recently seen significant innovation happening with Maemo. As a result, people will be able to discover a wide range of games, utilities, themes, panoramic wallpapers and service plug-ins for photo-sharing and messaging for the Nokia N900 through Ovi Store and Maemo Select, starting later in the year. In October Nokia announced official Qt port to Maemo 5. This means developers can use Qt software to target the Nokia N900 and that applications can be easily ported to all Qt’s supported platforms including the next Maemo 6 release as well as Symbian.

The Nokia N900 will initially be available in Europe, Middle-East, Russia and North America. It is also possible to order the device from the Nokia Online Store: http://europe.nokia.com/buy-online

About Nokia

Nokia is a pioneer in mobile telecommunications and the world’s leading maker of mobile devices. Today, we are connecting people in new and different ways – fusing advanced mobile technology with personalized services to enable people to stay close to what matters to them. We also provide comprehensive digital map information through NAVTEQ; and equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.

http://www.nokia.com

SOURCE Nokia Corporation

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Do you develop mobile apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian or webOS? Well, we want to hear from you! We’ve partnered up with “Under The Radar” to find cool mobile apps that will blow our minds. We’re asking any and all mobile app developers to submit their app for the “FAST PITCH” mobile app talent search, where your app will vie for a chance to be showcased in front of an audience of global dealmakers and start-ups. Even if we don’t pick your app for the talent search, you’ll get some serious recognition for your app (and possibly prizes, like handsets).

Interested? Here’s what you need to know:

• You must be able to attend Under the Radar (in Mountain View on Nov 19)
  • If you’re selected as a finalist, you’ll get a free conference pass
• Your app has to be live and available for download
• We welcome any and all apps for iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian, etc
• Your app must be unique and new – no tip calculators or sudoku apps, please
• You must be able to pitch your app in 2 min (and 4 slides) on stage

We’re going to make it simple for you to submit your app for consideration in the “Under The Radar” FAST PITCH mobile app talent search. Interested mobile devs need only leave a comment or tweet @IntoMobile with a quick one-liner pitch for your mobile app – Twitter is limited to 140 characters, so choose accordingly. Please make sure to include a link to your app’s download page (or homepage) and your Twitter handle with your submission.

Your app will be judged for its “uniqueness” and the all important “awesomeness” metric. We’ll be accepting mobile app submissions through Friday, Nov. 6 Monday, Nov. 9 (deadline extended). The 6 lucky finalists will be contacted directly through email and/or Twitter.

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Jay Sullivan, Vice President of Mobile at Mozilla, runs through Firefox for Maemo on the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900 in the video below and shows off how tabs work, the “awesome bar”, and extensions. You may be asking yourself what’s the point of Mozilla building Firefox for Mobile? WebKit has the largest share of the mobile browser space, and they’re doing a damn fine job at what they do, but you have to remember that WebKit isn’t a browser, it’s just a rendering engine. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), RIM, they’re all building browsers that are powered by WebKit, whereas Mozilla is actually building a complete browser that you as a consumer can install on your mobile device similar to how you install Firefox on a fresh install of Windows today. Key difference. No clue as to when Firefox Mobile will be finished, and what platforms it will support, but at least you can sleep soundly at night knowing that there is a company fighting to make the internet a better experience regardless of the device you use.

[Hat tip to @luovanto aka Jussi Mäkinen, Marketing Maemo Devices @ Nokia]

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We dig the idea of Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900’s expandable feature set. And to prove just how tweaking-friendly the Maemo-powered device is, this guy managed to make it run the good ol’ Windows 3.11. Yap, you’ve read that correctly – it’s running Win 3.11 from DOS. But I said enough, just watch the video and enjoy!

[Via: JampBLOG]

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It was long time ago when we reported that ACCESS (the owner of the original Palm (NSDQ: PALM) OS which it re-christened to Garnet OS) is working with Emblaze and Sharp to create “revolutionary mobile device.” It seems they finally managed to bring their project close to the end, and voila – a press release has been issued, announcing the new mobile OS called ELSE INTUITION. It’s all about user interface these days and these folks know that. Hence the mentioned release adds the good ol’ “revolutionary” adjective before the phrase.

Unfortunately, we don’t have screenshots to prove the claim, but a single image above shows some merit. Still, until we test this for ourselves, we’ll keep a dose of skepticism, as we’ve heard similar claims in the past.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out this isn’t ACCESS’ first mobile Linux project. Their earlier efforts proved as a total failure as they struggled to convince anyone to jump on board. This time, however, they seem to have a better product. The only problem is the over-crowded mobile Linux market, which seems unready for another player. We’ll see…

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

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I just came back from the first of six international Nokia N900 meetups. The Helsinki event took place in none other than the Nokia Flagship Store, a shop that I used to visit quite often during my usual daily strolls down main street, but have lately been ignoring due to Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s present uninspiring portfolio of devices. I’m still on the fence as to whether or not it was a success, but I know that has something to do with the former financial analyst in me who would like to see some hard numbers. A success, by my definition, would be recuperating the costs of these events, with Nokia N900 purchases from the people in attendance. I’ll never know if this event, or the five similar events coming up are actually cost effective, but I did discover something just by showing up. Nokia employees working on Maemo have hearts.

There are four types of Nokia employees. You have the majority of employees, who do their job just so they can pay the bills. They’ve established a mind numbing routine and are indifferent about their role, but they know that working for Nokia allows them a gracious amount of time off, flexible working hours, and a healthy severance package should they become fired. Then you have the people who are actually into the mobile industry and really do care about where Nokia is heading, but unfortunately they’re in roles that have little to no impact towards the future device or service portfolio. There are a healthy number of these individuals, I used to be one of them. Next you have the people who actually work on the future devices and services Nokia will be releasing, the people who get their hands dirty, the people who use an IDE more than they use PowerPoint. These people care about what they’re doing, developers love solving problems and seeing a project rise from concept to product, but they may not exactly care about Nokia or the wireless industry as a whole. Finally you have the people who are in the right place, at the right time, and doing the right thing. These people may or may not have technical savvy, but are in a position to change things and are really excited about the things they’re working on, what their work will mean for Nokia, and the mobile telecommunications as a whole. Few of these sort of people exist, but I was fortunate enough to meet a few at tonight’s event.

Maemo employees, and I’m not going to name names since I don’t want to get people in trouble, know what they’re up against. They know the iPhone offers a fantastic consumer experience, but deep down they really do care that it is a locked down platform where developers play by Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s rules. They know Android is on the tip of everyone’s tongues, but they oppose the fact that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) worked to build something that is open on paper, but in reality is just Google saying “we know there is stuff out there in the open source community that does what we want to do, but we’re just going to write, from scratch, the bits and pieces we want to make so they can be exactly how we like them; to shut the community up we’ll just open source everything”. They know that the N900 will be what the technology media people will be talking about when it hits stores next month, but they’re humble and admit that internally their judgement day, when all Maemo employees receive self vindication, will be when the device after the N900 running Maemo 6 will be on store shelves.

The enthusiasm Maemo people have about open source software is astounding. They don’t want to build something from scratch, open source it, and call it a day. Instead Maemo people look at the best at what open source offers today and then takes from all those projects whatever it can to combine it into what you and I call Maemo. I never really understood that until tonight. To me “open source” has become such an overused phrase that I’ve associated it with filthy marketing talk. One Maemo employee whispered to me “notice how there are no marketing people here tonight?” and at that point I realized the whole concept of these events was not about pushing the Nokia N900, but pushing Maemo and the concept of open source to a greater audience.

I may not agree with open source people. They probably hate the fact that I use Windows 7, that I don’t give a shit as to whether my software is open or not, and that I constantly bring up the fact that going to an open source event is like waking up in a world where females never existed. That being said, open source people are free thinkers, and the people who talked to me today did not spew the well rehearsed Nokia corporate communications quotes, they actually started their sentences “well … personally I think …”; unheard of since Nokia marketing people are not allowed to have their own opinions when speaking to a public facing audience.

The Maemo guys have heart, and people with passion get far in life, but can this team execute on a mission to bring the best open source software device to market? I’ll just have to wait and see. I can’t offer anything else that that.

Just wait and see.

Oh and one more thing: congratulations to my mate Henrikki for winning a Nokia N900 tonight.

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We’ve already seen how to BitTorrent stuff from the Internet with the Nokia N900. Now we have a video of the same device running Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s latest product – Wave. As you’re about to see, things don’t run too smoothly — there’s some lag between the keyboard and text box — but overall the experience is more than acceptable considering just how JavaScript-intense the Wave is. Hopefully, Google will release its JS framework or at least Chrome browser for multiple mobile platforms and all the lag will be removed. In the meantime, check the N900 riding the Wave. Enjoy!

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

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We’ve no doubts Nokia (NYSE: NOK) plans to invest heavily in its Linux-based Maemo platform. Their N900 is certainly one of the best mobile phones on the market today and on that note we bring you this story/rumor, which involves the next generation of the company’s Internet Tablet devices. What you see above is apparently the Nokia N920, which will come sans QWERTY keyboard relying on the multi-touch enabled capacitive (yes, that’s capacitive) touchscreen, only. Not much is known at the moment, but according to iMobile365, this baby will run the upcoming Maemo 6 OS (N900 runs Maemo 5) and will ship with a huge 4.13-inch display. And that’s about all we have to share at the moment. As soon as we hear something new, we’ll let you know. Stay tuned in the meantime…

[Via: Pocketables, NokiaPort.de]

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Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has prepared a video to demonstrate just how powerful their Maemo-powered N900 is powerful for web browsing. First we have Mikko Mikko “>Korpelainen (Senior Product Manager) explaining why the N900’s browser “brings full Internet to your pocket.” There are five components, according to Mikko: latest web technologies (Mozilla based browser), full Flash support, performance (the N900 is quite snappy), real-estate (WVGA screen), and interaction with content which goes beyond panning and clicking.

The other part of the clip features Martin Shüle (Principal Designer, User Interface Design) who talks about the overall browsing experience, including how zooming in browser works, visual history, copy/paste from a browser, and so on. It’s a 6-minute long video but it’s well worth watching. Here it comes. Enjoy!

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CTIA Fall 2009 isn’t the biggest show we’ve ever been to. In fact, this particular conference might be the smallest CTIA we’ve ever attended. But, that doesn’t mean there’s a lack of cool hardware to ogle on the showfloor. Take the Nokia N900 for example. It’s Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s latest Nseries smartphone, and the first of the Nseries lineup to run a non-Symbian OS. Nokia tapped its Maemo development team to craft a version of the Linux-based operating system for the new Nokia N900 smartphone, and we have to say it’s light-years better than S60. Say what you want about Symbian, just don’t say it’s “good.”

Anyway, enough ranting about Symbian. The Nokia N900 is a true multi-tasking powerhouse. The N900 is powered by the same 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor that you’ll find crunching numbers inside the iPhone 3GS. Nokia uses that awesome processor to bring serious multi-tasking to the Nokia N900. Take a look at the video below and you’ll see that the N900 we were playing with was running no less than six apps at the same time – no saved-state nonsense, this was legitimate multi-tasking. One of the apps (a game) even displayed an animated thumbnail showing the game in action while running in the background.

The UI is smooth and lag-free. Flick your finger on the touchscreen and you’ll be treated to a bit of kinetic scrolling. Maemo 5 supports widgets too, which means you can fill your three homescreen panes with all sorts of little info-windows that pull social-network information in real-time. And, as an added bonus, Maemo 5 runs a Mozilla-based web browser that boasts full Flash 9.2 support. This isn’t the crappy Flash Lite that some folks have been saying is a good alternative to real Flash support (even though it really isn’t). This is real Flash, running real fast and real smoothly.

As for the hardware, here’s a quick rundown. The Nokia N900 features a 3.5-inch WVGA capacitive resistive touchscreen, 5-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera (with dual-LED flash), 32GB onboard storage, 3G data, GPS, WiFi, FM radio and that speedy 600Mhz Cortex A8 processor. In a nutshell, it’s everything you’d expect from Nokia’s latest Nseries flagship.

You can pre-order the Nokia N900 from NokiaUSA.com for $649. Have at it!

Enjoy the video.

Hands-on the Nokia N900 from IntoMobile.

[Update]
Touchscreen is resistive, not capacitive

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The LiMo Foundation has been tacking on members here and there, but they just lost the better part of a major one: Motorola (NYSE: MOT). Moto’s VP of software apps and ecosystems, Christy Wyatt, has left the board, but the company will stick around as a standard contributing member. Moto’s love affair with Android lately has been palpable, which, as another form of mobile Linux, puts them a bit at odds with the foundation’s goals, but as one of the founding members of the LiMo foundation, it’s hard to expect them to leave altogether. Samsung is in a similar position, what with the recent launch of the Moment – maybe Motorola’s move is a sign of things to come for the fate of LiMo on the whole.

[via IDG]

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The amount of lawyers with dollar bills in their eyes right now is astronomically large. Lawsuit waiting to happen aside, what you’re about to see below is Urho Konttori, Project Manager at Nokia (NYSE: NOK), with a Super Nintendo emulator called DrNokSnes installed on his Nokia N900. He hooked up a Nintendo Wii controller to it, which is fairly easy to do considering it uses Bluetooth, and as la pièce de résistance hooked the entire setup up to his television. Prepare to drool:

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After meandering the Asian world, Garmin-asus is bringing their nüvifone brand to North America on October 4 care of AT&T (NYSE: T); that $299.99 pricetag rumour was dead on. The G60 nüvifone runs on Linux, rocks a 272 x 480 WQVGA touchscreen, 3 megapixel camera with autofocus, 2.5 mm headphone jack (boo), and true to Garmin’s DNA, it’s big on GPS navigation and services. This will be the only Linux phone to come out of Garmin-asus, as they’ll be switching to Android and Windows Mobile exclusively for future handsets. The M20 is currently their Windows Mobile offering, but we’ll have to wait and see if it ever finds its way to this side of the pond. If you’d like to take a closer look, I tried out the G60 in Barcelona earlier this year, or you can scope out the information page.

[via AT&T]

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The mobile OS space is getting more and more crowded. Newcomer mobile operating systems like Palm (NSDQ: PALM)’s webOS, Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s Android OS are giving industry leaders like Windows Mobile, iPhone OS and Symbian S60 a taste of fierce competition. Intel apparently wants in on the party. Intel’s product manager Claire Alexander unveiled the company’s Linux-based Moblin operating system user interface at IDF09.

Moblin started off as Intel’s operating system aimed at making the most of netbooks and MIDs powered by its lower-voltage Atom processors. But, Intel now seems to be redirecting its efforts towards to mobile space. The Moblin demo showed obvious signs of its mobile phone aspirations – missed calls notifications, for example. And, with Moblin’s focus on social network aggregation, it’s clear that Intel has its sights set on the smartphone space.

The open-source Moblin OS is still in development, but from the looks of the live demo on the IDF09 keynote stage, Intel’s got a possible winner on its hands. The demo reveals some interesting factoids. Moblin apparently runs on touchscreen devices. It support mobile apps. And, best of all, Moblin can run multiple apps in the background – all organized by a slick multi-task manager!

With a little UI polishing and manufacturer support, Moblin could very well give Android OS and the heralded iPhone OS something to worry about.

[Via: TheInquirer]

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Along with release dates for other handsets in their Windows Mobile lineup, price points for the nüvifone G60, HTC Touch Pro2 (to be branded as the Tilt 2), and the Touch Diamond2 (branded Pure). The Tilt 2 will run you $299.99, $499.99 off contract; the Pure $149.99, $349.99 off contract; finally, the Garmin-asus nüvifone G60, of which we’ve heard little since its July launch in Asia, will be available for $299.99/$549.99. Release dates are still pretty hazy for most of them (except the The Tilt 2, which is probably rolling in on the 18th.), but late October is the best guess with the given info.

[via BGR]

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The Nokia N900 is Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s first Maemo-powered device to sport smartphone functionality. The N900 comes from the same lineage that gave birth to the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, but it transcends the “Internet Tablet” segment with true phone features – quad-band GSM/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) support, 5.0-megapixel camera and GPS (just to name a few). With the Linux-based Maemo platform offering a fresh, touch-friendly interface on the Nokia N900, it’s basically the hottest smartphone to come out of Espoo since S60 was put in play. And, according to the latest rumblings along the mobile grapevine, the N900 may just be coming Stateside on September 27th!

Nokia is already offering Americans the Nokia N900 on pre-order status for $649, so it’s bound to hit US shores in the near term. The Nokia Blog is reporting that US distributors will be taking delivery of the N900 on Sept 27. The distributor ship date is still an estimation from Nokia, but if it holds true, retailers may very well start offering the Nokia N900 shortly thereafter. That’s good news. The bad news? Nokia’s promised Nokia N86 NAM (North America) has yet to hit retail shelves.

Quick recap on the N900’s specs:

• ARM Cortex-A8 processor @ 600 MHz (Texas Instruments OMAP 3430)
• 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics; 800 × 480 resolution video recording
• 3.5 inch 800 × 480 resolution touch screen
• Up to 1GB of application memory (256 MB RAM and up to 768 MB of virtual memory) and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration
• 32 GB of storage built in, expandable to 48 GB via microSD
• 110.9 mm × 59.8 mm × 18 mm (19.55 mm at thickest part); 181 grams
• 10.2 Mbps HSPA (900/1700/2100 MHz), quadband GSM/EDGE, Bluetooth 2.1 and WLAN
• Browser powered by Mozilla technology, full Adobe Flash 9.4 support, the ability to copy and paste from the browser
• GPS

And, if that’s not enough to make you want an N900, check out this video:

[Via: TheNokiaBlog]

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What do we have here? A new Samsung handset packing an 8 megapixel camera and OLED screen running on LIMO? Apparently there’s no official name set, but I think 360 might be a fair bet. Rumour has it Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) will be launching a service called “Vodafone People” which will help you stay connected to various social networks and somehow work with location-based info. Apparently this has something to do with Vodafone’s acquisition of Zyb, so you’ll likely be able to backup contact info, restore from the cloud, and do all sorts of other neat stuff with the address book. Details are vague, but you can get a rough idea about what’s happening in the screenshots below. If you’re interested in hearing more, an announcement might be made on September 24th., so mark your calendars.

[via BGR]

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Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s just announced Nokia N900 has been getting some pretty solid reviews as of late. It’s single most intriguing feature is the Linux-based Maemo OS. With its touch-optimized user interface, Maemo OS promises to finally bring a powerful yet fun mobile platform to high-end Nokia smartphones. And, to keep the user experience as “cool” as possible, Nokia says that they will not allow carriers to customize the Maemo OS with carrier-branded apps and services.

Reuters reports that Nokia’s Symbian-based offerings have not fared well in the face of the iPhone OS and the Android OS – both of which offer compelling user experiences, finger-friendly interfaces and powerful features. Nokia allows carriers to do with their S40 and S60 devices whatever they wish. But, as Nokia’s David Rivas, vice president for devices R&D, puts it, Nokia is looking to throw Maemo into the same “game” that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) have playing. The name of the game is apparently “less customization, cooler user experience.”

It remains to be seen if Nokia can push the N900 to the same sales highs as the Nokia N95 or N97 without a carrier-customized operating system. Maemo will be reserved for the highest-end of Nokia’s product lineup, so there’s no doubt that determined consumers will be picking up the N900 unlocked and ready to play. Will carriers be willing to subsidize the N900 and its locked-down Maemo OS?

[Reuters via PhoneScoop]

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• John Martin, former Vice President of iPhone and Mac Internet Services at Apple, joining Nokia
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Just when we thought it’s dead, LiMo Foundation announced new member companies – Immersion Corporation and KDDI Corporation.

The first of the two companies develops advanced haptic technologies for mobile communications, consumer electronics, gaming, and manufacturing — making us think we may actually see a LiMo-powered touchscreen handset released at some point.

As for KDDI, it’s the second largest mobile operator in Japan. The country’s number 1 and number 3 operators, NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) and SoftBank (OTCPK: SFTBF), are also members of the Foundation, hinting us LiMo could be a big thing in the Land of the rising Sun. As a matter of fact, yesterday we reported that 9 LiMo handsets are coming to DoCoMo.

As for the rest of the world, it’s fair to say Android will be the name of the mobile Linux game, or at least me thinks so.

Related News from IntoMobile:

• LiMo Foundation: Orange and ACCESS are on board; All our devices are at Mobile World Congress
• LiMo Foundation picks up 11 new members
• LiMo Foundation announces widget support, carrier commitments, new version
• New members join LiMo Foundation
• LiMo Foundation and LiPS Forum combine to battle open-source competitors