So I just received an N900 in the post today, and one of the things I do like to do with new hardware, is to give it the ‘five-minute fiddle’.
For those of you that are not familiar, the aim of the five-minute fiddle is to spend a very short period getting first impressions of a given handset/service, and then write things up with a summary ‘gut feeling’ about it.
Unpacking
My N900 is a full retail model, and so I got a good feeling for the real end-user experience when opening up the packaging of this little bad boy. It’s an understated box, with a good amount of accessories included – and of course, the device itself. One thing I did ponder as missing was a case for the N900. Now I’m not suggesting some kind o’ freaky faux-leather belt-holster affair (that was SO 90s!), I am talking just about some kinda simple slip case, to protect the decent size screen – and the fact you are carrying a 500 GBP/Euro handset around with you!
Hardware form-factor
Although in my opinion Nokia has dropped the ball in a big way on software in recent years, their hardware design is usually (I say usually, to exclude things like the N96) pretty good – overall, I think the N900 has good hardware. It IS a chunky monkey, make no mistake, and it’s certainly not ‘sleek’ – much more blockish than I was expecting. However, it is clad in various types of black material – now given black is my favourite colour, this is no bad thing!
The Slide mechanism and keys are okay – keys possibly a touch small, but it’s going to take some time typing to find out if emails/texts can be knocked out with ease. For right now, it’s certainly all very satisfactory, and at a push I would say it’s ‘good’. One thing I really wasn’t sure about is the kickstand that surrounds the camera – it seems VERY flimsy indeed – to the point where I wouldn’t want to stand the handset up on it. That’s quite a surprise, since one of the good things (and there weren’t that many) with the N96 was it’s cheeky little kickstand!
The (touch)screen is well-lit, a decent size, and … er … resisitive – darn! I personally cannot stand resistive screens, because it’s difficult in my view to regulate your pressure when scrolling lists etc on screen – and this often means you end up accidentally selecting things – unfortunately it’s the same here, which is a such a shame – this device could potentially have been a killer with capacitive screen (maybe that’ll be the N901 or similar probably….!).
Software / UI
So this is really where it’s at with the N900 – does the UI/software cut the mustard? Well, with my five-minute play, I have to say I’m not convinced one way or the other. It did take me some time to orient myself with the Menus/UI, and try out some things which I thought would work on the device (notably one thing that didn’t work was two-finger pinch/squeeze for zoom in/out. Shame.
So apart from the time needed to get used to the UI, overall I think it’s reasonably clear – the four or so homescreens work out well, and to my mind borrow heavily from the iPhone – but they don’t animate between them as smoothly.
As regards programs that are installed, it would appear that Nokia has included web-links as ‘application icons’- and in fact you have to download apps once you have pressed the icon which is simply a link to a website. I can’t help but feel this is a weak approach for building out menus, and also the tedium of waiting for an App to download and install is not good.
Other Apps that work well are the standard ones you would expect – email, calendar, contacts, phone. There’s nothing revolutionary about these, they just do their job well.
Conclusion
I’ve yet to spend some serious quality time with the device – but my initial thoughts are that the hardware (excepting the resistive quality of the screen) is better than the software. Although I’m wary about judging too quickly, my gut feeling is that the software isn’t quite at the level you would expect as a power user of the device. Going forward, it may be that the OS is upgraded and bug-fixed, and that usage improves significantly. For now though, my rating would be somewhere between ‘average’ and ‘quite good’.