If you have been reading my Nokia N900 posts, then you may be wondering how I am getting all of these additional applications on the N900 since the Ovi Store is not yet open for business. If you have used one of the older Maemo Nseries Internet Tablets then you are familiar with using the Application Manager to access repositories. There are various repositories and I some are highly experimental where “normal” users probably shouldn’t be dwelling too much. It seems that Mark over at The Nokia Blog and I are on the same page and he already assembled a great post on Maemo repositories on the N900 so I won’t repeat all that he wrote here with my own post and recommend you head over there to see how to access repositories.

I was very pleased to see that Nokia has integrated an automatic notification system through the Application Manager so that you receive a yellow notification in the upper notification area when updates to applications you installed are present. You then tap the notification and walk through the update wizard to install the program update.

I have added all the repositories I can find with N900 applications and am currently testing out the following 3rd party applications:

• Almost TI Graphing Calculator
• AP News desktop widget
• Bounce Evolution game
• Classic Gaming Wallpapers
• DialCentral (Google Voice application)
• Documents To Go
• Facebook Widget and Photo Uploader
• FBReader
• FMRadio (enables the FM radio hardware installed in the N900)
• Foreca Weather
• gPodder podcatcher
• Hermes
• Maelstrom game (Asteroids clone)
• Maemo WordPy
• Mauku and Mauku widget
• Mplayer
• mSaber
• Password Safe
• Personal Photo Frame
• Pixelpipe
• Qik
• SolarWolf game
• Plugins (Windows Live for IM, Connection Switcher, Evernote Sharing, Load-applet, Simple Brightness applet)

I know a few of you may be sick of hearing about the Nokia N900, but it is the hottest Nokia device at the moment and I will be writing much more about it this week. I just watched a great video overview of the N900 at Wired and was pleased to see that they understand what the device really is and that is much more than a smartphone. Spend a couple minutes checking out the video and stay tuned for more tips & tricks of the N900.

I had previously pre-ordered a Nokia N900 at Amazon.com for $582.99, but my total went over $600 because I have to pay sales tax being that Amazon HQ is here in Washington State. That is a steep price, even for an early adopter like me. I then received the pre-production N900 I have been writing about and get to use it until January. I then canceled my Amazon order because I figured I would tire of the N900 by January anyways. However, after now have spent a couple of weeks with the N900 I think it is one of the best mobile devices I have ever used and it will only get better. Thus, I started looking for another place to buy my own device.

I have used Newegg quite a bit in the past and find them to be super fast at shipping and a real pleasure to buy from. I especially like that I can avoid sales tax, which is over 9% in Washington State. I found the Nokia N900 for $559.99 with free 3-day guaranteed delivery so I just finished pre-ordering the N900 again. The good thing about the delay in shipping is that we continue to see lower prices being offered.

UPDATE: As a reader pointed out, there is a special Newegg policy when it comes to unlocked mobile phones and there is no refund allowed, only exchanges or returns for defects. That said, unless you are sure you are going to really want and keep the N900 you may want to go with Amazon or Dell for no hassle returns.

I want to start this post by making sure you all understand that the Nokia N900 I am testing is a pre-production model and now that we have word the N900 is delayed as Nokia refines the software many things that I am having issues with may be resolved and not even present on shipping N900 devices. I imagine that one are where many optimizations will occur is in battery life and efficient resource management. Given this disclaimer, here are some initial battery life figures to consider.

I have not yet run a test of video or music playing constantly and will try to do so over the next week. I conducted this first battery test with real life usage, which is how I use my device. I had the following up and running when I started with a full charged battery:

• Maaku with two Twitter accounts being updated every 5 minutes
• Push email with Mail for Exchange
• IMAP email with 2 accounts updating every 15 minutes
• 45 minutes of active web surfing, Mauku usage, and general device navigation (on the train)
• Active and updating home screen widgets (AP News, Facebook, Mauku)
• Connected via T-Mobile 3G and EDGE with WiFi and Bluetooth turned off

One application I find works extremely well on the Nokia N97 is Qik. Qik is a streaming video application and service that started out on Nokia devices like the N95 and has moved onto some other select mobile devices. I admit I was pleasantly surprised to see it loaded by default on the pre-production Nokia N900 that I am testing out. There has already been an update pushed to the N900 (update notifications are slick) so I thought I would try it out a bit. I embedded two videos I shot with the N900 for you to check out. For some reason that second video was cut off in the end and I think I tapped the stop button a bit early.

I think it is cool how the small Nokia N900 automatically appears in the lower right corner of the Qik videos. I did nothing to toggle this on and Qik must be pulling this info from the video. I plan to try this out more over time, but am very pleased to see it supported out of the box on the Nokia N900.

I previously wrote about connecting your new Nokia N900 with your Windows PC using the Nokia PC Suite software. While waiting for my daughter’s soccer practice to finish and working in my car, I decided to try to figure out how to connect the N900 to my MacBook Pro instead of popping my SIM into my T-Mobile Touch Pro2. After remembering some connections from the good old days of tethering and a bit of trial and error, I figured it out and am cruising along at the same speeds I mentioned in my Windows PC article.

The steps actually turned out to be quite easy as you can see below:

1. Connect your Nokia N900 via USB cable to your Mac
2. Select Nokia PC Suite mode from the pop-up on your N900
3. Mac Network settings should appear; enter *99# as telephone number
4. Click on the Advanced button, and go to Modem tab
5. From the Model drop down, select GPRS (GSM/3G)
6. Enter epc.tmobile.com as the APN
7. Leave everything else as default and click on OK
8. Click on Connect to get connected

I also checked the “Show modem status in menu bar” since that gives you an easy way to manage the connection right from the upper menu bar.

You should now be off and running with your Mac and Nokia N900. You can probably do this same thing via Bluetooth, but the battery life will take a major hit and you should probably use it via USB so you can charge your N900 as you surf the Internet.

I have heard from a couple of sources that the N900 will not be coming in October as originally scheduled. Over on the Chronicles of N900 blog they posted the response you see below from Peter Schneider, Head of Maemo Marketing. The good thing is, it sounds like they may be tweaking and refining the software of the N900 in direct response to all of the feedback those of us with pre-production units have been providing. That said, I plan to keep up the N900 coverage here. Make sure to check out The Definitive Nokia N900 Guide page with all of my latest articles and links.

In reference to your questions on the expected shipment date of the Nokia N900, let me tell you the latest information from Nokia:

The Nokia N900 is a great example of what we and the open source community have been able to achieve with Maemo software. We are working closely with open source developers and for example, at the Maemo Summit in October, we loaned 300 pre-production units to get more feedback from the community. This feedback is extremely important to us and as such we also want to provide the best user experience with the Nokia N900.

We expect it to start shipping during November 2009.

Peter Schneider Head of Maemo Marketing Nokia Corporation

Readers here know I have been working like a madman on my N900 coverage as I really embrace the device and forsake all others in my collection with my T-Mobile SIM living in the N900. I have also heard from you that so many articles and my coverage can be a bit overwhelming. Well, I heard you and today created The Definitive Nokia N900 Guide page that collects all of my articles and videos, along with other favorite N900 and Maemo content as it is posted. This is a living guide and I will be updating it as I post new content here and see other reviews and sites come on line related to the Nokia N900. Enjoy folks and please let me know what else you want to see tried out on the N900.

I have posted several times about the N900 with some screenshots and video sprinkled throughout. I will soon have my definitive Nokia N900 consolidated guide page up and running, much like my E71x Starter Guide, so you will have one place to go to find my posts on the device. In the meantime, enjoy browsing through the screenshots of the device below and please feel free to ask me about any specific ones.