I took some photos of the evaluation Nokia N900 that I received for a 3-month period and it was a typical Nokia retail package. I saw the unboxing video below over on Tracy and Matt’s Blog and think every Nokia geek should check it out. I wish I would have gotten one of these packages to check out and wonder if this will be a package purchase option. Watch the video and see if you are as impressed as I was by the cool unlock puzzle.

BTW, I just ordered my own Nokia N900 from Amazon (through Buy.com) since I saw the price drop to $559 one day after I saw it there for something like $630. The $50 Nokia rebate is valid until 31 December so my total is $509, plus tax. The rebate says you need to login to the Ovi Store, but that isn’t yet working on the N900 so I hope it isn’t a problem. The form just asks you to enter your Ovi Store user name so I should be fine since I have used the Ovi Store on other devices before too.

Hi folks, it’s Dieter from PreCentral.net, here looking for your help for the Smartphone Round Robin. That’s an N97 Mini in my hands right there and over the Round Robin weekend it looked pretty clear to me that S60 has improved a bit since I gave it my first real try with the Nokia E71.

Here’s my question: I still don’t think I ‘get’ S60. What do you think it is that I don’t ‘get’ about S60 that makes me feel like I’m always fumbling around? I guess I’m trying to figure out what the overall “usability metaphors” are for S60 these days.

I’d be willing to make the effort to try to become a ‘power user,’ except now I worry that I’d be doing all that for a platform that Nokia doesn’t really have their heart into anymore. I know Matthew has talked quite a bit about Nokia’s platform strategy going forward, but what do you think of it? Should I forget about learning S60 and jump right into Nokia’s Maemo implementation?

One of the applications I am looking for to make the N900 a more useful device for me personally is a Twitter application. I started out using the only one I could find, Mauku and it gives you some basic functionality. You can setup multiple accounts and view a limited number (not controllable) of Tweets. You can reply, reTweet, view your friends Tweets, and open hyperlinks. You cannot view mentions or DMs though and that is pretty vital for me.

I also experienced some corruption with my microfeed back end that houses the usernames and passwords and after a couple of N900 reflashes the issues were still there so I gave up on Mauku. I just found that the developer posted a very useful note on the Mauku site where you enter a command in X Terminal to wipe your backend database clean. I am not a Linux geek and know very little about using Terminal so I was a bit nervous, but the single line you enter was simply and worked like a charm to get me restarted with Mauku. As quoted from the Mauku site:

You can delete the backend database with X Terminal by entering the following command:

rm -R /home/user/.microfeed

In my quest to find a good Twitter application I came upon Ricky’s post regarding Witter on the N900 and have that loaded up. Witter gives you just about all the functionality you need with Twitter, but the UI is very basic and needs some work.

You can also use the web browser to access the full Twitter site (quite limited itself) or even better use the dabr.co.uk site.

I sincerely hope that Nokia is having the developer of Gravity create a Nokia N900/Maemo version of Gravity because this could be a killer application on that device.

What are you using for Twitter on your N900?

One of the reviewers whose opinion I trust and respect is my friend Lisa Gade. She just posted her Nokia N900 review and gives it 4 out of 5 stars with the cons being lack of portrait mode and rather short battery life. I have been using the eval unit more lately and can’t get over how well integrated communications is on the device (Skype, threaded SMS, IM status, etc.). I do agree though that battery life is a factor and I can’t go a full day with it running the things I want to run.

I have about a month left with the evaluation device and am leaning heavily towards purchasing one for myself in January. Lisa agrees with me that the N900 browser is the best on ANY smartphone and that is one major factor in pushing me to buy my own N900. While devices like the N97 frustrate me at times with low RAM, I have yet to find any hardware spec limiting me on the N900 and only have software frustrations. Software frustrations can be easily addressed with updates and new software.

As I have spent even more time now with the N900, these are the pieces of software I want to see:

• Gravity or other good Twitter app
• Google Maps or updated Ovi Maps client
• MMS support
• Office document creator

As you can see, I am not asking for much more to make this my primary device. An extended capacity battery would sure be nice too.

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I try to talk about Nokia during our mobile podcast when there is something going on and in MobileTechRoundup show #192 I was able to talk about Nokia’s 2010 plans and the recent Smartphone Round Robin event where I shared all about the N97 mini, N86 8MP, and N900. Kevin also has a Nokia N900 in hand and talked a bit about his experiences with the device.

Feel free to let me know if you have ideas to discuss on future MoTR podcasts and maybe we will start up a podcast here on Nokia Experts in 2010.

If you are trying to think of another reason to get the new Nokia N900 (my Guide should help), then just feast your eyes on the T-Mobile HSPA+ network testing that Kevin Tofel conducted a couple of days ago. Using the Nokia N900 he was able to experience 7.09 Mbps downloads and 1.15 Mbps uploads and the N900 didn’t melt in his hands. T-Mobile is rolling out their network upgrades and it looks to me like the 7.2 Mbps HSPA network is up in my area where I am regularly seeing something around 2 Mbps download speeds on the N900.

Combine these wireless data speeds with a device like the N900 that has a desktop class Mozilla-based browser and you can really have a killer mobile computing experience. I have been debating with myself about purchasing a N900 in January when I have to say goodbye to this evaluation unit, but it is things like this that confirm it will be mine. I just need to see some more app support, come on Gravity, and then there will be no hesitation.

You all know about my Nokia N900 Definitive Guide and the various posts I have made about this device. I am showing it off and letting all the other editors of the Smartphone Experts family of sites use the N900 this weekend and they keep saying things like, “You can’t bring a netback to a smartphone face off” and “What, that browser can handle that site?” so it is making quite an impression on the fellows. I see that Jay Montano has had a Nokia N900 now for a week and posted a great article on 22 things he loves and a few things he doesn’t that offers some great perspectives on the device.

Jay’s lists are extensive and SPOT ON! The Nokia N900 is definitely a powerhouse device, but I still don’t think it is for the typical phone user is good for the geek, power user.

And there we go, just a couple hours after I posted my thoughts on the future of Nokia they issued a press release laying out their key plan for 2010. Rafe and Steve are the most Nokia-knowledgable people I know and offer their insights into this announcement on All About Symbian.

I was pleased to read that we will see a milestone Symbian product before mid-year 2010 and another major product milestone before the end of 2010, along with the first Maemo 6 product before the end of 2010. Nokia seems to realize that the user interface is more important in many cases than the device’s functionality and capabilities (look at the iPhone compared to a high end Nseries device) and stated one of their targets as improving the user experience. IMHO, it really is not that bad at the moment and pressing the menu button takes you to displays that are just like an iPhone or Google Android icon-based launcher.

I am obviously a big fan of Nokia devices or I would not be writing for this site and in the spirit of Thanksgiving I wanted to write about the things that I appreciate about these devices and why I am thankful I have them in my life. I also wanted to say thank you to the awesome people at Nokia that I have worked with over the years, including Molly, Ray, Mark, Charley, and Joe. I am also blessed to call Rafe Blandford, from All About Symbian, my good friend and mentor. I have never met anyone as knowledgeable about the Symbian platform as Rafe and always enjoy hanging out and chatting with him. Dieter Bohn also deserves a big thank you for giving me the opportunity to create and run the Nokia Experts site. I have a passion for Nokia devices and am blessed to be able to share some of that with you all through Nokia Experts.

I had the Nokia N900 meetup a couple weeks ago and had 6 people show up to play with the device and chat about Nokia products. Since that time a few more review devices showed up and I have LOTS of cool devices in hand. I will be showing them off and giving people a chance to play with them next Tuesday, 24 November, from 7 to 9 pm on the Microsoft campus. I will have the following devices to show off:

• HTC HD2
• Samsung Behold II Google Android device
• T-Mobile BlackBerry Bold 9700
• HTC Hero GSM model
• Nokia N900
• Nokia N97 mini
• FC Sounders custom Zune Original Zune HD.

I also learned that my friend from many years ago, Dale Coffing, will be there show off some things.  The CEO of Pharos Science and Applications, James Oyang, will be showing some of the latest Pharos GPS gadgetry. It is going to be a great time with some awesome folks and the latest and greatest devices. Please respond on the Facebook event page so we can estimate how many will be there.