Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[pike]

Hi

 > It wouldn't hurt, though, if
> some truly (with some definition near FR's definition or better) open
> phone would come out by then.

has anyone looked at the geeksphone yet ?
http://forum.geeksphone.com/index.php/topic,891.0.html
I'm assuming all the hardware is 'open' ..

I know nothing about hardware. I'm willing
to pay 100euro extra for a developer who
delivers the brick with a working FSO-based
distribution on it. And documents how its done.
Who follows ? :-D

is it possible at all ?

0$c,
*-pike

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Rui Miguel Silva Seabra]

Em 07-07-2010 20:27, Brolin Empey escreveu:
> I know the N900’s kernel is relatively old (2.6.28.x) and the N900 is 
> less open than the FR, but this does not matter to me because it is an 
> acceptable compromise in order to have a far better experience with a 
> more powerful and current device.

Well, if you first remove the proprietary parts in order to get an
equivalently free device with the N900, *ONLY*THEN* will you be able to
make an intelectually honest good comparison.

Rui

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Gennady Kupava]

Guys, thanks for your detailed reviews.

Gennady.


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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Brolin Empey]

Brolin Empey wrote:
> I have been using Maemo 5 on my N900 for a few weeks now. So far, my
> N900 experience is *far* better than my FR experience.

That was true about my N900 experience until the end of August, when I 
accidentally dropped my N900 from my desk at home onto the carpeted 
floor while the USB cable was connected. :(  I had just gotten out of 
bed and was still sleepy (yes, I still have my computer desk in my 
bedroom even though I have an entire 1-bedroom apartment to myself and 
consequently no longer have to have my computer desk in my bedroom, like 
when I still lived with my family.), but I foolishly decided to pick up 
my N900 from my desk because the notification light (which is apparently 
copied from the BlackBerry?) was flashing blue to notify me of a new 
message.  My N900 would have been fine if the USB cable was not 
connected when I dropped it, but I think my N900 landed on the microUSB 
plug because one side of the microUSB socket got pushed in (away from 
the edge of the motherboard).  The USB connection still worked but it 
was intermittent because the physical connection was loose.  I 
disassembled my N900, which is easier than disassembling my FR because 
only 2 screwdrivers (Philips #0 + T6) + fingers are required for the 
N900, and discovered the microUSB socket is only surface-mounted, not 
through-hole mounted, on the motherboard.  The microUSB socket is also 
very close to other parts on the motherboard, which makes replacing the 
microUSB socket difficult.  I bought my N900 from NewEgg.ca because I 
live in Canada and did not want to import from the USA.  Nokia has not 
released the N900 in Canada so I could not buy from Nokia Canada nor any 
carrier in Canada.  I contacted NewEgg.ca but they told me to contact 
Nokia because my return period with NewEgg.ca had ended.  My N900 was 
still covered by Nokia USA’s warranty, so I tried using the warranty 
repair form on the NokiaUSA.com Web site, but I could not use it because 
it would only return a blank page.  I called Nokia Canada’s customer 
service, only to discover Nokia’s customer service for both Canada + USA 
is in the Philippines.  I do not think English is Nokia’s customer 
service people there’s first language because I am never certain if they 
actually understand me or are simply acknowledging me.  I gave up trying 
to express some things to them because we ended up going in circles and 
they seemed to be working from a script.  Anyway, my N900 is covered by 
Nokia USA’s warranty but this warranty is for the USA only:  it is not 
international, not even for Canada.  Nokia USA will provide a UPS return 
mailing label for me to mail my N900 to their repair centre (/not/ 
center!) in Huntsville, Alabama (Sweet Phone Alabama? ;)), but I have to 
mail my N900 from a The UPS Store or Mail Boxes Etc. location which is 
in the USA and offers the Corporate Retail Services used by Nokia.  I 
asked if I could mail my N900 from Canada if I paid for shipping because 
there is a The UPS Store location near my home, but was told Nokia USA 
will not accept devices mailed from outside of the USA because Nokia 
does not want to be responsible for devices lost during international 
shipping.  Nokia Canada’s repair centre in Newmarket, Ontario apparently 
will not accept my N900 for warranty repair because it lacks a Canadian 
warranty.  I called them and left a voice message because they had 
already closed for the day, but I never heard back from them.  I 
considered mailing it to them anyway and paying for the repair myself, 
but I decided not to because their policy is to hard-reset (reset to 
factory defaults) the customer’s device before attempting repairs.  I 
realise this may solve many problems caused by software, but my problem 
is with hardware only.  I think it is insane to require hard-resetting a 
general-purpose mobile Linux (proper Debian-based Linux, not 
non-standard Android.) computer because it is so much hassle to manually 
back up and restore everything.  I later discovered Nokia Ovi Suite for 
Windows can back up (appears to work) and restore (not yet tested, so I 
hope it works!) an N900 running Maemo 5 via USB or Bluetooth, but that 
was after I already spent at least 7 hours at work on a Saturday to 
manually back up my N900’s 3 volumes on fixed flash memory:  I used GNU 
tar to archive each of the 3 volumes on fixed flash memory to tarballs 
on a microSDHC card.  It took so long because it is many steps, I kept 
getting sidetracked by both hardware and software, including by reading 
program documentation.  My dad helped me hotwire my N900 with a variable 
DC power supply at work because my battery had discharged and I did not 
have a charger for the N900’s Nokia BL-5J battery.  I have since ordered 
a BL-5J charger on eBay, though.  Photo of my hotwired N900:



Unlike Nokia USA, Nokia Canada’s repair centre probably does not have 
spare N900s f

Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Alexander Lehner]

On Tue, 14 Sep 2010, Brolin Empey wrote:

> [some lines deleted...]
> Anyway, I probably forgot to mention something important, but I have
> already spent probably close to 2 hours writing this message.

And me another 2 reading it -
When I broke the USB connector of my FR, I failed to solder it correctly 
(I have no experience in SMD soldering and I think it's probably also 
because of the lead-free solder?).
So I simply bought me another FR. I like the low price of that device. It 
makes you feel more tempted to play with it and not treat it like jewels, 
as one would do it with a 600+$ device (except of you, of course ;)
And it would not bring me to the idea to spend hours and days to get it 
repaired.

A.


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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Patryk Benderz]

Dnia 2010-09-14, wto o godzinie 15:12 -0700, Brolin Empey pisze:
> Brolin Empey wrote:
> > I have been using Maemo 5 on my N900 for a few weeks now. So far, my
> > N900 experience is *far* better than my FR experience.
> 
> That was true about my N900 experience until the end of August,
[cut]
Hi Brolin,
how about asking those questions on N900 Support mailing list?
-- 
Patryk "LeadMan" Benderz
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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[W. B. Kranendonk]

--- On Wed, 9/15/10, Brolin Empey  wrote:
> (...) probably close to 2 hours writing this message.

I do not want to feed the trolls nor intend to hijack this thread, but I seem 
to have missed the mention of a Freerunner?

Besides that, I can recognize you put a lot of effort into writing the essay. I 
can't remember another message to this list that comes close to half the 
character count of yours ;-)

Good luck with your Freerunner!

Boudewijn


  

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Sebastian Krzyszkowiak]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 20:11, W. B. Kranendonk  wrote:
> --- On Wed, 9/15/10, Brolin Empey  wrote:
>> (...) probably close to 2 hours writing this message.
>
> I do not want to feed the trolls nor intend to hijack this thread, but I seem 
> to have missed the mention of a Freerunner?
>
> Besides that, I can recognize you put a lot of effort into writing the essay. 
> I can't remember another message to this list that comes close to half the 
> character count of yours ;-)
>
> Good luck with your Freerunner!
>
> Boudewijn

When it comes to N900 maybe worth mentioning here is fact, that SHR is
now being ported to this device :)

-- 
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak
dos

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[jeremy jozwik]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Sebastian Krzyszkowiak
 wrote:
> When it comes to N900 maybe worth mentioning here is fact, that SHR is
> now being ported to this device :)

so it will stop working?

he he.

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Patryk Benderz]

[cut]
> so it will stop working?
> he he.
nice ;)
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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Rui Miguel Silva Seabra]

Em 16-09-2010 09:30, Patryk Benderz escreveu:
> [cut]
>> so it will stop working?
>> he he.
> nice ;)

Not nice nor fair, where are your lines of code in help of SHR?

I'm not a core developer, but at least I'm making a (sort of) kickass 
StatusNet client :)

Rui

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[jeremy jozwik]

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra  wrote:
> Not nice nor fair, where are your lines of code in help of SHR?

oh relax...

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience

[Tim Abell]

Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:

Em 16-09-2010 09:30, Patryk Benderz escreveu:
  

[cut]


so it will stop working?
he he.
  

nice ;)



Not nice nor fair, where are your lines of code in help of SHR?

I'm not a core developer, but at least I'm making a (sort of) kickass 
StatusNet client :)


Rui

  
I contributed to the wiki, and wrote a pointless app, and I thought it 
was funny. :-)


Though people who try to phone/text me just think I'm crazy.
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My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Brolin Empey]

Brolin Empey wrote:
> Anyway, I finally ordered a Nokia N900 from NewEgg.ca on Sunday. I
> expect the N900 to be more usable as a handset than my FR. Nokia
> released the N900 without USB Host support to meet deadlines because
> they could not have it certified for USB Host without fully working USB
> Host at the time of certification, but on Sunday I learned it is still
> possible for the N900 to use USB Host: there is a community project to
> make USB Host usage easy for end users. To be practical, I probably do
> not need USB Host on my N900 because it has a hardware keyboard and the
> Wireless LAN probably works easily, unlike my poor and frustrating
> experience trying to use Wireless LANs with QtMoko. However, lack of USB
> Host was one of the reasons I did not order an N900 months ago because
> the FR has USB Host. After I receive my N900, I will follow up to let
> this list know if my N900 experience is better than my FR experience.

I have been using Maemo 5 on my N900 for a few weeks now.  So far, my 
N900 experience is *far* better than my FR experience.

Unlike QtMoko, SMS works reliably on my N900.  Maemo 5 also has 
conversation view for SMS, which is far more usable than QtMoko, which 
displays only one message at a time.

Unlike my FR, my N900 is actually a usable handset, even with background 
noise.  I can even talk on my N900 on a public street while being passed 
by motor vehicles and pedestrians talking.  Two people have mentioned 
how much clearer I sound on my N900 than with QtMoko.

As I expected, I can live without USB Host on my N900 because of the 
hardware keyboard and working Wireless LAN.

My N900 works well with our access point at work, which runs DD-WRT on a 
Linksys WRT54GL v1.1.

My N900’s Wireless LAN connection was unreliable with my access point at 
home, which is a crappy Siemens Gigaset SE567 wireless ADSL gateway 
provided by Telus, my ADSL provider.  I wanted to replace the Gigaset 
SE567, which is owned by Telus, with a separate single-purpose ADSL 
modem + gateway running DD-WRT anyway because the Gigaset SE567 does not 
support WPA2 and traceroute does not work through it.  I was going to 
buy another WRT54GL to install DD-WRT on because I knew this combination 
worked well at work and I was already familiar with it, but I researched 
current gateways and ended up buying an Asus RT-N16.  My N900 works well 
with DD-WRT on my Asus RT-N16 at home.  I have not even configured USB 
networking on my N900 because the instructions on the Maemo wiki looked 
like too much hassle and I do not need a wired connection because I have 
a reliable wireless LAN connection at both home and work.

I know the N900’s kernel is relatively old (2.6.28.x) and the N900 is 
less open than the FR, but this does not matter to me because it is an 
acceptable compromise in order to have a far better experience with a 
more powerful and current device.

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Timo Jyrinki]

2010/7/7 Brolin Empey :
> I know the N900’s kernel is relatively old (2.6.28.x) and the N900 is
> less open than the FR, but this does not matter to me because it is an
> acceptable compromise in order to have a far better experience with a
> more powerful and current device.

Sure, a finished product from world's biggest phone manufacturer no
doubt works better (even if also their first Linux phone). And I also
recommend N900 to anyone. FreeRunner is the no-compromise way for
freedom enthusiasts like me, or people liking to hack otherwise but
have some actual spare phone for basic phone usage (because the phone
part is one of the most difficult aspects to get working trustworthily
if using a heavily hackable and changing distribution like Debian).

I'm myself also quite happy with my FR (running Debian) overall, given
that I have a separate 3G modem for computer use, but with FR you know
you always need to do some hacking :) Well, maybe not much with QtMoko
but I've heard it specifically has had some SMS problems. The other
distributions need tweaking for sure, even SHR. Then if you have one
working setup and don't touch it, you can safely use it for months
trouble-free, but it's not always apparent what versions of the FSO
stack for example are good for daily use.

FreeRunner is a bit like an old (classic) car - you know it will need
great care, you know it's not the fastest four-wheel on the block, but
damn it's elegant when you've yourself made it go so smoothly and know
how beautiful it is inside :)

-Timo

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Petr Vanek]

On Wed, 7 Jul 2010 22:45:05 +0300
Timo Jyrinki  (TJ) wrote:

>FreeRunner is a bit like an old (classic) car - you know it will need
>great care, you know it's not the fastest four-wheel on the block, but
>damn it's elegant when you've yourself made it go so smoothly and know
>how beautiful it is inside :)

agree.

interestingly enough, the ex-FR -> N900 user did not mention or compare
speed of the two devices even once. so although speed is important
(eagerly awaiting latest glamo development to be fine tuned) this
tells us something too...

cheers

petr


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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Michal Brzozowski]

2010/7/7 Brolin Empey :
> I know the N900’s kernel is relatively old (2.6.28.x) and the N900 is
> less open than the FR, but this does not matter to me because it is an
> acceptable compromise in order to have a far better experience with a
> more powerful and current device.

Thanks for your review, I'm glad you've had good experience.

>From what you've written though, it seems you use your N900/ FR for:
- SMS
- voice calls
- Wireless LAN connection

I'm sure just about any phone is better than the FR in your case.

I'd like to hear how the N900 compares to the FR in hackability. Like
replacing pieces of software, like keyboard, window manager, etc. I
wasn't able to find much information about this. It seems there is
only one distribution that fully works on the N900, which is quite
worrying.

Michal

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Sebastian Reichel]

On Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 10:05:25PM +0200, Petr Vanek wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Jul 2010 22:45:05 +0300
> Timo Jyrinki  (TJ) wrote:
> 
> >FreeRunner is a bit like an old (classic) car - you know it will need
> >great care, you know it's not the fastest four-wheel on the block, but
> >damn it's elegant when you've yourself made it go so smoothly and know
> >how beautiful it is inside :)
> 
> agree.
> 
> interestingly enough, the ex-FR -> N900 user did not mention or compare
> speed of the two devices even once. so although speed is important
> (eagerly awaiting latest glamo development to be fine tuned) this
> tells us something too...
> 
> cheers
> 
> petr

Hi,

I have N900 and Freerunner, too. I have to say, that I'm mostly using
the N900, too. My reasons are:

 * Hardware keyboard
 * 3.5G modem
 * communication software is quite nice :)

As you can see I'm mostly using it for instant messaging and not
for SMS/Phone/... On the other hand I was able to find bugs in
most components of Maemo - the level of stability is not that
much higher than Freerunner + Debian.

I can also give a fair speed comparision, since I installed Debian
on both devices on µSD cards. In short: N900 hardware is twice as
fast than the Freerunner.

-- Sebastian


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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Sebastian Reichel]

On Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 10:12:31PM +0200, Michal Brzozowski wrote:
> 2010/7/7 Brolin Empey :
> > I know the N900’s kernel is relatively old (2.6.28.x) and the N900 is
> > less open than the FR, but this does not matter to me because it is an
> > acceptable compromise in order to have a far better experience with a
> > more powerful and current device.
> 
> Thanks for your review, I'm glad you've had good experience.
> 
> >From what you've written though, it seems you use your N900/ FR for:
> - SMS
> - voice calls
> - Wireless LAN connection
> 
> I'm sure just about any phone is better than the FR in your case.
> 
> I'd like to hear how the N900 compares to the FR in hackability. Like
> replacing pieces of software, like keyboard, window manager, etc. I
> wasn't able to find much information about this. It seems there is
> only one distribution that fully works on the N900, which is quite
> worrying.

You may be interested in this:
https://elektranox.org/website/debian_on_n900.html

-- Sebastian


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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[arne anka]

> I'd like to hear how the N900 compares to the FR in hackability. Like
> replacing pieces of software, like keyboard, window manager, etc. I
> wasn't able to find much information about this. It seems there is
> only one distribution that fully works on the N900, which is quite
> worrying.

hackability is fair to middling.
there are open packages, there are closed packages and there are 3d party  
packages.
documentation of hardware is incomplete and not sufficient to make a full  
working dist5ribution w/o closed parts from nokia.

for reasons unbeknownst to man, nokia has chosen to use some kind of  
debian, but not debian. making small changes, the made maemo incompatible  
to debian, thus cutting maemo users off from the plethora of already  
existing and working packages for the hw platform, limiting the available  
software to the packages nokia offers and those volunteers port from  
debian.
since not even the package names follow the same rules and, what's more,  
apparently similar packages are, in fact, quite different since nokia  
patched the sources, it is a sysiphean task to port packages to maemo. and  
i am afraid things won't change for the ebtter with meego which uses some  
kind of redhat/fedora, but not redhat/fedora.

package creation and dependency resolution is done with an attitude  
bordering on incompetence. for example: one one hand every language  
supported is separated into a single *-l10n-* package and for all those  
*l10n-* package there's a meta package. but instead of using recoomends  
and provides, the "meta" package depends on _all_ *-l10n-* packages and  
the top most package (the dependency graph has exactly one top node!)
depends on those "meta" packages. separating packages is thus completely  
pointless. together with the weird layout of storage space (256mb "rootfs"  
which gets filled up pretty fast), this idea of dependency handling is  
plain stupid and you are stuck with a bunch of packages you don't need but  
can't uninstall (the normal way) or remove forcibly b/c it is not clear  
what will happen the next time you run an update ... the included "app  
manager" is a bad joke and you'r better off using xterm and apt-get.

despite the claim of delivering not only a smartphone but a pocket size  
computer, you are left with crappy and crippled busybox instead of a fully  
functional gnui environment.

error management is poor, usually you get useless messages of the kind  
"something went wrong" and are left to your imagination to figure out what  
you should do about that.

keyboard is h/w, layout is not the best in twon, which is confusing since  
nokia provided far more intelligenbt keyboard layouts with other phones.
on screen keyboard is not much better, imo it has become even worse with  
pr1.2. i don't see an easy way to change the layout of the vkb, which is  
perfectly in style with the very limited ways of customization available  
(you can't even change the font sizes!).

window manager is a matchbox derivate, customization is little (see above)  
and even minor requirements like battery charge level are not available  
except a very rough icon.

the sole and only distribution available (so far) is maemo.
considering the long history of maemo and the version number (5), it is  
crap.

nokia's communication about future plans and development are hardly worth  
mentioning. there's still no reliable information whether meego will be  
officially supported.

there are a few attempts to make debian working on it, either by using  
plain debian and reimplementing closed parts (dead, iirc) or by using  
plain debian and repacking maemo specific packages, not sure how that will  
work with closed source packages ...


if all you are looking for is the feeling of using a somewhat open linux  
phone with a nice and polished gui, the n900 with maemo is perfect for you.
in terms of finish and reliabilty it easily outclasses the fr.

in terms of freedom (not only philiosphically but plain practical freedom  
of choice of packages or wm), the fr is far far better, and judging from  
nokia's past attitude it's not very likely it will become much better. the  
best hope is for either a debian using nokia's closed source packages for  
crucial functioanlity or a port of eg fso-

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Michal Brzozowski]

2010/7/7 Sebastian Reichel :
> You may be interested in this:
> https://elektranox.org/website/debian_on_n900.html

Cool!

What we need now is "just" FSO on the n900 :-)

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Timo Jyrinki]

2010/7/7 Sebastian Reichel :
> https://elektranox.org/website/debian_on_n900.html

Thanks for your great work with Debian on N900. I do look forward to
2011 or 2012 to eventually do a switch from FreeRunner, and N900 is
one (and currently best) possibility. It wouldn't hurt, though, if
some truly (with some definition near FR's definition or better) open
phone would come out by then.

I know I _could_ make the switch the day the N900 ofono driver is
ported to FSO or GUIs for ofono would be made (and the modem driver
would be stable in the first place, which might take time), but my
main line of thought is that now that I have a working phone running
Debian, I'm not that eager to switch just for the sake of it or just
for speed, especially if it means sacrificing a few freedoms. Maybe if
something new in the spirit of Openmoko would arise... like the
leviathan's prospect that he mentioned on the gta02-core mailing list
last month. Let's hope for the best, and meanwhile freeing
not-completely-free-but-near phones is the next best thing to do.

-Timo

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Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Nicola Mfb]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Michal Brzozowski  wrote:

[...]

> I'd like to hear how the N900 compares to the FR in hackability. Like
> replacing pieces of software, like keyboard, window manager, etc. I
> wasn't able to find much information about this. It seems there is
> only one distribution that fully works on the N900, which is quite
> worrying.

Hi Michal,

I have an n900 too since last November, here my (hoping agnostic) review:

Hardware:

Great, overclockable to 1Ghz (seems without problems), battery life of
several days *without* suspend, 3d accelerated graphics, 32 GB eMMC (+
slot for SD expansion), 256 MB flash, 256 MB ram, nice screen
resolution of 800x480, good TS (even with finger only), FM receiver
and *transmitter*, proximity sensor, IR transmitter, accelerometer,
5Mb zeiss rear camera, front camera, *superb* audio quality and "3.5G"
module, wifi, bt, video output, stereo speaker, etc.

End User Experience:

Not comparable to the freerunner one. Maemo has a lot of defects but
using it you feel immediately it has a common layout, defined api and
gui guidelines. This may appear as a limit, but from the End User
experience is very nice!
All apps (nokia, community or thirdy part) follow this principles, are
integrated with the DE and with the middleware quite nice.

The phone application is based on telepathy, so due to its
multiprotocol nature supports gsm voice calls, skype, voip, and so on.
The same for sms and chat integrated in the "conversation" app. There
are a lot of plugins (google, msn, etc.) to extend it.

The DE has a nice 4 pages home, you switch by dragging them, on every
page you may add shortcuts to applications, contacts (that shows the
picture and the IM online status, so it's easy and natural using a
skype/voip call instead of gsm one and save money!), web bookmarks and
widgets that make the user able to highly customize the desktop.
Finally there are pluggable "status" area and power button menu.
Task switching is performed with a very nice composite dashboard where
you see thumbnails of current running apps (that are updated in
realtime).
All that is full finger friendly and there is a stylo inside the n900
when you need, (actually I use it only for precise web browsing
without the need of zooming in/out).
The virtual keyboard is full integrated with customized input methods
of gtk and qt (I do not know about other toolkits), so when you tap on
a text field you'll have a qwerty (not transparent) portrait keyboard
showing the current editing text.
If you open/close the HW keyboard the virtual one will hide/show.

As you may guess peoples does not feel the necessity to change the WM
or the VK because you loose the high number of pluggable widgets in
the home, the status area and the toolkit interaction with the
keyboard.

The package management system is apt, there is an integrated GUI that
will show only a specific section of the available apps, so the end
user will see only good sense applications with descriptions and icons
(of course the power user may use xterm or ssh to see the full
contents of the repositories). The status area will signal with a
blinking square where an update is available, so you may be uptodate
with a couple of finger taps.

The network manager works very well and handles wifi and 3g connections.

Just a concrete user experience (a my tipical day):

I have a voip public telephony (like skypein) account (eutelia) and
skype configured, a 5euro/month 3GB umts data option on my sim, wifi
networking at home and at work, google contacts synchronization and 3
email account configured. My network manager is configured to "always
on".

The alarm wakes up me every morning (and works reliably), then I put
the device online, automagically it connects to my home wifi network,
signs up to skype and eutelia, check for emails, does the first sync
with google, updates the weather and the rss and the "personal ip
address" widgets on the desktop.

When going to work, as my home wifi is not more reachable the n900
automagically start a 3g connection. I may check the sent/received
statistics with another widgets that updates informations in real time
on the desktop to be sure I'm not reaching the 3G/month limit, and
anyway in the settings manager I may set to be advised every time x MB
of traffic was generated.

While using my car I start the mediaplayer and  the FM transmitter
(with another desktop widget), put the device near the car stereo and
listen for some music or use sygic voice assisted gps navigation where
going to unknown places.

When I arrive in the office it automagically stops it and connects to
work wifi and so on until I put it offline in the night.

Every x minutes it continues to update widgets, and signal incoming
email, IM messages, alarms, phone calls (of course ;)) and so on.

Every with this intensive usage my battery may survive to more then a
day, note that it never suspends, and this is a big feature as I can
always open an ssh connecti

Re: My N900 experience compared to my FR experience (was: Re: [QtMoko] handset is (almost) unusable for voice calls with background noise)

[Sylvain Paré]

Thanks a lot for your ffedback!
hey and waht about Noko? :)
CU
Sylvain (aka GarthPS)

2010/7/8 Nicola Mfb 

> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Michal Brzozowski 
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > I'd like to hear how the N900 compares to the FR in hackability. Like
> > replacing pieces of software, like keyboard, window manager, etc. I
> > wasn't able to find much information about this. It seems there is
> > only one distribution that fully works on the N900, which is quite
> > worrying.
>
> Hi Michal,
>
> I have an n900 too since last November, here my (hoping agnostic) review:
>
> Hardware:
>
> Great, overclockable to 1Ghz (seems without problems), battery life of
> several days *without* suspend, 3d accelerated graphics, 32 GB eMMC (+
> slot for SD expansion), 256 MB flash, 256 MB ram, nice screen
> resolution of 800x480, good TS (even with finger only), FM receiver
> and *transmitter*, proximity sensor, IR transmitter, accelerometer,
> 5Mb zeiss rear camera, front camera, *superb* audio quality and "3.5G"
> module, wifi, bt, video output, stereo speaker, etc.
>
> End User Experience:
>
> Not comparable to the freerunner one. Maemo has a lot of defects but
> using it you feel immediately it has a common layout, defined api and
> gui guidelines. This may appear as a limit, but from the End User
> experience is very nice!
> All apps (nokia, community or thirdy part) follow this principles, are
> integrated with the DE and with the middleware quite nice.
>
> The phone application is based on telepathy, so due to its
> multiprotocol nature supports gsm voice calls, skype, voip, and so on.
> The same for sms and chat integrated in the "conversation" app. There
> are a lot of plugins (google, msn, etc.) to extend it.
>
> The DE has a nice 4 pages home, you switch by dragging them, on every
> page you may add shortcuts to applications, contacts (that shows the
> picture and the IM online status, so it's easy and natural using a
> skype/voip call instead of gsm one and save money!), web bookmarks and
> widgets that make the user able to highly customize the desktop.
> Finally there are pluggable "status" area and power button menu.
> Task switching is performed with a very nice composite dashboard where
> you see thumbnails of current running apps (that are updated in
> realtime).
> All that is full finger friendly and there is a stylo inside the n900
> when you need, (actually I use it only for precise web browsing
> without the need of zooming in/out).
> The virtual keyboard is full integrated with customized input methods
> of gtk and qt (I do not know about other toolkits), so when you tap on
> a text field you'll have a qwerty (not transparent) portrait keyboard
> showing the current editing text.
> If you open/close the HW keyboard the virtual one will hide/show.
>
> As you may guess peoples does not feel the necessity to change the WM
> or the VK because you loose the high number of pluggable widgets in
> the home, the status area and the toolkit interaction with the
> keyboard.
>
> The package management system is apt, there is an integrated GUI that
> will show only a specific section of the available apps, so the end
> user will see only good sense applications with descriptions and icons
> (of course the power user may use xterm or ssh to see the full
> contents of the repositories). The status area will signal with a
> blinking square where an update is available, so you may be uptodate
> with a couple of finger taps.
>
> The network manager works very well and handles wifi and 3g connections.
>
> Just a concrete user experience (a my tipical day):
>
> I have a voip public telephony (like skypein) account (eutelia) and
> skype configured, a 5euro/month 3GB umts data option on my sim, wifi
> networking at home and at work, google contacts synchronization and 3
> email account configured. My network manager is configured to "always
> on".
>
> The alarm wakes up me every morning (and works reliably), then I put
> the device online, automagically it connects to my home wifi network,
> signs up to skype and eutelia, check for emails, does the first sync
> with google, updates the weather and the rss and the "personal ip
> address" widgets on the desktop.
>
> When going to work, as my home wifi is not more reachable the n900
> automagically start a 3g connection. I may check the sent/received
> statistics with another widgets that updates informations in real time
> on the desktop to be sure I'm not reaching the 3G/month limit, and
> anyway in the settings manager I may set to be advised every time x MB
> of traffic was generated.
>
> While using my car I start the mediaplayer and  the FM transmitter
> (with another desktop widget), put the device near the car stereo and
> listen for some music or use sygic voice assisted gps navigation where
> going to unknown places.
>
> When I arrive in the office it automagically stops it and connects to
> work wifi and so on until I put it offline in the night.
>
> Every x m