Here is what I'm thinking about my Nokia N900 that I bought in late 2009. After a few month I think I can give some kind educated point of view about this device. Because when I just bought it, I was like a teen age fan boy: "I have a Linux phone!", "I'm one of the cool kids!", and I think I wasn't so


I'll start with a description on how I use my phone so you can

My Mobile phone usage :



  • I'm not a phone guy, I spend around 15 min a month on the phone.

  • I use Internet on my mobile for :

    • podcast

    • twitter

    • reading mail



  • GPS Navigation

  • Listen to music



My favorite Apps



  • gpodder: I love the http://my.gpodder.org service. Here are my subscriptions.

  • pannucci

  • witter a twitter client.

  • Conboy (a tomboy port). Too bad my ubuntu one account as a corrupted note in it preventing my to sync with it.

  • sygic GPS application.



Like :



  • plenty of storage (that's the killer feature in my point of view) having 32 Go internal and having the possibility to add more via µSD. I'm gonna miss that for sure.

  • It's a Linux machine, a real computer in my pocket.

  • The calendar and contact sync works very well with my google account.

  • Nice to use when overclocked from 600 to 800 MHz



Dislike :



  • battery life (my previous phone a Nokia e71 had a bigger battery)

  • Too few application support portrait mode.

  • slow (solved by overcloking)

  • Lots of package are not installable (like frozen-bubble2)

  • No java support (I do java as a day job so it would be nice to have it on my phone too, but Python is fine).

  • heavy (Could be useful, you can knock up an Apple Fan Boy within seconds, which is a killer feature by itself).



Conclusion :

If you have one you should really think about overclocking it.


Nokia screw up on many level. As an example, Sygic create a GPS application for maemo, they ask to be added to the nokia store and it took more than 2 month for the application to be approved.

Today if I had to buy a new phone I would go Android with no regrets (Nexus One or HTC incredible). I will probably in the next few month go buy a HTC EVO with the big screen if and when it become available in my third world country.

Using my tablet every day, I discover the need for an ebook reader, so I probably buy a tablet for reading and surfing at home in addition to my phone. I love technical books but they are so heavy and I'm so lazy... I would rather pay for the electronic version and have the information searchable and available all the time.

I'm eager to see what product is gonna come this year on Android or WebOS (it won't be a Microsoft or an Apple thing, they may put out an amazing device but I think I can safely say that won't happen).

I definitely think that this device can have a second life in a bathroom to listen to radio or podcast in the shower (and in the morning too ;) )