Sidingsound

Today (27th August 2009) witnessed the “soft launch” of the Nokia N900, the latest in the company’s line of “Internet tablet” devices powered by the Maemo (Linux) operating system. (The other devices before it were the N770, N800 and N810, in case anyone wondered.)

I’ve been keeping an eye on Nokia’s Maemo devices since they first began appearing a couple of years back, and although before now they’ve never quite packed enough features to warrant my serious attention (and have also been priced a bit out of my “pocket-money” range), the N900 looks as if it may be the first of the line to do so.

Judging by the pictures and videos which have emerged this week, the N900 may be a significant step forward in a number of areas:

• it is noticeably smaller than its forbears—closer in size and general style to Nokia’s N97 smartphone (though still a little larger);
• like the N97 (and for that matter, my N95), it packs a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, with the option to upload directly to Flickr; and
• most importantly: it is the first of Nokia’s Maemo devices to include built-in mobile phone and 3G data capabilities.

It is this last feature which has really grabbed my attention, as the N900 now has the potential to provide a true “one-stop” device—combining the features of a mobile phone and mobile computing device, as few if any Nokia devices have done before it. You may have noticed me returning to the “mobile computing” theme several times in the past, with my attempts to see if my Nokia N95 (paired with a Bluetooth keyboard) can perform the tasks which would normally require a laptop. The short answer to this is: yes, it can be done, but not always as elegantly as I might like (although the N95 comes closer to this than most devices).

So, providing that my mobile phone network ends up carrying the N900 (and I can upgrade for a price that won’t make my wallet weep), it could well be the handset which finally puts my trusty N95 out to pasture. At this stage, there’s little on the hardware front which I would quibble with (on the contrary: the specifications look very attractive), but I have compiled a list of ten queries regarding the Maemo software’s capabilities, which I would ideally like positive answers to before I would consider it seriously as an N95 replacement. (I could come up with a few more, but ten is a nice round number )

1. Is Skype available for Maemo, and is video-calling possible with it? (For that matter, will mobile networks in the UK allow Skype on the N900, or try and block/cripple it?)
2. Is there VoIP (Internet telephony) capability on the N900 (especially SIP)?
3. Does the device provide geotagging of photos? (There’s a GPS receiver in the N900, so I would be amazed if geotagging isn’t present.)
4. The N900 includes uploading facilities for Flickr, so is it possible to add Pixelpipe as a destination (as with Nokia Share Online on the N95)?
5. Are there any video-editing solutions for Maemo? (A video editor at the same level as the N95’s would be fine by me, but even a means for basic trimming of clips would be better than nothing.)
6. While we’re on the subject of video: any way to stream live video to Qik (as the N95 can)? (I rarely use Qik anyway, but it’s a “nice-to-have”.)
7. Is there a Maemo port (or equivalent) of Audacity, for audio recording and editing? (If so, the N900 could make an ideal “portable podcasting studio”.)
8. Aside from Nokia Maps, is there any mapping software (equivalent of Google Maps) for Maemo? (I would really miss Google Maps from my N95, so I hope there is a usable alternative on the N900.)
9. Will the BBC iPlayer work in some shape or form? (I presume the streaming Web version would, and that would be enough for me.)
10. Will the N900 work with Bluetooth keyboards? (Yes, I know the N900 has a keyboard built-in, and that would do for short texts, but I’d really rather use my Apple wireless keyboard for serious text entry. It works perfectly with my N95, and the N800 supports Bluetooth keyboards, so I’d hope this is retained in the N900.)

I suspect an hour or two on the Web may answer many of the above, and I’ll post some updates on this site in due course when I’ve found them. As I mentioned, some of these are “nice-to-haves”, whilst other features would be important enough to make me think again about the N900 if they were missing and/or unlikely to be added. (For instance, I would definitely want to use Skype on the device, and video-calling over and above this would be a definite plus.)

An alternative I have thought of, would be to try and find an end-of-line Linux ‘netbook’ (such as an Asus Eee 701 or a first-generation Acer Aspire One) at a “knockdown” price (say, around £99), and pair this with the N95 for 3G data, whilst using the N95 for the tasks above which the netbook isn’t capable of). Obviously, if one device can do all the above (or at least the “important” items) in one unit, that would be preferable to two, but the netbook-plus-N95 combo could have its merits too.

So, now to wait for Nokia World 2009, and then try and find out if/when the N900 is coming to my network…