Two OMAP 3430 Phones: Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid
by Brian Klug on June 10, 2010 9:29 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- N900
- Maemo
- Motorola Droid
- Droid
- MeeGo
- Android
- Mobile
Ovi Maps
The N900 has A-GPS and Nokia's mapping application called Ovi Maps. At launch, the application immediately starts to acquire your location, though I'm unclear whether it supports a location service like Skyhook or Google's own database, it found me decently fast.
From here, you can search, or just pan around, and change from a maps view to terrain or satellite, and optionally include 3D landmarks. Nokia thankfully includes a night mode for increased contrast without killing night vision for when you're already dark-adapted at night.
You can search for a location, and after finding it get routing directions. There's also options for waypoints and customization preferences for routing via a bunch of route preferences, including - yes this is real - ferries.
Though it isn't turn by turn, you can optionally have the map track you and rotate based on direction (there's no compass), which does a fairly good job of guiding you between point A and point B - but it's no Google Navigation.
FM Radio, File Browser, Other Apps
One of the things I was most impressed by on the N900 was the FM radio stack, and just how completely this is implemented. Out of box, the N900 supports FM transmission for all audio - so you can listen to it on the speakers in your car, and FM tuning for use as a radio.
Go into settings, and you can toggle the FM transmitter on, and change the frequency with more granularity than I've ever seen on an aftermarket FM transmitter. You can choose between 88.1 and 107.9 MHz. While my car already has an aftermarket head unit with an auxiliary input and dock connector, this is hugely attractive for people who are using OEM units that only tune FM. I showed this to a friend of mine and compared with the FM transmitter he uses with a BlackBerry Bold - the quality was notably better from the N900, and the power more than adequate for a car. Enabling the FM transmitter makes it function as a virtual speaker of sorts - anything audio goes over the FM transmitter.
Though it isn't used in the OS by default, the N900 also has an FM receiver and tuner. Searching through the applications marketplace, I found an FM radio which even pulled down the FM station name over the Radio Data System (Radio Broadcast Data System in the US). Using the FM reciever requires headsets to be plugged in - which effectively function as the radio's antenna. The sound was as crisp and enjoyable as an FM radio should be.
The N900 ships with a bunch of requisite applications for any smartphone, including a clock, notes application, calculator, and calendar. I'm not going to go in very much depth here, but they do what they're supposed to do. Calendar is very attractive and supports the Exchange calendars or local calendar, and the rest of the applications I've taken screenshots of and are in the gallery.
There's also a full walkthrough of the N900's super comprehensive settings pages, and a bunch more screenshots in here:
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Fri13 - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
Symbian is server-client architectured operating system. Symbian has EKA2 microkernel + servers (modules). But Symbian is not at same time _just_ the operating system. It has other features (like libraries and so on) as well what does not belong to the actual OS.Fact is that Symbian really is open source.
But in other hand, the Android is not the operating system. It is a software system. The Linux is the operating system in the Android. Linux is monolithic kernel. Monolithic kernel is exactly same thing as operating system. It is the oldest (actually original) OS architecture. Server-client and layered architectures were developed almost few decades after the monolithic because there was demand to get OS architecture what is in theory more secure and more stable, but slower.
Symbian is licensed under EPL. While Linux OS is licensed under GPLv2 (only).
Both licenses are aproofed by the OSI and FSF. So both OS's are Libre software.
Android is software system what has multple different licensed software in it. The Linux OS in it is the GPLv2 (what can not be changed) and the distributor itself can use as well closed source software if the license allows. Usually this means that the software platforms or the softwares what are responsible for user interface can be with different license than F/OSS license.
By the facts, it is not true at all to say that "Android is not F/OSS operating system". Because a) Linux kernel is the operating system in Android. Android is just one distribution of the Linux. b) When talking about the operating systems and android, if wanted to be very wide speaking by terms, then Android is totally F/OSS.
numberoneoppa - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
Great article, Brian. I learned a lot. =)legoman666 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
I love my N900 :D I bought it last November, right when it was first released. I had a N810 at the time, so I was excited to get the next iteration. With PR1.2 and a modest overclock to 800mhz, it scores ~12000ms on the sunspider javascript benchmark, which is on par with the HTC Incredible and the Nexus 1.I didn't have to get t-mobile, as my local carrier, Cincinnati Bell, uses the same 3g frequencies as T-mobile. I get blazing fast speeds of 3mb/s.
As Brian said in the review, the Skype integration is excellent. It even tells you how much credit you have remaining and the call cost at the end of the call. (And I can make video calls over 3g, take that iPhone)
topsecret - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
You should test the N900 with it running meego.Talcite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Nokia doesn't plan to port meego to the N900.CityBlue - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Yes they do plan to port MeeGo to the N900 - in fact, the N900 is the primary development platform for MeeGo so not making it available in one form or another would be utterly ridiculous.What Nokia have said is that the version of MeeGo that will be made available for the N900 will not be officially supported, which basically means you can't go running to Nokia Care when you find a bug. Since I can't believe anyone does this even with a supported OS, the lack of Nokia Care is no great loss - you'll still have a very large and committed community to fall back on for help.
So in brief: Yes, MeeGo *IS* coming to the N900 - whether you install it or not is your choice.
jed22281 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Yup, exactly what cityblue said.Brian needs to clarify this in his article.
There'll be plenty of "unofficial" support for meego on n900
tbutler - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
...sorry, those airquotes have some very painful memories for those of us who lived through the 770 era. When 'unofficial' support meant a kludged-together hack.Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Thanks for the clarification CityBlue, I'll definitely update. I wrote some of this partially when support wasn't fully understood.-Brian
topsecret - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
"the Motorola Droid remains the flagship of Android phones that come with a hardware keyboard"I dunno, the samsung moment is a pretty nice phone.