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:

Maemo: SMS and Email Camera Comparison
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  • tarunactivity - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    a notable omission:

    The FM receiver on the N900 requires Bluetooth to be switched on. So if you want FM, you need to plugin your earphones + enable bluetooth.

    Kind of counter productive , if you ask me,and surely a waste of power.
  • Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

    Ahh, you're totally right. I think I glossed over that because I already had Bluetooth on, but it makes sense now since the FM radio is on that same piece of silicon.

    I wonder how much of a difference it makes on battery - had it disabled for those other tests of course.

    -Brian Klug
  • asdasd246246 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    I'm sure the Nokia has sweet hardware, but it's still all plastic..
    Plastic screen that will scratch the first 10 minutes you own it, and a friend has a similar model without a keyboard, and the plasticness is so horrible I shudder.. -_-
  • legoman666 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    I've had the N900 since last November. No screen protector, no case. Not 1 scratch. So speak for yourself, maybe you ought to put your phone in a separate pocket as your keys.
  • legoman666 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    back: http://imgur.com/tf6RE.jpg

    front: http://imgur.com/XDsyI.jpg
  • akse - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

    The case is somewhat plastic yeah.. but it hasn't really bothered me so much. I have only a few tiny tiny scratches on the screen, you can only spot them by mirroring a clean screen against bright light.

    At the back I have a few bigger scratches because the phone fell on concrete..
  • Calin - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

    I have a 1200-series Nokia phone, which I keep in the same pocket as the keys, and the display is in a serviceable condition after more than two years of abuse
  • arnavvdesai - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link

    Actually, the Symbian OS- Nokia's No.1 Smartphone OS is more open with entire OS(including the core APIs) being Open Source. Symbian is more open than Android.
  • Talcite - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

    That's only true for symbian^3 and newer OSes. Only the Nokia N8 is currently shipping S^3 I believe.

    You should also mention that the Maemo 5 OS has many binary packages to get all the cellular hardware and PowerVR GPU working.

    Anyways, it definitely has more support for the FOSS community than android though as far as I know. You're free to flash your own ROMs without needing to root it and you don't need to do weird stuff with java VMs. Just a simple recompile for ARM and support for Qt I think.
  • teohhanhui - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link

    Nokia N8 is still far from "currently shipping"...

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