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
Maemo's App Store
Nokia offers a simple application marketplace called the Ovi Store. In practice, this isn't anywhere near fleshed out like it should be, as launching the Ovi Store fires up the browser and takes you to the Ovi Store in the N900's browser. What's much more compelling is the Applications Manger, which is a well disguised debian package manager frontend, but admittedly polished enough to be used exclusively. You can add 'catalogs' - Nokia's parlance for repositories - from within here, and choose from a huge selection of FOSS packages that install over the air on the N900. The applications manager is every bit a graphical package manager, you can uninstall, download, and update every package on the phone.
It has categorization and feels like it was given plenty of thought, but really lacks the kind of polish other application marketplaces do on other platforms. For example - open up a big category with a couple hundred applications, and you'll find yourself scrolling for a few minutes to get to the desired one.
Take one look through the packages, and you'll know that Maemo has serious potential in the right hands - what other application marketplace has Wireshark, Kismet, Aircrack-ng and Nmap sitting unsuspectingly inside? That's awesome!
The Browser
There has been an enormous volume of debate centering around Flash on mobile platforms lately. While Android 2.2 will eventually bring full Flash 10.1 and AIR support to the entire platform, it's impressive to think about how the N900's browser on Maemo has been running full Flash 9.4 since release.
Until Froyo 2.2 brings a faster browser and Flash support to Android, it's difficult to not argue that the N900 offers the best browsing experience on the platform.
Out of box, the Mozilla-supported browser is almost all you need. There's even extension support for AdBlock Plus directly in the marketplace - and best of all? It works perfectly.
Playing back a YouTube video in flash natively - there was no stuttering
Almost all the Flash content I tried played fine, though the implementation still isn't perfect. I can understand now what Adobe means when it notes that only certain video codecs play back smoothly or are "mobile optimized."
For example, playing videos on Vimeo resulted in extremely choppy framerate and audio - the experience was unwatchable. However, YouTube videos played back perfectly, complete with audio. Hulu refuses to work on the platform, though this is likely due to the licensing issues they maintain prevent them from streaming to mobile devices. Who knows, perhaps support is just a user-agent string change away.
If the OS default browser doesn't suit you, there's also Firefox and Chromium in the marketplace.
Chromium on the N900 is very beta, but Firefox is almost good enough to supplant the normal browser. It's slower feeling, but has a very desktop feel.
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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.