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
N900 Camera
I've already talked briefly about the N900's camera, which is true to form for Nokia devices and pretty impressive. The software implementation that Nokia has put together for the N900 on Maemo is well polished. As mentioned before, sliding the camera cover open while the device is on immediately launches the camera application, or you can get there from the applications window. After launching, there are black bars at each side, the right side of which is used for settings icons. Nokia has included a ton of options here, including optional geotagging, settings for exposure, ISO, and preset shooting modes. You can capture in 3.5 megapixel or 5 megapixel modes, and have ISO 100, 200, 400 or automatic to choose from. In auto mode, it seems like the camera can go all the way to ISO 800 if necessary, but you can't set that manually. True to the rest of Maemo, the camera only works in landscape orientation.
What's really impressive is just how sharp and fluid the N900 camera preview looks while you're shooting. Suffice it to say, only the HTC Incredible really rivals how sharp and detailed the images look in the live preview. Framerate is always solid, and I just left the settings on defaults because I was pleased with the quality. The hardware button itself is two-position. Pushing halfway down triggers autofocus, pressing all the way takes the shot. One of the nice things is that if you jam the shutter button all the way down, it really takes the picture immediately; there's no mandatory AF run before actually capturing. This is potentially really handy if you're trying to capture something quick action and you're already confident it's in focus.
The N900 can capture videos at up to 848x480 at 25 fps in MPEG-4 format with AAC audio. That's an aspect ratio of 16:9 interestingly enough. I was a bit concerned initially about video being shot at 25 fps, but this is becoming more and more the case with 720P class smartphone video. Quality itself is very good as we'll see in a second.
Motorola Droid Camera
The Motorola Droid packs a slightly more standard 5 megapixel camera, also with autofocus and dual LED flash. While it doesn't carry fancy Carl Zeiss branding or advertise what kind of optical lens system drives it, it's likely the same or a very similar OmniVision camera sensor at the core. The Motorola Droid also supports video recording, though at slightly lower 720x480 resolution at slightly higher 30 fps. Video is encoded in H.264 and audio is AAC.
The camera application for the Motorola Droid is also stock Android 2.x. Love it or hate it, the application is essentially uniform across the platform with the exception of HTC's custom camera application like on the HTC Incredible. You've got settings for most of the basic things, but just not as much as you do on the N900 - though both of these have many more settings than iPhone OS which always handles everything with no chance for user override.
The camera can be launched either from the applications menu, or by pressing the dedicated camera button all the way down while the device is on. Motorola talked a fair amount about the copper colored camera button which - I guess - is a feature. Unfortunately, I did encounter a considerable amount of bugginess with the Droid's camera. Launch would periodically take a very long time (well over 8 seconds), in which case you'll probably just give up and move along, and I noticed a very strange quirk where switching from landscape to portrait (eg shutting the keyboard drawer) would result in camera UI elements being drawn in the wrong place. A few times, the frame around the camera preview would just render inside atop the image, which is very frustrating. Killing and relaunching fixes that, though.
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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.