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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Zebo - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
with 750mhz processor convex keys and ditching the lame D pad making this the best smart phone for my use talking 5-6 hours a day plus on best network instead of T or TM.krazyfrog - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Dude, you chat like an eight year-old lol.CityBlue - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
The latest Maemo5 PR1.2 does bring a welcome improvement to battery life, in some cases as much as 50% improvement to standby time.The recently released Opera Mobile on the N900 is lightning fast - it would be interesting to see how that performs in your comparison tests, or the latest Fennec (Firefox Mobile 1.1). The stock MicroB browser is beginning to look a little long in the tooth what with all the Javascript run-time improvements in competing browsers, but it does still offer the most complete web experience on pretty much any mobile device.
Overall though, a very good and welcome review of Maemo5 which is much misunderstood by a world obsessed with Android and iPhone.
achipa - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Two small corrections:Nokia's next MeeGo device is still going to be ARM (MeeGo is a two-platform OS, ARM and Atom), if there is a Moorestown device far along in the pipelines, it's not Nokia's.
PR1.2 is very likely not the last update. Nokia has pledged to deliver QtMobility (the mobile device Qt APIs) in a future update, and there is an active Qt4.7 branch for Maemo5 which also suggests work is being done there.
The Solutor - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Not all the Droid/Milestone's keyboard are flat.http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5872/dsc00180.png
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6551/dsc00176.p...
This is my milestone (bought in december).
So there's no need to wait droid 2 to get the raised keys.
Brian Klug - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
Interesting... looks like they definitely identified that issue somewhere between finishing the CDMA 'Droid' design and the GSM Milestone. Cool stuff!-Brian
strikeback03 - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I read that elsewhere as well. Would be nice if the verizon stores got the newer keyboard models out on display to tryBoyBawang - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Sorry to break your heart dude but the ones with raised keyboard were the early builds. Motorola changed it to flat after reported sliding problems with the raised designstrikeback03 - Monday, June 14, 2010 - link
Actually one of my friends got a Moto Droid Thursday and I had a chance to play with it Friday, it did feel like they had improved the key feel slightly. IIRC the Droids on display had concave keys, this one was slightly convex.solipsism - Friday, June 11, 2010 - link
I understand that's because they are in the same package is the reason why you need the BT to be on to get FM, but that can't be too common. After all, most smartphones seem to have WiFi and BT(+EDR) and FM all the same transceiver.For comparison, the iPhone 3GS uses a <a href="http://www.broadcom.com/products/Wireless-LAN/802.... BCM4325</ a>