Nokia has announced that the long-awaited update for the N900 is available and already being released to UK users. The global release will be tomorrow (May 26), so you N900 users based in Nigeria should be on the lookout. Before this, the most up-to-date firmware was version 3.2010.02-8.002.

Some of the new features and improvements that come with this update (version 10.2010.19-1) include:

• Qt 4.6.2 is now preinstalled on the OS.
• Improvements to email
• Mail widget
• Changes for the video recording in the Camera Application
• Can dial USSD Codes
• Improved Ovi Maps user interface
• File Manager is now able to share any file and/or folder
• Portrait mode now available in MicroB web browser
• Status area is now reachable in portrait mode
• Re-arrangeable application menu
• Video calling can be accessed through contacts
• Modified Virtual Keyboard

A number of new games have also been released for the N900, including: Jurassic 3D Rollercoaster, Zen-bound, Angry Birds (level pack), Sygic, Kroll, Weatherbug, and GoGadget. Ovi Store is also got updated on this firmware.

From Nokia Conversations:

Email has been improved with the ability to accept or decline an event invitation right there in your inbox, and Facebook IM chat has also been bundled in. The release also brings with it video calling, allowing users face-to-face chatting anywhere.

An additional update you will be pleased to hear about is portrait browsing on the internet is a-go on the N900. Ovi Maps also gets the update treatment with changes to the UI, improving the experience of finding your way around. And finally, there’s also a change to the menu system UI with the first level now customisable.

Nokia has now also finally put an end to hopes for the N900 eventually running MeeGo, the replacement OS for Maemo that is the product of a collaboration betweeen Nokia and Intel. Sorry, folks, MeeGo will not be available for your beloved N900:

Many of you have been asking whether the new MeeGo platform will be supported on the N900 once it’s device-ready. Although Nokia N900 devices are being used for platform development and testing purposes by those involved in the MeeGo project, we don’t have plans for a full scale commercial MeeGo upgrade on the Nokia N900.

That settles the MeeGo for N900 angle; doesn’t it?

Back to the update, this sounds promising, and I am looking forward to downloading and installing the update OTA tomorrow. If you own an N900 and get it on your device, let’s know what you think of the new features.

PS: OTA upgrade should not delete any of your files, but just to be sure, please backup your phone before going ahead.

I have had the Nokia N900 for a couple of weeks now, and minus the initial issues I experienced with email I have found it a bleeding edge device.

In this part of my review, I present to you screenshots of the N900′s user interface and explanations of how it works.

Desktop/s

True to 2009/2010 expectations, the N900 offers multiple desktops, in this case four of them (I use only three). Also true to the times, the desktops support widgets. But in addition to widgets, you can stack shortcuts, bookmarks, and contacts as well on each of the desktops.

The N900 supports themes and there are a variety of cool ones available. You can also change the backgrounds, or disable one or two of the desktops if you have no use for such fads as swiping right or left.

If you do choose to use multiple desktops, you will find them a pleasant experience. You move between them by swiping right or left. The transitions feel and work smoothly.

Dashboard

Multi-tasking on the N900 is on a whole new level with its “dashboard”. In any application or menu, you will observe an icon at the top-left corner of the screen. That’s the highlighted icon in the screenshot below.

When you touch it, the dashboard is displayed. Touch a second time and your applications menu shows up. But back to the dashboard now.

The dashboard displays snapshots of all running applications on the N900. And it gets even better. You see; its not called a dashboard for nothing. The snapshots are alive – more like video cam shots – showing you the progress of eacch of the running applications. For example, in the dashboard, you can monitor the progress of a web page you are loading in the browser, while also monitoring the mails being downloaded by the email client.

Get the picture? It is novel. It is eye-candy. And it works fine.

In any menu, tap on any empty area on the display to return a step back and you can so tap your way all the way back to the desktop.

Status Area

At the top of the desktop, just right of the Applications Menu, is the Status Area. This displays the time, network signal, battery icon, data connection indicator, and others, depending on the 3rd party apps that you install.

Tap on the status area and it drops down to show you more details and present you with options to adjust volume, access time and date settings, switch internet connection, change profile, among others.

Though it may sound like something from Android’s notification bar, it is quite different, if you ask me. It does not display any notifications for SMS, email and calls. It is not exactly a notification area, but it works very well. Oh, and yes; it displays notifications for firmware and downloaded application updates.

The N900′s user interface is smooth and looks good. In addition, thanks to the 600 MHz processor and copious amounts of RAM, it just chugs along. It is miles ahead of Symbian S60 5th edition and rubs shoulders with more modern and more user-friendly interfaces as available on the iPhone OS, WebOS and Android OS.

Simply put, it is a breath of fresh air from Nokia.

The guys at Opera are smoking hot, as they seem bent on putting Opera Mobile on every mobile platform possible. Say hello to the first preview build of Opera Mobile 10 for Maemo mobile OS, specifically the Nokia N900 and N800/N810.

From Opera Labs:

Back in 2005, Nokia released the Nokia N770. The included web browser was developed by Opera Software. In 2008, Nokia chose to stop including Opera with Maemo, switching instead to a browser developed internally. Today’s preview build marks our unofficial return to the Maemo platform, after a little over 3 years of absence.

This Maemo version of Opera Mobile 10 was created as a hobby project by a small team of developers in their spare time. In total, about 6 man-weeks were spent on creating the release. It’s worth pointing out that this is not an officially-supported release. As such, it has not undergone our usual quality assurance processes, and at times may not feel as polished or complete as an official release. This also means that there may never be a “final” release of Opera Mobile 10 for Maemo devices, since it’s just that much more fun to add shiny new features rather than fixing boring old bugs.

The preview build contains the same features available in Opera Mobile 10 for Symbian and Windows Mobile smartphones. These include fast and economical browsing with Opera Turbo, bookmark and Speed Dial sync with other Opera products, and of course multiple tabs.

That sounds like the future is uncertain for Opera Mobile on Maemo. However, this build is landmark for Opera Mobile in two ways: it is the first public release of Opera Mobile to include Carakan — Opera’s new Javascript engine, and it is also the Mobile debut of their Vega rendering library which — among other things — is responsible for rendering all the exciting new eye-candy like CSS3 rounded corners and shadow effects.

Opera Mobile 10 on Maemo also supports portrait rendering, alongside the other standard Opera Mobile features.

Note also that there are some known issues with this preview version, so watch out for the following:

• Adobe Flash and other plugins are not supported.
• Screen tearing may be visible when panning, especially in portrait mode. We expect to fix this in a future update.
• The built-in on-screen keyboard is not supported. Use the physical keyboard or the on screen keyboard included with Opera Mobile.
• There is no power management support. In practice this means that if you open a page with animations and leave Opera running, you will soon be using a payphone. Power is drained even when Opera is running in the background and/or the screen is turned off.
• If you set Opera as the default browser, for example by installing the Browser Switchboard, an extra empty tab will get opened every time you open a link from an external application.

If you encounter problems, Opera will appreciate your reporting those bugs and issues using their bug wizard or on their forums.

I personally do not see any browser replacing MicroB on my N900, but I’ll give Opera Mobile a spin just for the fun. However, N900 users who are looking for a way to save on bandwidth usage may be tempted to play with this one.

Props to Hussein for the tip-off!

While still preparing some of the materials for my Nokia N900 reviews, I ran into an article, Why the Nokia N97 sucks… and why it still rules, by Steve Litchfield over at All About Symbian, in which presents why he believes that the Nokia N97 is the all-round king of the smartphone world. Towards the conclusion of the article, Steve declares:

There’s simply nothing else in the world that can match all (or even most) of the above. Which means that if even (say) 7 of the 9 attributes are vital to what you want from a smartphone then only be achieved with the ‘love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it’ Nokia N97….

That had me stumped, because there is one mobile device that matches every single point that he made in favour of the N97, without having any of the limitations of the N97. Permit me to present to you…. the Nokia N900.

In this article, I itemise Steve’s arguments and apply them to the N900.

1. Display
The N900′s display is very readable in direct sunlight. I live in the tropics, and British sunlight, which Steve’s N97 is exposed to, is nothing compared to the glare of the tropics. Yet, the N900 performs admirably. No issues.

2. Hero battery life
The N900 does not have the 1500mAh battery of the N97, but its BL-5J comes close at 1320 mAh. The N900 mobile computer is my PC when I am out of the office and battery life has been more than adequate.

I am not certain of the criteria of Steve’s ‘power user’s day out’ tests, but I doubt that it holds a candle to mine.

In my own ‘power user’s day out’ scenario, which I conducted last Friday, I had the N900 connecting to the mailserver every 10 minutes over a 3G connection. I set up and/or troubleshot (is that a word?) 7 webhosting accounts, responded to about 20 enquiries and/or support tickets, received and made several voice calls (with Bluetooth headset active), and responded to about 10 SMS messages. In addition, I moderated several comments on MobilityNigeria.com and browsed some of my daily online stop-overs. Note that this was non-stop usage of a mobile device.

With the above scenario, the battery, which was charged full the previous night, and which had been in use for web and email through the night (attending to support requests and moderating MobilityNigeria), died on me at 3 p.m.

That is simply amazing battery performance.

3. FM transmitter
Check.

4. Camera glass protection
Check.

5. 32GB mass memory
Check. Incidentally, Steve left the N900 out of his list of smartphones with this much internal storage.

6. QWERTY keyboard
Check. Works better than the N97′s too.

7. Angled display
The N900 does not have an angled display but rather a kickstand that gives you an angle if you do want or need one.

8. 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss-lens autofocus camera with LED flash
Check.

9. It’s a Nokia
Gee, so’s the N900! And free Ovi Maps is in there too. Check.

Now, the N97 cons

1. Creaking plastic
The N900 case does not creak. The N900 build is solid.

2. CPU, RAM and internal (system disk, C:) flash memory
Sorry; nothing underpowered on the N900 here. It comes packed with an ARM Cortex A8 600MHz CPU, PowerVR SGX graphics accelerator and 256 MB of RAM, as against the N97′s ARM 11 434 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM.

3. Inconsistent and a little confusing user interface
Not here on the N900. The user interface is fluid and intuitive.

4. Minimalist QWERTY keyboard
The N900 QWERTY keyboard has only 3 rows too but is more tactile and usable than the N97′s.

5. Tinny, not-so-loud speakers
The N900 stereo speakers produce very good audio quality sounds. They are certainly not tinny in any way. While not the loudest I have seen, they are also quite loud.

A few extras

Video playback: The N900 plays DivX and XviD video. Want to try that on the N97 and get back to me?

Video recording: N900 does WVGA(848 x 480)@25fps. N97 does VGA@30fps.

Web browser: The N900′s Mozilla-based MicroB browser is without argument the best browser on any smart mobile device (yes; it trounces the iPhone’s Safari as well). Dennis Bournique‘s specialty is mobile browsers, and he has proven over time to be objective. Here is what he has to say about the N900′s browser:

I believe the N900 ‘s MicroB browser is the best built-in mobile browser ever and maybe the best mobile browser, period. Source

and also

I’ve covered the browsing capabilities of the N900 quite bit here on WapReview but to summarize, the built in MicroB browser is the best browser available today on any pocketable device. The combination of 800 x 480 resolution, 3.5 inch screen, high performance JavaScript engine and full desktop Flash 9.4 support means you can really use all the features of almost any desktop or mobile site in pretty much the same way you do on the desktop. I see the N900 as the first of a new wave of phones that blurs the distinction between desktop and mobile browsing. Source

From Matthew Miller, another authority in the mobile space, who also owns an iPhone 3GS:

The web browser is clearly the best of any mobile phone available and once you discover you can pretty much do anything you want within the browser (apps not always necessary) you will probably discover this is an amazing device. Source

The N97′s web browser does not even come close to either Safari or MicroB.

Screen resolution: The N900′s display is better at presenting anything than the N97′s. Part of this is because of the resolution of the displays. Both displays are of the same size (3.5cm), but the N900 has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels against the N97′s 360 x 640 pixels. Everything simply looks sharper and more detailed on the N900.

High Speed Internet: The N900 packs 10 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA support, while the N97 is limited to just 3.6 Mbps HSDPA.

Conclusion

The N900 is a far better device than the N97 or N97 Mini and certainly deserves the title of Nokia’s flagship. Title or not though, give me an N900 over either of the N97 twins any day. The N900 matches the N97 in almost every respect and trounces it in several other areas.

The N900, not the N97, is the connected mobile device to beat in terms of all-round features and performance.

Steve needs to review his claim that “There’s simply nothing else in the world that can match all (or even most) of the above (N97 features)”. It simply isn’t true.

Let’s get this clear upfront – I am angry and frustrated right now. Very. So excuse the passion that you will feel as you read my words.

To give you a background, for the last three weeks, family, friends and associates have been largely unable to reach me on my mobile line. Mostly, they get the error message “The number that you have dialled does not exist on the MTN network“, or “The number you have dialled is incorrect“. I am mostly also unable to dial out as well. Contacting MTN customer care has not helped any bit. Please understand that for reasons like this, I have changed my mobile line several times in the last years. I’ve had them all – ECONET, GloMobile, MTN, Etisalat. Okay, I never got Mtel. Was that ever a network?

With the battle I have been fighting with voice on my line, I didn’t really need any other issues like I got with the Nokia N900. Yes; that super mobile computer. Oh, its a great device – voice calls are clear, speakers are loud, video is awesome, TV-out is sweet, camera is splendid, web browsing – you need to use it to understand how sweet it is browsing on the N900, firmware updates are smooth, even preserving your data, the user interface is sweet, and the processor is powerful enough to let the phonedo all these without breaking a sweat.

Sounds like I am insane to gripe about a phone like that; right?

No; I am not insane. For all the wonderful things that the N900 can do, you cannot begin to imagine the frustrations of not being able to send out emails on the device. My lowly Nokia 3600 Slide sends out mails without issues. My even humbler Sony Ericsson does so too. My Windows Mobile powered LG GW550 does it without hitches. But the N93,000 super mobile computer from the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer and world’s largest smartphone manufacturer does not let me send out emails.

I tried my Gmail account. Tried Google Apps hosted email. Tried my corporate email. Tried my Hotmail account. Even my Ovi (that’s angelic tongues for Nokia, I suppose) email account is unable to send out emails on the N900. I have never battled with email on a mobile device as I have on the N900 in the last few days. But I found out soon enough that I am not alone in this. Just do a Google search for “cannot send out email on N900“, and you’ll find more than enough to chew on.

Besides not being able to send out mails, it takes forever to refresh the inbox and to open received items in it to read.

The problem is that no-one really has been able to put a finger on what is the problem with the N900 email client. It works with Gmail for some, but does not for others. Some are able to send out mails by changing the SMTP port, but others are not. Some are not able to read downloaded mails, but others are able to. The N900 mail client is about the most amazing pile of dung on a smart mobile device that I have ever beheld.

I even re-updated the firmware of the device, just to be sure. No show.

Finally, I thought to myself that surely with the avalanche of complaints about the N900′s email client, someone would have developed a 3rd party email application to help Nokia’s incompetence. Sorry; no dice. The built-in email client on the N900 is an example of an application that should never have shipped with a production device. Ah, but perhaps typical of Nokia, three years after the launch of the N900, they will come up with a firmware update that will finally get the mail client to do what it should have been doing from Day One. But that would be MeeGo, not Maemo; right?

Well, as for me, I’m going. Yes; me go now.

Someone give me an HTC Touch Pro2 over this any day. If email is your thing, stay away from the Nokia N900. You will get your fingers burnt. But if what you want is multimedia, web, etc, you can’t go wrong with the Nokia N900. Someone make me a good offer for the N900 and its yours. Just like that. You see, I live on email. That makes the N900 a very useless device to me right now.

Earlier on, my friend Oluniyi David Ajao said he wasn’t going to buy another Nokia smartphone. I hereby join his club. No more Nokia smartphones for me too.

I wrote the above section of this article yesterday evening. The next part was added today.

But just in case you think email is all the trouble I have had with the N900, you’ve got another think coming. This evening, I plugged the device to my PC via the USB cable (as I had already done several times before without any issues) and it simply powered down. “Ah, no problem“, I thought, “I’ll just put it back on again“.

Sorry, but it has not come back up again since then. I have removed the battery and put it back, among other tricks. It starts to power up, then the Nokia logo fades away into the background and the screen goes blank. Awesome. That’s a N93,000 miracle from Nokia.

Sorry, guys, but I am pretty much tired of the N900. Unfortunately, I cannot sell it while its dead

I am currently downloading tools that will enable me to flash it. If that does not work out, I will have to take it over to Nokia Care first thing tomorrow morning and see if they can sort it out. I expect that they’ll ship it off to Abuja again, like they did my E90 back then. But there’s this nagging fear at the back of my mind that someone will tell me there that they do not have support available for the N900 here in Nigeria yet.

That, dear friends, will be Nokia putting icing on my cake. But who knows, perhaps the gods of mobility will have mercy on a devotee like me and I’ll get my loved-and-hated N900 back, this time with email SMTP working as it should. Just maybe.

Who wants to offer a sacrifice on my behalf?

---

Update: I did get the email problem resolved after flashing my N900. Be sure to read through the comments for details. – Yomi

That’s right, folks. We have the Maemo 5-powered mobile computer, the Nokia N900, in our hands – and we are drooling all over it.

A picture, it is said, is worth a thousand words. Fortunately, we have more than one picture. So, feed your techno-lust on these while you wait for the detailed review/s.

Comparison shots with Samsung S8003 Jet and LG GW550:

Think you’ve heard enough of new mobile operating systems? Here’s more.

Today, Nokia and Intel announced the merger of Maemo and Moblin to create MeeGo, a Linux-based software platform designed to work across a range of hardware architectures and devices including mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

The first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of 2010 and the first MeeGo-based devices are expected to be launched later this year.

MeeGo is an open software platform which will be hosted by the Linux Foundation and use the best practices of open source development. It’s expected that MeeGo will be adopted by a range of device manufacturers, network operators, semiconductor companies, software vendors and developers.

MeeGo is a trademark of The Linux Foundation Corporation.

So, the list of mobile OSes has changed. We now have: Symbian, Windowsphone, Blackberry, iPhone, WebOS, Android, Bada, and MeeGo. Let the show continue.

Source. Official Press Release from Nokia

The Nokia N900, a Linux-powered internet tablet/smartphone, is already shipping. This device is looking to be what the N97 pretends to be – Nokia’s true flagship smartphone.

With a huge glorious 3.5-inch display, full QWERTY keyboard, 32 GB internal storage, 5 MP Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Dual LED flash camera, and full web browser, all running on an ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor, its no wonder that I am getting some measure of techno-lust. Forgive me, Lord.

If you spot the N900 on sale anywhere in Nigeria soon, please sound the alarm here; will you?

Symbian. Windows Mobile. Palm. Blackberry. OSX. Android. Maemo.

These are all mobile operating systems (OS). Some have been around longer than others. The new kids on the block are OSX and Android, and they are having their day. While Palm is an old platform, the complete revamp that has been executed on the OS has transformed its hitherto dated interface into something hip and up-to-date, just as obtains on the newer kids.

Symbian, the world’s most widely used mobile OS, has also undergone a revamp with the S60 5th Edition, but with not quite an elegant result as Palm. I have been “Symbian Inside” for the most of my mobile life, having used S80 (Nokia 9500), UIQ (P990, P1i) and S60 (E61, E61i, E90, E75) devices for years.

I have not hidden my position that Symbian as it currently is needs a serious facelift of its user interface to get up-to-date with current fads in the industry. I have even held that position strongly. But there seem to be those who think that Symbian is actually going to die off. I seriously doubt that. At least not anytime soon.

If what Nokia has pulled off on the N900 tablet-phone is anything to go by, those who have prophesied Symbian’s death because of what seemed Nokia’s inability to implement a fancy user interface can start recanting. Nokia has shown that they are capable.

We must note that the current fancy user interfaces are touchscreen based. Unfortunately, unless there is a massive change in the general direction of mobile users, the statistics till date shows that the majority of users prefer regular type phones with a physical keypad. In this field, Nokia still holds the fort.

I submit that Symbian is likely to remain the dominant mobile OS for a long time. Current trends suggest that Android will take the 2nd place quickly.

One of the advantages that Symbian has is what will help Android achieve this feat. Both Symbian and Android are licenced by numerous manufacturers, some of which are adding layers of services, functionality and usabilty to the underlying operatiing systems.

Already, we have multiple Android devices from HTC, Motorola, and Samsung respectively on the ground. More are on the way from Acer, Sony Ericsson, LG and others.

The other operating systems are generally mono-products – the iPhone which runs OSX is manufactured by only Apple; Blackberries are manufactured by only RIM, and Palm devices by only Palm.

The only other widely licensed mobile OS is Windows Mobile. The recently launched Windows Mobile 6.5 is a good upgrade, but leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, version 7 will bring this venerable OS up-to-speed and then we can see how things go from there.

One thing that is unarguable, however, is that exciting times are ahead in the mobile OS field. Whatever operating system you root for, the months and years ahead promise much.

Mike Evans at MobileMentalism got his hands on a pre-release unit of the Maemo-powered tablet phone, the Nokia N900, and comes off with the verdict that the N900 is the best Nokia smartphone yet.

Maemo is a Linux-based mobile operating system that Nokia is now pushing alongside their popular trademark Symbian OS for smartphones.

Mike also narrates how it seems that Nokia has put itself in a tough spot by producing a niche product that beats their official flagship hands-down. His summary:

Nokia’s best attempt at a touchscreen smartphone yet, and better than the N97 by a country mile!

The N900 has an expected release date of October 2009. That’s this month! I am already interested, as I have found Symbian not quite up my alley of recent. Yet, I am an avid Nokia fan. Perhaps Maemo is just what the doctor ordered and I’ll find myself using a Nokia smartphone as my primary mobile device soon.

Here’s a checklist of the N900′s features:

• Maemo 5 operating system
• 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor + Graphics Acceleration
• 32GB internal storage
• 5 megapixel camera + Carl Zeiss optics + Dual LED Flash
• Video recording: WVGA (848 x 480)@25fps + video light
• 800 x 480 display, TFT resistive touchscreen, 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches
• A-GPS + Ovi Maps
• GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA/HSUPA
• Wi-Fi + Bluetooth + Infrared
• 3-row QWERTY keyboard
• Proximity sensor for auto turn-off + Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• Web browser with built-in support for Adobe Flash 9.4
• TV-Out
• Media player supporting the following formats and codecs: mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp, H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263
• Music formats supported include .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
• FM Radio

Read Mike’s hands-on.