The Nokia N900 – Computer-Grade Mobile Phone

No one among mobile phone users are surprised with the latest Nokia N900. Eversince the N95 advertisement claiming it to be a computer in your hands, it became clear that Nokia had its sights on imbuing their handsets with desktop-like computing look and feel.
Adopting a similar multiplatform product strategy as its main competitors, Nokia is putting Linux-based Maemo OS on a line of high end computer-like smartphones starting with the highly anticipated N900. Launched last September in Germany, the phone is expected to hit European markets by the end of November as a contract-free price of ?499.
Outstanding Upscale Features
Bringing PC desktop computing experience on the mobile handset is an uphill challenge for any mobile phone maker. But it can be done, albeit the savvy user just has to contend with the size limitations on handheld gadgets. Nokia has been doing just that starting with the N95 a few years back and now we have the N900 upping the ante with three processors inside its full QWERTY slider touchscreen body. It is not a slim phone but a rather hefty one with a body measuring 111 x 59.7 x 18.2 mm and weighing a not-so-pocket-friendly 180g.
· The N900 uses the ARM Cortex A8 clocked at 600 MHz with a separate graphics processors in the PowerVR SGX530 that supports Open GL ES 2.0. It’s third processor is the EMS320C64x clocked at 430 MHz to offload from the main CPU its camera, telephony, audio processing and data transmission.
· The Maemo 5.0 platform brings Internet Tablet savvy to the handset with a seamlessly integrated Mozilla Firefox browser that gives it desktop PC browsing look and feel. Browsing and downloading online gets no-wait broadband speeds with its HSDPA/HSUPA data connectivity on the 3G network. There’s Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR for high speed local data transfers and WiFi 802.11 b/g so you can surf in hotspots anywhere.
· A 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash brings the N900 at the forefront of sophistication among top class camera smartphones in the markets. What’s more is that it uses the Nokia imaging signature of having Carl Zeiss Tessar optics in the camera. Shots can be geo-tagged using its built-in GPS receiver with Ovi Maps. It supports Wide-VGA (800 × 480) resolution video recording at 30fps. There’s a secondary VGA camera for 3G video calls as simpler video recording at a modest 15 fps.
· The N900 has a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen display with wide VGA resolution and 16 million color depth. While admittedly modest compared with larger screens and capacitive touchscreen technology in other flagship phones, the N900 does the job of displaying excellent images and videos on its wide screen display that tilts when fully slid out.
· The N900 enjoys a generous 1GB ROM for its OS and 32GB of internal storage for user installed application and files. You can expand that up to another 32GB with its microSD expansion slot.
It’s got a competent multimedia player that is touch-controllable supporting all the popular audio, video and photo media content file formats. You also get stereo FM, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP for wireless stereo earphones, TV-out and a 3.5mm headphone jack.