While it has been said like umpteen times here and elsewhere N900 is a Linux hacker’s dream phone and adding more weight to this statement is PC Magazine’s (Middle East edition) latest review on N900. The review, though not an exhaustive one goes on to declare the flagship device from N900, an “Ultimate Linux Geek Phone”, mostly for it’s open source infrastructure allowing users to customize the phone from command line (also). Catch the highlights of the video review and my take on it, after the break.

Video Review-

Well, thats pretty basic as such, you can check the full review at their website here. Well I do totally agree with their Linux Geek phone part but I beg to differ from their verdict saying that the device is not yet ready for  a casual smartphone user. True, it’s not as optimized as some of the other mobile platforms today but it’s not that complicated to call it unsuitable for a casual user.

Another interesting thing to note from this review, is the absence of mention of anything worthwhile on the browser, which as you know is the killer feature of N900 with no mobile browser coming nearly as close to it when it comes to rendering websites which are not designed for mobile usage. This is another reason why I chose to differ from the verdict of the review. True, N900 is not as market-ready as say the iPhone but we shouldn’t forget that iPhone reached the iconic status only when the second generation version was released and the entire iPhone app boom started sometime after the second generation device was released. What we should learn from this is that we need to give the nascent Maemo 5 platform, a year or two to evolve into a market-friendly platform.

Well, after playing around with the N900 for a month or so, I am now about to give my side of the story of the flagship smartphone from Nokia. True, the N900 has been beaten to death by most reviewers and users alike over the last few months but I still feel, the device still hasn’t got it’s due, partly from the developers who are still shying away from this platform and Nokia themselves, for they definitely did pack one solid spec sheet for this device but the software optimizations was just not ready for the mass market.

One may argue that Maemo was never targeted at the mass market segment but when a manufacturer like Nokia merges it’s Internet tablet and smartphone segments in one device and calls it it’s flagship unit, it kinda makes sense to make it ready for the everyday smartphone user. Don’t get me wrong, Maemo has some of the coolest features that you can find on a smartphone today but it still needs some optimizations to appeal to the masses, and make no mistake: smartphones are no longer the toys of geeks, just take a look around and I promise you will find atleast 6 or 7 out of every 10 mobile phone users, toying  around with a smartphone. So yeah, I have already hinted at what am driving at, Nokia did get somethings right and some wrong with the N900. Just what are they? Hit on the read button to find out. Read the rest of this entry »