After eons of frustration for the N900 fans, looks like the retail units are finally up for grabs in the US and elsewhere. If you happen to be in NYC or Chicago, let me save you the drive to the flagship stores: Unless you have registered for N900 with the stores, you are not gonna be getting one off the shelf at the flagship stores yet.

If you are not on the list of the flagship stores, you gotta wait like the rest of the US for the N900s to appear on the NokiaUS store as well as other retailers (Amazon, Dell, Newegg etc). While the Nokia US online store is still showing the N900 as available for pre-order, even after 48 after official US release, Nokia Italy has gone ahead and silently released the Maemo 5 device in Italy. Kudos to Nokia Italy and by the way, I wonder when Nokia US will learn a few things from their European counterparts.  With a disastrous launch like this, no wonder Nokia has a paltry share in the American handset segment. Read the rest of this entry »

After plucking the N900 US launch news out of thin air (read Twitter) last night, I was eagerly waiting for an official announcement from Espoo side on this and looks like the tweet was right. N900 was indeed launched in the US yesterday, the 18th of November 2009, atleast thats what Nokia Conversations wants us to believe.

The official price of N900 continues to be at USD 649, which is what you have to shell out if you happen to drop by the Nokia Flagship stores in Chicago and New York. Even if you are ready to pay in cold hard cash, I doubt if you can get your hands on a retail unit yet for its been around 24 hours since the official announcement and am yet to come across an unboxing video on YouTube or even a tweet of anyone flaunting a retail unit of N900. Whats annoying is that the Nokia Conversations post claims that the device can be bought offshelf from the flagship stores and even online from NokiaUSA and other online retailers including Amazon, which unfortunately is far from reality. A click on either of these online stores, reveals that the N900 is still in pre-order mode. Read the rest of this entry »

The world is waiting to get its hands on the latest high technology phone to hit the market – the Nokia N900 phone. There is so much hype on this piece of hardware. And rightfully so. The features alone has made every gadget freak on the planet drool with envy. Fresh from this year’s introduction of the 5800 XpressMusic phone which carried the touch screen capabilities and accelerometer, the Nokia N900 is the culmination of months (or even years) of research.

Rumor on the internet was that the next iPhone killer contender will be released on October 19^th 2009. But as we can see this is not the case as the date is already over and there is still no sign of N900 anywhere.

However, word has it that the N900 phone should be available by the end of October 2009. Perhaps, it is being positioned nearest to December to take advantage the Christmas and gift-giving season. Not quite the gift you can get in your stockings but, if you can afford the estimate $649 price tag, why not?

As for Amazon, they have posted in their website that the Nokia N900’s availability will be on November 2, 2009. Of course, things still remain to be seen.

You have the option to pre-order from the Nokia website. Unfortunately, not all countries can do this. Only Finland (of course), France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and USA. Interestingly, there are no mention of any Asian countries which is highly loyal to Nokia products and are more open to embrace new gadgets like the N900.

When it does get released by the end of the month, let’s hope the unit lives up to the hype of being “Raw Computing Power” and not just “Raw Publicity”. After seeing the videos online, this could just be the phone that can give the Apple iPhone a run for its money (and market).

The world continues to wait.