Since my 2 weeks here, it had been fun and I have been receiving lots of comments and emails on a few problems about the N900. The Nokia N900 users want more. Here is the summary:

Facebook Games:

Lots of you guys have been wondering whether I can play Facebook games on the N900. The matter of fact it is a yes and no. Yes if you happen to find a game that runs Flash version 9.4 and no if the version is higher. From what I know, addictive and popular games such as Farmville or Backyard Monsters are not playable just because they are running Flash version 10.1. Nevertheless you can still try your favourite Facebook games on the N900 using the following tweak. Tweak Flash Plugin Version V0.4.0-Maemo1

This is what the tweak does : “Tweakflashver alters the Flash plugin so that it reports a custom version to sites. This will NOT magically give you functionality not already in the plugin, but will allow to use sites that ‘require Flash 10′ even though the actual content works with Flash 9.”

Give your favourite Facebook game a try and do tell us in the comments box which game works and which doesn’t. Might compile all of them and post it in a single post

Video Calling Using 3G:

Everyone is happy that the N900 has integrated GoogleTalk and Skype as its IM service and video calling service. But what about 3G? It seems that it is not implemented on the device itself at the first place. So far there are no stable implementation for 3G video call just yet. If happened to find one, feel free to drop by in the comments box.

Multitouch Screen (Capacitive Touchscreen):

Everyone’s wish for the N900. If it were to have multitouch support, it would been a killer phone. So many new things could be implemented on the device itself. Playing games on the NITDroid or even ported webOS games is so much easier. It would attract more developers and end up being a phone hardware and software (hopefully) sufficient to beat the iPhone and other smartphones.

Simple Usage:

Mind my words but the N900 is definitely not a user-friendly phone. It is more hacker-friendly. Tweaks and mods are confusing the beginners and how they wish everything could be done by a click and a tap and that’s it. But remember the N900 is community based now (looking at CSSU) and much more new implementations would be added to hopefully improve the usage experience on the N900.

So that’s practically a summary on what I have been hearing all my fellow N900 users been whining about. There you have it.

Till next time!

Good rivals, each are trying to get to the top of the market but Nokia is much ahead.

The Nokia N900‘s dimensions are 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, 113 cc while the iPhone’s dimensions are 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm making the iPhone the winner.

The N900 comes with a TFT resistive touchscreen while the iPhone is equipped with a TFT capacitive touchscreen so both device’s draw here but I was expecting the N900 to be the leader in this section.

The Nokia N900 screen is 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches while the highly praised iPhone comes with a 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches display making the N900 more suitable for small writing, speaking about small writing, the N900 comes with a QWERTY keyboard and the iPhone doesn’t.

The iPhone 3Gs is equipped with a 3.5 mm audio headset jack while the N900 consists a 3.5 mm audio jack.

The iPhone can handle 16GB or 32GB but the N900 only comes with 1 choice of 32GB plus a MicroSD card is input able of 32GB to make it 64GB available for the user.

The iPhone camera is 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels and autofocus enabled camera while the N900 comes with a 5 MP, 2576×1936 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Dual LED flash and a video light which clearly shows that the N900 is the winner.

iPhone OS 3 is used on the iPhone which is upgradeable to iOS 4 while the N900 comes with Maemo 5 but suprisingly it can handle Android on it.

The iPhone have to be recharged for every 300 hours and its rival, the N900, has to be recharged every 278 hours.

Although the iPhone OS 4 itself is not on the market yet (its release is predicted to the second half of 2010), its upcoming features can be already compared to the N900.

Steve Jobs introduced numerous improvements for the new version of the iPhone in the Apple headquarters in Cupertino on the 8th of April. But hold on: Most of them sounds very familiar to us N900 users.

The first of these new characteristics is quess what: Yes, Multitasking! Doesn´t we have this already on our N900s? And hasn´t Nokia always been one step ahead when it comes to multitasking on mobile devices? Well, I think so! Steve showed about 12 applications running at the same time. How much do you have tested running on the N900?

Skype is coming as an native app also. Another feature what is still build in from the beginning in our phones.

Background location. WOW, what does this mean? The iPhone is able to get GPS data, while listening to music or watching to a video … from where does this come from? Because of Nokias accomplishment since the old Symbian versions, maybe?

One of the new quintessence is the possibility to create folders on the iPhone. Is this something new and mind-blowing? Yes, for iPhone users of course. The Apple phone is slowly approximating a handheld computer status like the N900 was right from the start.

Another novelty presented from Apple is the Mail Box administration. Do I really have to write more about this? Conversations will be stored in so called Threads. Wondering about the similarity to the chat-like message function on our N900.

And at last really something new: iAd. The name alone should tell you all. Advertising on the phone. Yes, that´s what I really want to have, don´t you?

Don´t misunderstand me: I like the iPhone. It´s a very stylish designed smartphone just for the right audience. Amazingly with this new features it will more and more be competitive with devices like ours. Where Apple wants to go with its iPhone?

- sam | visit our Nokia N900 forum -

Edit: I forgot one: Still No Flash!

Last but not less important, here is the comparison on the Features aspect between this two.

• The first impression is the OS. The Nokia N900 with his brand-new Maemo 5, a Linux-based OS open source! Very promising. On the other hand, the Apple iPhone 3Gs with his own iPhone OS based on Mac-OS meaning a Closed Source with open source components.
• On the messaging area, both present the same possibilities such as SMS, MMS, Email and Push-Email (every new e-mail is instantly and actively transferred to the phone, more info click here). This last part is the reason why I added this point, because there is not a difference as you read it but I wanted to point out that each one has his own push-email service but not as good as the Blackberry service (that´s the case on the iPhone 3Gs) as long as I have read on this subject. In the case of the Nokia N900 this would be true if it would have the Nokia Messaging Email, but it´s unknown.
• The Browser. As an Internet tablet the Nokia N900 leads with the capability to use the WAP 2.0, xHTML, HTML and RSS feeds protocols (Thanks to the Flash Player 9.4 on it). While the iPhone 3Gs only has HTML protocol.
• Finally, some difference on some feature that I didn’t know how to categorize are on the Nokia N900 the Stereo FM Radio, Java (MIDP 2.1), a wide variety of music and video format (audio: MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ and video: WMV/RealVideo/MP4/AVI/XviD) and a Document Viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF).

This is how we get to the end of this intensive comparison. Some things to clarify here, is about the OS that we don’t know too much about the Maemo 5, practical talking, because we haven’t seen it running yet, so that’s why I like to say that is promising, we have to wait to see the results. And about the Browser part, I want to add that on the Nokia N900 you can navigate to almost all the internet pages due to those attributes I have mention before.

After a little break from this competition we bring it back. We have already reviewed the Networking & Data and Display & Sound aspects. Today, Memory & Camera aspect. It would end up surprisingly well for one phone. Let´s start!

• Both phones come with an incredible Internal storage memory. The iPhone 3Gs in two different version 16gb and 32 gb plus a 256 mb of RAM memory but the Nokia N900 only version comes with 32 gb (the same as the best of the iPhone 3Gs) plus a 256 mb of RAM memory.
• The big difference on the memory is the expansion. While the Nokia comes with a card slot for a microSD and supports up to 16 gb taking the memory amount up to 48 gb, the lack of memory expansion on the iPhone 3Gs it doesn’t look well.
• Then we have the Primary Camera. Not surprisingly at all, we find that the Nokia N900 has a 5MP camera (2592 x 1944 pixels) with a Carl Zeiss optic, autofocus, Dual Led Flash and video light. While the iPhone 3Gs has a 3.15 MP camera (2048 x 1536 pixels) and autofocus. Not too bad for the iPhone 3Gs but for a high gamma phone isn´t enough (comparing it with his directs competitors).
• Some camera features are geo-tagging due to both phones having GPS. But the iPhone 3Gs also has Touch focus.
• The video on the Nokia N900 are amazing, WVGA (848 x 480) with 25 fps (this is the quantity of photos that the phone takes per second to fullfil the video. It has direct influence on the sizes of the video, more information click here) as expected due to his camera. And on the iPhone 3Gs (a new feature included in this iPhone beyond the unofficial on the other iPhones), VGA (640 x 480 pixels) with 30 fps and video geo-tagging (nothing that on the Nokia N900 some could develop an app for this).
• Last but not less important the Second camera which is used to make video calls thanks to the 3G network. With the Nokia N900 we would be able to do this, thanks to a VGA camera (enough and the topest required to make a video call). But on the iPhone 3Gs you have to keep on using regular calls.

I think if the photos and video are important to you, it’s clear which one you should choose. In my opinion it’s a shame that Apple didn’t work on this aspect of their new phone and I don’t really understand it. While their competitors put on their phones cameras of 5MP (Nokia), 8MP (Nokia, LG, Samsung) and even a 12MP (Sony ericsson), Apple came up with a 3.15 MP camera. Why?

Although the differences on Network & Data aspect are not to important, now in this aspect (Display & Sound) we would find that this two master pieces really have important ones.

• First of all we have the size of the display. Both are 3.5 inches but the resolution on the Nokia N900 is up to a 800×600 pixels while in the iPhone you only have a 340×480 pixels. The display resolution of a display device typically refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed, so this would lead to a better definition of the images.
• Having many pros the N900 makes the iPhone 3Gs looks bad. But now it´s the iPhone 3Gs who wins with a dimension of 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm (a nice dimension considering that it´s a Smartphone) while the Nokia N900 dimensions are 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm (part of this due to the QWERTY keyboard).
• The dimensions bring another problem to the Nokia N900, the weight of 181 g against the only 131 g of the iPhone 3Gs. Again, due to a few more physical features.
• Finally the sound part, Nokia has got us used to have stereo speakers (3.5 mm) on their phones while the iPhone 3Gs has a single speaker (3.5 mm either).

Not only the good features have to be taken on account when choosing a phone (this makes it very attractive) but the size it´s important. Because you have to feel comfortable with it, when using it or while it´s on your pocket. So between this two you have to choose size or excellent features.

Comprising this two beast of the mobile community could not change the choice of the people. I know that it won’t lead to that, but it´s good to establish the important difference and unique qualities that this two phones have between each other. I won´t talk about each specification of the phones and then compare against each other. What I´ll do it´s to talk about their punctual differences and special features.

I am going to compare each aspect on diverse post because if not, it would end up on Megapost and I don’t want to bore you that´s not my objective. I only want to inform you.

In the Network & Data aspect, we would find that both phones are very similar but with little differences.

• One of those is the possibility of having HSCSD (Improves the speed of transmission over the GSM network, for more information please click here) on the Nokia N900 while in the iPhone 3Gs is missing.
• Not surprising at all, we find that the iPhone 3Gs lacks of DNLA, a standard used by manufacturers to allow entertainment devices within the home to share their content with each other across a home network (more info here). Something that Apple has got us used to find when talking about sharing with other manufacturer´s devices.
• Then exist a little difference on the speed of transmission over the HSDPA, where the iPhone 3Gs only has a 7.2 Mbps while the Nokia N900 reach a 10Mbps.
• The last structural difference it´s the lack of an Infrared Port on the iPhone 3Gs. It´s not essential to have this, because it  has became obsolete to establish a transmission, but we can´t forget that thanks to this little buddy we can have the benefit of converting our phones on Universal Remote Control!(Like on the Nokia N900, check here).

Conclusion: Beyond the infrared port lack, both phones have pretty much the same for regular users. For a more exquisite user, the Nokia N900 has better conditions. It´s just a few centimeters ahead of the iPhone 3Gs (in Network & Data aspects).