406 Not Acceptable

After waiting for what seemed like an eternaty, I recieved by Nokia N900 in the post on tuesday. I was using a G1 beforehand, and the N900 does a good job of killing my interest in Android!

First, let me start with something that has been worrying many people eyeing the N900: the size. From previews, the size and weight were frowned apon. To be honest, neither is an issue. The N900 is pretty much the same size as the G1. In fact I use my G1’s carry case for my N900! Whilst a collegue noticed the weight of the device when looking at it, I don’t really notice any difference in comarison to my G1.

Next up is the touchscreen, it’s resistive, but a very good one. I would say the N900 sets the benchmark for all other resistive screens to be measured against. Coming from a G1 I did notice you either have to push a little more or tilt your finger to use the tip or the edge — rather than the pad. Once you have the technique down it becomes second nature and is just as good as a capactive screen. To be honest, i used the same technique when trying to select small links on my G1. The resistive screen demonstrates superior prescision and is far better at dealing with small links/menus. Another, although rarely used in my case, benefit is the stylus; which helps when using debian applications.

I don’t think the keyboard is an improvement on the G1’s. The keys feel too close and the lack of rows does slow me down; although, the predictive text implementation is outstanding.

Maemo itself, feels much more like a real linux distro than android ever did. That’s probably because it is one! Already real linux applications are being ported, many of which will never see light on Android unless there are substantial changes to the platform.

This post is already getting wordy! I’ll post some more impressions later.