N900 Disappointment

This is not a full review by any means – only an initial glance, a taste, a hint of a review of the new Nokia N900.  I got one last Friday and have had a few hours to play with it.  I don’t have a SIM card for it yet so I’ve not tested any phone calls.   I’m very hopeful that the N900 and Maemo can be some real competition for the iPhone.  I’ve commented before that I don’t think Android will do that – there will be too many radically different and incompatable phone devices to create a real mobile platform that can create a software ecosystem on Android.  But I’m wondering if it will happen on N900/Maemo either.   The ingredients are there:  single vendor hardware manufacturer, open standards, wide range of development tools, passionate community…  but I think Nokia was abysmally stupid in the hardware choices they made.

First of all, why is there no accelorometer in the device?  Having a device that can display either landscape (for web and email) or portrait (for calls) *should* have a means to automatically detect what orientation the user is holding it in.  FAIL. [NOTE:  folks have since told me that I am wrong, that there are accelerometers in the hardware - that's great!]

Second of all, why the crazy decision to use a Type B micro USB plug – and to make it client only?  Micro USB is still USB, but geesh, 99% of all other devices are mini-USB.  Most folks I know have a collection of mini-USB cables and chargers already because we have a collection of devices that use them.  There’s room on the phone hardware to use the mini-USB, but no… Nokia went and used the darn micro-USB.  And what’s with the choice to make the device client only?   Here’s a hand-held computer and you cannot plug a thumb drive into it?  What?????? FAIL.

Third, since it’s a phone and the assumption is that the users would definitely use 3G when not in WiFi range they *removed* the N800/810 capability to use Bluetooth tethering to access the network via another phone.  Why take it out?  I was actually hoping to use the N900 as a tethered device to avoid having to pay *another* data plan.  I carry a Blackberry for work and have a data plan on that… to get 3G coverage on the N900 I now have to buy anther data plan since Nokia decided to remove perfectly functional software that works wonderfully on the N800/810 devices.  FAIL.

All that said, the device is well built, has a beautiful screen (even if they did shrink it – I like the bigger N810 screen).  It’s crazy fast and very responsive.  The camera is excellent.  As a platform I think some really good software can be developed for it.  But Nokia better get with the program and think about what a mobile hand-held computer is all about.  They should have had a several year head start.  But I think they have wasted it.  I’m terribly disappointed.

I’ll be developing some software for the N900 over the next months and I’ll comment in this blog about my findings.  Perhaps I’ll change my mind and fall in love with the device as I start to use it more.  What about you all though?  Are you loving the N900?  Why or why not?