Picked up a N900 the other day. It's really quite amazing. Best of all it's linux *and* the keyboard is big enough for my thick fingers. The design isn't as nice as the iphone though.
@kwwii: perhaps not. But for checking say the calendar you don't want do have to pop out they keyboard ( at least I wouldn't) and during the 5 minutes I played with it I got rather frustrated :( The touchscreen felt very imprecise and none to responsive...
@Andreas: If you're coming from the iPhone, then the touchscreen on the N900 would take some getting used to, as it's based on a completely different technology - pressure, vs presence (the iPhone's touchscreen uses the electric field created by your body). Theoretically, anyway, resistive touchscreens such as that on the N900 are more precise, although if you're not familiar with using them, that can swing the balance a bit. However, you can use a stylus, which is nice for some use-cases. @Ethan: I think "toy" was being used loosely, in the sense that geeks like shiny gadgets, rather than as a criticism of the device.
If you can run your own apps on it and it can multitask, it's not a toy, it's a computer.
ReplyDeleteEven better than just Linux, it is Debian/Ubuntu based.
ReplyDeleteI tested one at a shop and found the touchscreen to far worse than the one on my iPhone :( Maybe I just found a bad piece of hardware...
ReplyDeletewith a real keyboard you don't need the touchscreen quite so much
ReplyDelete@kwwii: perhaps not. But for checking say the calendar you don't want do have to pop out they keyboard ( at least I wouldn't) and during the 5 minutes I played with it I got rather frustrated :( The touchscreen felt very imprecise and none to responsive...
ReplyDeleteActually, my big thick sausage finger work great on both the screen and (amazingly) the keyboard :)
ReplyDelete@Andreas: If you're coming from the iPhone, then the touchscreen on the N900 would take some getting used to, as it's based on a completely different technology - pressure, vs presence (the iPhone's touchscreen uses the electric field created by your body). Theoretically, anyway, resistive touchscreens such as that on the N900 are more precise, although if you're not familiar with using them, that can swing the balance a bit. However, you can use a stylus, which is nice for some use-cases.
ReplyDelete@Ethan: I think "toy" was being used loosely, in the sense that geeks like shiny gadgets, rather than as a criticism of the device.