It has been a very busy week for the devs at the Maemo labs as they have been working out the kinks that would enable the N900 to access the vast resources of the Ovi Store.

As many may already know, the Ovi Store is a series of services and products offered by Nokia to all of its handset users. While Symbian devices have no problems with Ovi, the Maemo OS has not been designed to work directly with the Ovi store. An earlier patch this week enabled N900 users to access the Ovi for the first time.

Of course, several N900 users were disappointed as the updates and hot fixes for some of the bugs and glitches that have been bothering users of the device is still unheard of. It turns out that the folks at Nokia decided that the fixes be included in a second update that was also released this week; giving the N900 2 new updates to get.

The big question for many N900 fans however, is when they will actually get an official portrait mode for their mobile phone. Despite the success of the device, many users are still complaining about the inability to use their phone easily on one hand like other devices.

The Maemo operating system’s early beginnings with Nokia was met with much fanfare. Rumors that the largest mobile phone manufacturer would abandon long time partner Symbian in favor of the Maemo started to circulate (which was quickly cleared up by Nokia). When the N900 was finally launched, users easily found plenty of uses for the phone, mostly for entertainment. The device was well suited for many emulators that allowed it to play games on various systems and even the PC (some users are able to play Blizzard’s award-winning RTS Game “StarCraft” on their Nokia N900’s).

What happens to a mobile phone when it is used in everyday life? We place it in our pockets, slip it into our bags, leave device charged on top of a small desk or table, then store it in a drawer or maybe just leave it on the bedside table. In general, mobile devices do not live stressful lives. But even so, they are still prone to the usual accidents around the house and when travelling outside; mobile phones can fall off the desk or get scratched when they are slipped into a pocket full of loose change.

Recently, the folks at Tehkseven decided to see how well the N900 would do against the rigors of everyday life.

The Nokia N900 is the first Maemo phone by the manufacturer, it is pretty, expensive, and packed with plenty of useful features. It’s a great phone to have and own, and this is what happens when you are not too careful with it.

The first test Tehkseven did was a scratch test. The touch screen surface of mobile phones has to be resilient enough to withstand scratches, with or without protectors. This is because touch screen phones need to have the glass surface easily accessible -unlike non-touch screen phones that can afford otherwise. The N900 did nicely when scratched with a coin, suffering only mild scratches. When scratched with a key however, the glass surface gives and is easily scratched. The iPhone on the other has a very scratch resilient screen that can withstand the edge of a key.

The second test is an impact test that saw how N900 reacted to drop-impacts on various surfaces. The surfaces used were grass, gravel and concrete. As one might expect, the drop on grass did not affect the device at all. Gravel only gave the N900 superficial scratches. The concrete test however, gave the phone very noticeable scratches. Despite suffering plenty of external damage, the N900 still worked perfectly. Now Tehkseven advises viewers that they should invest in a good screen protector or even a basic case for the device.

People are curious about the new Maemo phone from Nokia, the N900. It’s an impressive piece of work and so far people seem to enjoy it. The ponly thing that is missing is the ability to use the device in portrait mode.

It is a drag really, imagine having to whip out your phone from your pocket and feel the awkward weight of the device because you are holding it sideways. Holding the phone from the center is not a natural movement as you may think as people would have to consciously grab the center area.

Anyway, while the lack of portrait does not make the phone any less amazing, people have been hoping to get that update or patch from Nokia that would finally enable the feature.

Meanwhile, they can always try this little glitch that some people found.

The application is originally not meant to change the actual phone orientation. But when closed, the script that keeps the screen rotated does not return the screen back to its original state; this then gives the user an unofficial portrait layout of the N900.

It is not an official function and the Maemo interface is obviously not yet designed to compensate for the altered view. But these current screens already look good, we can only imagine how interesting the official portrait mode will end up.

The Maemo is currently new to Nokia, but with the kind of reception it is getting, there is no doubt as to why Nokia has put a lot of faith in the OS, even to declare it as the OS for the N-series. This seemingly puts Symbian on the back seat of Nokia’s operations, but Symbian will still be used on the rest of Nokia’s upcoming mobile devices.

The N900 will not be around until the 4th of December (gasp).  Seriously, Nokia, why did you not make enough of this device? It appears that anyone clever enough to have pre-ordered the device earlier will be getting the phone today, or tomorrow, or some time before the December release date; which shows that Nokia produced enough N900 units for pre-order demands but not enough for a retail launch.

People seem to really want to get their hands on the Maemo –no surprise there, as this will be the debut of Nokia’s new OS, they also amped up the hardware for the device. For a retail price of 499 Pounds, this phone is an excellent deal just for the hardware alone.

The new N-Series phone (or rather, it’s OS) has been the subject of a controversy for quite some time now. Nokia has been a Symbian device manufacturer for awhile and the announcement that their N-Series line will fully adapt the Maemo by 2012 shows that they have made a commitment to the OS.

Rumors that Nokia would be dropping Symbian completely were spreading so badly that Nokia representative had to officially put a foot down. Their press release stated that they will continuously be supporting Symbian and will be using Symbian OS for their mobile devices. The Maemo will be used for devices that are more like “computers” –though Techradar discerns that the device is simply a smart phone (and a very good one at that). Either way, the demand for this Arm Cortex powered Maemo phone will not die down just because of a small delay –sales will hardly be affected by this; though it also does not do much for Nokia’s reputation either.

With Nokia’s X6 already having its fair share of delays (it better launch this Friday), the company needs to show a little more sense of timeliness with releases.

The Maemo-5 may be the newest operating system that Nokia is using, but they are putting a lot of faith into the OS as they have confirmed that they will be using Maemo for all their high end devices. Their new N-series entry, the N900 sports the Maemo 5 operating system instead of the usual Symbian.

Anyone who wants to get their hands on at this new phone should try getting Amazon’s offer for the device. For a mail-in rebate, buyers can get the new phone for a price of only 480 USD -a large discount over the original price of 649 USD. It is still far from being a budget device, but the N900 is anything but that.

Sporting an ARM Cortex A8 Processor, a 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen display, 32GB of internal memory and a 5 mega pixel camera, the N900 has all the marking of a high-end device.

In detail, the A8 processor has a scalable speed of 600MHz to 1GHz, which could potentially make it as good as the Snapdragon (though the Snapdragon is reported to be scalable beyond 1GHz).  On the other hand, the 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen is more of a standard for smart phones (it is yet to be said if the screen is multi touch).  Lastly, the camera (and the physical slide out keyboard) round up the device pretty well.

It is still too early to say if the Maemo has what it takes to go head to head with established OS and interfaces such as the Symbian S60, Android, HTC Sense, Zune and others. Still, for Nokia to adopt this OS for their high end line instead of Symbian is saying a lot. Most are looking forward to seeing the stability of the OS and the number of applications that will be made for it. It the Maemo gets a lot of app support, then it might just succeed.

I perfectly understand Sony Ericsson. Over a month ago, they announced that they are moving on from the Windows Mobile platform to use other operating systems. It’s a good choice, since Windows Mobile is pretty clunky and slow. Sony Ericsson now has an Android in the works. That is what I would call progress.

Nokia on the other hand, just announced that they are working on a new operating system, the Maemo and the N900 that will use this operating system, and it is already on its way to UK. This should be good news, if only Nokia has been more thorough with their development strategies.

The N900 is a landscape oriented mobile phone that cannot support rotation, yet. Now, this is a minor thing; in the scope of software development, that is the least of your worries. The catch was that Nokia themselves announced that they themselves wanted rotation for this mobile phone.

I say, that is the most absurd thing ever. If they wanted it, they should have held off the production and taken the time to put that in. Because if they just shrugged that off and put it aside, who knows what other features were supposed to be present in the device? Nokia has had decades of manufacturing experience, and they would know that if they feel like putting something in, then there is a really good reason why they feel compelled to do so.

But that may be assuming too much, what we now know for a fact is that Nokia current holds two different operating platforms. Obviously, no company needs more than one. Maybe we are about to say goodbye to the Symbian OS pretty soon, but if that is the case, Nokia should think twice before scrapping a decent and reliable operating system.

Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia have reportedly just delayed the launch of their new Maemo 5 powered handset, the Nokia N900. The internet tablet device was due to arrive before the end of this month, however it now seems that it wont be available until sometime in November, or possibly even later. The November date appears on the company’s UK website however, which is a good sign.

Peter Schneider, head of Nokia’s Maemo Marketing, stated in a post on talk.maemo; “The Nokia N900 is a great example of what we and the open source community have been able to achieve with Maemo software. We are working closely with open source developers and for example, at the Maemo Summit in October, we loaned 300 pre production units to get more feedback from the community. This feedback is extremely important to us and as such we also want to provide the best user experience with the Nokia N900. We expect it to start shipping during November 2009.” – We will be satisfied with this provided we actually to get a relatively impressive and bug free device – if we’re spotting issues left, right and centre however, there will be plenty of angry consumers wondering what Nokia actually achieved during the delay.

Before now we were expecting to be able to purchase the Nokia N900 mobile phone by the end of October, so the delay is bad, but at least it isn’t 2010. If you want to pre order it and live in the United Kingdom you can do so on the company’s website, where the date is set as; “Tentative delivery date: November 2009″.

Time will tell whether or not the wait is worth it, here’s hoping the November release is not further pushed back.

Moving Closer

The goal of making personal computer functionality totally mobile has just gotten a big push forward thanks to the new offer from Nokia. The Nokia N900 is one mobile phone that is allowing the industry to move closer to the destination of fully integrating personal computers to handheld devices. This integration might be a long way of but at least the industry is moving in the right direction. For now, the type of experience that the Nokia N900 is offering will be the next best thing to a laptop and that is saying something about this gadget.

Its Design and Other Features

The Nokia N900 design is fairly simple. It is a black slider phone that slides horizontally and has a 110.9 × 59.8 × 18 mm body. Its full QWERTY keypad helps in typing for emails, instant messages and SMS. Its 3.5-inch touchscreen has an 800 x 480-pixel display and also allows for smooth viewing of photos, videos and WebPages. It also comes with a great multimedia player that supports a variety of file types (both photos and videos), a wide range of data and network support, 5.0-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera, and a host of other applications usually found in other smartphones.

Its Computer-like Functions

Much like a computer, the Nokia N900 has multitasking capabilities as well as fluid mobile internet browsing. This is done with the use of the Linux-powered Meamo Software, which facilitates the multitasking needs of the users. What makes this multitasking feature above par is the use of the OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration and ARM Cortex-A8 processor, which makes launching of applications fast and avoids hanging or lagging of any one application during its use. The Mozilla browser, together with the AdobeFlash 9.4 also gives a good mobile browsing experience.

Truly, Nokia has made a mobile phone that is as close to personal computer functionality as today’s technology allows. Bur if this is any indication, Nokia will be soon launching faster, and better technologies further decreasing the gap between smartphones and personal computers.

Nokia N900 Links:

• Nokia N900 Videos
• Nokia N900 Sim Free
• Nokia N900 Pay As You Go