Gizmodo 
Enter your username and password.
Tip your editors:
Editorial Director:
Brian Lam | | Twitter
Editor:
Jason Chen
| AIM | Twitter
Features Editor:
Wilson Rothman
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editors:
Jesus Diaz
| AIM | Twitter
Mark Wilson, Reviews
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Matt Buchanan
| AIM | Twitter
Adam Frucci
| Twitter
Sean Fallon
| Twitter
Jack Loftus
| Twitter
John Herrman
| Twitter
Dan Nosowitz
Chris Mascari
Kat Hannaford
| Twitter
Rosa Golijan
| Twitter
Chris Jacob
Columnist:
Brendan I. Koerner
Interns:
Don Nguyen
Kyle VanHemert
Comment Account Questions:
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/18/09
12/18/09
Give me an updated pre on Att without the slight lag Web OS desperately needs to get rid of (which is why the next firmware sounds magical) and ill happily leave my iphone for it. I think in a world where iphone's ui is aging a bit and 50 million new android phones make it harder to have one standout, palm still has the chance to be a breath of fresh air if they can weather the storm
12/18/09
I fundementally believe that if given the choice most people would prefer to buy an unsubsidized phone, and that if most people did we would see a big drop in service prices. But right now the service providers are trying desperately to hang on to the power they think they have, and controlling the phones is the their last stand really. If Google goes direct to consumers, others will have to follow suit including Palm. So maybe Palm should be ahead of the race this time instead of pulling in third or fourth or dead as they have done in the past.
12/16/09
Microsoft took 10 years and 2 complete rewrites to make a viable mobile OS, while Palm was selling PDAs and phones that did what people wanted.
Palm haters make me laugh. Plenty of people have made these same stupid pronouncements about Apple, RIM, and even Motorola.
12/16/09
12/16/09
12/17/09
12/17/09
12/17/09
12/15/09
12/15/09
Sidenote: every dang time I see your profile picture, I think of this.
12/15/09
On a lighter note...oh man.
Agreed.
12/16/09
Video camera function would be a good thing to pimp right now too. And better power management/speed-step for the processor. Alternatively, a mature IDE that can crank the apps out.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
Now we'll get people saying that out of the 1000 apps available for the Pre, 50% are fart apps, or whatever such nonsense.
Karma.
For the record I could care less about brands/platforms/carriers/fart apps.
11/25/09
11/25/09
I see palm is allowing more scandalous apps than Apple. (unless there is a queef app for the iPhone that I don't know about)
11/25/09
11/25/09
wow.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
I am sooo not watching that.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
A) A cheapass contract phone which while not having a huge amount of minutes has unlimited texting and 3G internet as well as free calls to anyone on the same provider.
B) Has Skype and facebook integrated. Skype is a big draw for me as I can talk to most people I know on it.
I was thinking of getting an iPhone but eh it's not that worthwhile. Don't get me wrong it's still a great phone but you can do a similar job with an iPod Touch and a 3G mifi for a lot less money which is what I'm doing instead.
Depends how much you value a compass, GPS and a camera. Out of those I think I'll only miss the camera and only barely.
If I do pick up a proper smartphone when my contracts up I'll probably go android. I couldn't justify an iPhone after purchasing a 3rd Gen iPod Touch.
11/24/09
Incidentally, that's what's in my pockets right now (Pre, Droid, 3GS, N900)...
Ah the joys of review units!
11/24/09
And Amazon has yet to ship my n900 :(
11/24/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/26/09
Otherwise the N900 hardware wins in every way. Better primary camera (5 MP with Zeiss lens and dual-LED flash), higher screen resolution (800x480), hardware keyboard, standard micro USB data/power port, micro-SDHC card slot (in addition to the built-in 32 GB of storage), stereo speakers, secondary front-facing camera (VGA), built-in kick stand!
So how the iPhone 3GS hardware better than the N900 again?
I have both devices, and own the iPhone 3GS (the N900 is a review unit), so I'm just being objective here.
11/26/09
Out of all the things you listed, many actually make the N900 WORSE like a crappy hardware keyboard. Only 2 things are better: the screen resolution, and the 1.8 extra megapixels.
It is not worth using such an inferior phone with a pathetic crippled OS (maemo cant even use portrait mode) when the only advantages are more screen resolution (with an awful resistive touch screen) and a SLIGHTLY better camera.
Summary:
-The OS is literally the worst, even windows mobile 6 is better
-The hardware keyboard practically doubles the size and slows down your typing
-It has the worst type of touchscreen, a pathetic, atrocious resistive one
11/27/09
Have you tried the hardware keyboard on the N900? Obviosuly not, since it's pretty decent.
I generally avoid using the flash on any camera (except for fill), but saying it's useless is a bit much...
It's nice to be able to copy a music or videos from the 32 GB of storage to a friend's micro-SD card for them to enjoy on their phone without using Bluetooth or needing a computer - I've done it!
The front-facing camera is useful for video chat software (like Skype) - most people just don't know it's even possible to do this on a phone and assume a laptop is required.
Maemo is one of the best OS's I've ever used on any phone, and I've reviewed quite a few (check my blog: [tnkgrl.wordpress.com]) .
Maemo is pretty much a full-on version of Debian linux with a fast and intuitive touch UI sitting on top.
There's not technical limitation why the UI mostly landscape (the phone app and the picture viewer automatically switch to portrait, BTW).
It's just that the N900 is the successor to the N810/N800/770 Internet tablets, and as such is primarily meant to be used 2-handed in landscape.
Better than Windows Mobile? Are you kidding me? Clearly you don't know what you are talking about. Maemo is a gem.
Have you tried surfing the web with N900? It's pretty much full-on Firefox with Flash 9 support. Name another phone that can do this.
The resistive touchscreen is a hug mistake, I agree :)
11/27/09
Front facing camera is useful for skype and stuff, but not useful on a phone. Talking to someone while holding the camera filming your face is not very easy.
Maemo is fast, maybe even a little slick, but it is like a shiny yet EMPTY box. By that I mean, it has very little features in comparison to phones from better manufacturers.
Yes, it technologically can support portrait, but WHY DIDNT THE MORONS AT NOKIA ENABLE IT!?!?
Maemo is a gem... In the roughest of the rough. Windows Mobile is far superior. Running Maemo is like running a stripped out debian, and running windows mobile is like running FULL windows on your phone, complete with file explorer and right click.
Firefox is worse than safari, the only advantage is flash.
By the way, before I saw the flaws, I REALLY WANTED THIS PHONE, it was only after experiencing the drawbacks that I figured I will wait a revision or two.
In conclusion:
In a couple years, when Maemo has been outfitted with all modern features, and they put in a capacitive touch screen, I am sure this will be a wonderful phone to have. I am looking forward to the n91o or whatever they call the next version, which I prey will have capacitive :)
11/27/09
I'm done discussing this with you. I love my iPhone 3GS and my N900 and my Droid and my Pre, all for different reasons!
The smarphone world is clearly getting divided into 2 camps: OS X, Android, WebOS and Maemo at the top, Symbian, BlackBerry OS and Windows Mobile at the bottom.
If you can't see that, I don't have to convince you. Cheers :)
11/28/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
I am sure you are some obsessive apple hater, because otherwise you could easily see how superior the iphone is:
-Faster (amazingly smooth transitions etc.)
-Better UI (gets you there faster and easier)
-Better hardware (glass screen is unbeatable, androids often lack capacitive touch, headphone jack, etc...)
-Built in ipod is SO convenient, one less thing in your pocket especially if you dont use it every day.
-More apps (MUCH more)
-Unbeatable customer service, they replace broken products with brand new on the spot.
-The list is practically infinite!
11/25/09
I find the iPhone is a very right-brained design. Simple, intuitive, a lot of UI extras, like the little screen rotation, the browser is smoother to zoom and scroll. It's not always faster than Android, though. The iPhone uses animations and GUI shortcuts to keep your mind occupied for the few seconds it takes to load the next view, for example, the animated screen rotation. For the record, I've noticed the Hero has a more responsive touch screen.
The Hero is very left-brained. There's a bigger learning curve, more multi-tasking going on, more settings, more core features. If I were to recommend a phone for my 55 year old mother, it would not be this phone. All in all, the phone is beautifully done. Once you get the hang of it, you'll find there's more to it than the iPhone can offer. Not only is it multitasking, but the apps and tasks communicate with eachother. The albums, contact list, email, and messaging programs (not to mention the SenseUI 'Scenes') are seemlessly integrated with flikr, facebook, and Twitter.
Just to go on, Android 2.0 + SenseUI is expected in the future for my Hero. From everything I've seen, it's snappier, better broswing, better default programs, and so on. It seems to completely 'fix' everything the iFans have been boasting over.