Nokia N900 Review: Operating System Experience

Operating System Experience
Rating: 2 out of 10.  Horrible.

The system functions well enough switching between applications and scrolling between screen, but that's where the fun ends kids.  The speed of the operating system is comparable to the iPhone and the Touch, but the iPhone is slightly better at responding, and by better I mean more consistent.  What annoys me about the Meamo is that animations sometimes are 'jagged', they seem to be interrupted by background applications, transforming a soothing transition animation into a jarring cover your eyes type experience.  A small quibble perhaps, but these slight little annoyances start to becomes a little large once you get jaded with the rest of the system.

Every application is very different, and it gives the OS a feeling like things were cobbled together.  Many of the applications (dare i say all?) are ports from old (some times really old) applications, and it some of these feels like a linux machine.

The control panel options are inane, giving you no options for the simplest of tasks.  After a few months, I still don't know how to do the simplest things on the phone.  I have no idea how to disable the internet connection while keeping other wireless functionality on, or disable the phone while the bluetooth and internet is on.  The organization scheme is really perplexing to me personally.  For instance, how do you change vibration?  Well, it depends, part of vibration is controlled under 'profiles' for some reason, part of it is controlled under 'display' for some reason.  Oh, and you change your ring tone and other sounds under the 'Sounds' options!... Crazy!... no wait, I mean... you can change your ring-tone and sounds under the 'Profile' options.  Remember, Profile means "Sound Settings + 1/2 of the Vibration Settings".  The profiles?  Oh, that's actually accessed exiting to the desktop, clicking on the top of the screen, and selection another option for "Profile".  GOOD.  TIMES.

The text/entry mode in the Maemo browser let you switch from 'click and drag' to 'text select', but sadly, none of the other applications work this way.  Many applications you cannot select text because you can only click and drag.

I'm not sure the OS supports the most basic of operations, like talking with other computers.  There is no network file browser.  There is no FTP browser.  You cannot access any of your files on network shares.  In 2001 I bought my first PDA, an iPAQ with a plug-in wifi card.  That PDA could access file shares.  Almost a decade later, this phone is really a huge step backwards in terms of functionality.


And then there are the applications... (see next review)...