Technology. Without Error

After I signed up for a Nokia N900 demo from WOMWorld/Nokia, I decided I didn’t want another of those long full length gadget reviews on the device. But thanks to them, I have loads of links to point you to. You will find them at the end of this long post which is more of a debate on whether the N900 is actually what you need (or rather, what I need).

Let’s start from the beginning, and that’s when I started waiting for my device, checking the DHL transit status page every hour. This C&H strip pretty much sums up what I was going through.

And at last, after numerous calls to the DHL, I was given possession(temporarily) of the N900.

I switched on the device and it welcomes me with the familiar Nokia animation. After some initial settings, the device quickly loads the device’s 4 customizable homescreens. The animations are quick and interesting and the whole interface takes seconds to get used to. Once you get the hang of clicking around empty spaces to exit any screen, that is. Multitasking works like a dream and its perhaps even better than on computers. The keyboard is really finger friendly and after a few hours, it really makes me forget that I am on a handheld device. I never had any complaints with the N97′s keyboard so I guess I get used to keyboards fast. The touch screen despite being resistive, is responsive and works like a charm. The default Micro browser displays websites at desktop quality and I would go so far to say that it is probably the best browser on any mobile device. The Fennec build wasn’t too fast and I found it a bit buggy so I decided to stick to the default browser. The permanent landscape mode (with the exception of when it gets into the phone mode) takes a bit getting used to, but after the N97, that wasn’t one bit hard.

It’s so hard not to review a device when writing about a gadget. I guess I got carried away so you can ignore the boring review above. I should start of by clarifying that even though WOM stands for world of mobiles, the N900 is not a mobile phone. It is an internet tablet, with a mobile phone feature. This means that I wouldn’t really miss the SIM card inside the N900, but then I’d need it for mobile internet access anyway. The device has an inbuilt chat client which integrates all your IM contacts to your phonebook (Here we go again, I am try hard not to review the N900) So, getting back to what I was talking about. The N900 is really good at being a handheld computer which runs Linux, because that’s what it is. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t good at handling calls or messages. But I found that the symbian platform of course makes for a better phone any day. But I’m really confused on this, I think threaded messaging is the way sms has to go. And, the N900 does that wonderfully well. Call clarity and reception are at par with the Symbian cousin as well. I was really confused about the N900, because it was a technological marvel, but yet it wasn’t really there. It fell short of perfection somewhere on the way. Now if only it could do this.

One more reason where the N900 loses out, are applications. Symbian’s been around for long. And the iPhone’s got a good(and definitely better) app store. A device is only as powerful as the applications which exploit it. True, the N900 has the power of the command line and is quite a geek friendly phone. It does an awesome job of integrating the IM client into the phone and witter’s a good app for twitter, but that’s about it. Gravity is an application that really reveals how powerful the symbian platform really is. If every Symbian app were that good, then  symbian would be the no.1 OS in the world. I really loved this battery application on the N900 which would display how I ran out of charge on my device. The N900 is built on the linux platform which provides it with truly extensive list of applications, and the application manager is truly a pleasure to work with.  But there is something about the applications that I, as a symbian lover miss. The N900 never made me “want” to install applications on it, something which I would do everyday with the Symbian. If I could, I would install every application every made for Symbian on my mobile phones. So the problem must be my love for the aging platform and also that the Maemo felt very amateur when it came to apps. Maybe I’m so used to signing applications and going through all those messy screens of installation that I find N900 a bit too smooth for comfort.

The internet browser, the quick snappy animations and responsive screen must be reasons why I should’ve loved the N900. But then, the internet browser is completely useless in India where we still don’t have 3G. There I was forced to use it over wifi, with great results. Over EDGE, the N900 bores you to death making you wait for the true internet to be delivered. The snappy animations. awesome interface and responsive touch screen all are reasons why I love the N900 still. I’m glad I didn’t really make this post right away and procrastinated a lot. Because, now I can link to this post as to why I really still love the symbian platform.

But the main reason I gave up on the N900 was its bulk. I found that the N900 was almost as bulky as the N95, if not more. I found it really a bit too bulky for my pockets after the N97. Maybe its because I don’t really carry even a bag around with me.

Links to “real” N900 reviews:

Joshua Wong considers the N900 as his Netbook replacement. Now this is something I can relate to, considering the N900 is more of an internet tablet than a mobile phone.

One authoritative review on the N900 is from @shivaranjan

Another one has to be the iPhone vs. N900 battle at Techpinas

It was this review for the opera 10 browser that made me think about it. Thanks to the proliferation of apis, desktop and mobile applications which have made my devices completely internet enabled devices, I now wonder what I would the browser for.

1. I check my email. But I can check that using IMAP on my mobile phone or via Thunderbird on my desktop.
2. Facebook. I get an email notification, that’s when I need to check the facebook page. I have the facebook app on my mobile, which does quite a decent job, and even Gravity supports fb. I don’t use seesmic, so on my laptop, I need to use the browser.
3. News that which twitter hasn’t delivered, I need a browser for. Of course I could use RSS feeds, but I find that most of the RSS feeds for newspapers pretty much crowd up my reader with several items which will remain unread forever. So I do need a browser, or I could just read the newspaper!
4. Twitter. Gravity on my phone and Destroy twitter on my laptop.
5. Reference. Most of my reference is when I don’t exactly have access to a laptop or don’t have time to get to it. Which means, my mobile search tool is what I use for reference. It still uses the default browser on my mobile though.
6. Google reader. Gravity does a decent job, but I still would like to see images and links on my mobile phone. Now this is something I definitely need a browser for.
7. Blogging. Thanks to posterous, all I now need to do is to send an email and I have a blog post.

My laptop is all about the browser. In fact, the browser is on the startup application list. So if I don’t need the browser, I don’t need the laptop?

After writing this post I realized that Gravity for S60 is becoming a really important application in my mobile arsenal.

I have tried to take an extreme view of certain sites in here. You must’ve noticed that I still need a browser for many tasks, but the point is that I’m soon beginning to see myself using my mobile more than my laptop, and my applications more than the browser.  Now if only my mobile phone had more screen real estate and a bigger keyboard.

You need to edit an image real quick and you are working either on a netbook or someone else’s machine which doesn’t have a copy of your favourite photoshop. Or maybe you never had photoshop in the first place.
Adobe Photoshop has become the premier digital one stop solution for image editing and it should come as no surprise that more than a few would have attempted to ride the photoshop success wave with their own clones.

The first clone which I have been using for a while is the Aviary Phoenix online image editor. Mind you, this has even support for layers and can handle almost anything you might want to get done with an image. Its completely on the cloud (and free as well) and all you need is your trusty Firefox (or any other browser) by your side to edit your image. I guess there’s a sign up required but that’s not so cumbersome. Being a web app has its advantages, such as being able to capture any webpage easily and Aviary even has a firefox addon. Aviary has a complete suite of applications for every possible form of image editing requirement online.

The second is a very light weight application called the Artweaver. Now artweaver is a fully functional free image editor. Users of photoshop would find themselves completely at home because of the interface. What’s more, it even supports export/import as Photoshop format files (PSDs).
The Artweaver interface (I love GITS!!)

Artweaver even has a portable version which you can run off a USB key. You can further enhance artweaver with a number of plugins (which you can find on the download page), you even get to extend it to use XnView, the freeware image viewer.

Both these applications would not be able to replace Photoshop for power users. But when it comes to basic image editing, they get the job done quite well!

Scribefire’s blogging extension for firefox was featured on thunderror.com a while ago.

I always had the press this bookmarklet on my bookmarks list, but had never bothered to use it until now. But I soon came to realize what a valuable tool it was. Instead of sending those weird bits and pieces of the internet to your tumblelog or your twitter, why not blog about them on your primary blog? Twitter as always has been a major distraction to my blogging activities. So get back to microblogging on your own blog. Thanks to Press this!

The bookmarklet allows you to post to your wordpress blog from anywhere on the web, which is as good as scribefire. All it takes is a click off the button. Like something you see on the web? Click on the bookmarklet and share it with your blog visitors.

I know most of you would already have used this tool if you own, or have owned a WP blog at some point of time. But this post is for all those people who wish to come back and blog more than they tweet!

If you have a wordpress blog, go to your tools page and you should find your press this button right there, waiting for you!

Using Chrome? Well..I do..since I find it to fast and light and runs as smooth as a browser should. I love my firefox too…but there are certain things which Chrome is good at. And security/privacy is not one of them….

Every install of Google Chrome comes with a unique ID which identifies the user. Removing it is not easy without help… After all..doesn’t Google already know enough about you through your gmails, indexed chats, your browsing and search history, what you buy, your maps, your photos (if you use Picasa) and they already have the earth mapped up to them…

UnChrome promises to do just that, to remove the unique ID (Just don’t forget to close chrome before u do it)…If not anything, atleast their Icon looks cool!