Android or Maemo(n900)?

[TheShader]

Right guys, actually I checked the differences between the two OS's a bit... But I have the possibility to buy a new phone soon(If I have enough money of course:)) and I wanted to get some "fresh" opinions about this. It's been a while since the Nokia n900 with Maemo is out, I waited for the price to get lower and my school to end.

3 important things I'm looking in a phone are:
-A mechanical qwerty keyboard.
-A good CPU (That's what confuses me about the 600mhz n900)
-It should be open, I should be able to tweak it and write some applications for it for both fun and learning stuff. This is what makes me prefer Maemo to Android. (I also want to tell that I don't care about "hacking"/jailbreaking the phone to get all the features. It's my phone, no one can judge or restrict me to what I do to it.)

Well in other words, I really like that Maemo is very open. But the 600mhz cpu on the n900 looks kinda slow compared to the new Android phones, isn't it? Also Android had more applications and support than the n900. Maybe for me, the Android would be "open-source" enough? Please correct me if I'm wrong somewhere. I really need some advices before I get determined for a phone.

For Maemo, the choice is Nokia n900 which I can find for about 500-550$ here. I got no choices with Android so I would appreciate if you can suggest me something at the same price of the n900.

Thank you!:popcorn:

[v1ad]

android is in the same range prob even cheaper. i would go with the android. a lot more features, easy to root. after rooting even more features... runs on a linux OS. u can't go wrong. after rooting you have all the access you need.

just rooted my sprint epic yesterday. wifi tethering, custom roms.. and more.

[nnamdi]

awesome phone i must say i dont have the money for that yet but waiting for the price to fall....

[nnamdi]

sorry did not suggest if you have the money for n900 please go for that you would not regret it i promise man....

[v1ad]

also what phone company are you going with.

[TheShader]

Well I have no clue about Android phones. It would be really good if someone can suggest me a model. And about the operator, I live in Turkey and it's hard to find a good Android/Maemo phone with a contract. I will probably go after the black market aka the "second hand market" where I'll get the phone without warranty and no contract with an operator.

[TheShader]

Umm bump? I think I'll go with the n900 if I can't find a Android alternative to it. But I don't want to regret it later so it would be enough to tell me there's no big difference at all or tell me to wait a little bit more :confused:

[gnomeuser]

I have the N900 and it is a piece of sh*t. The screen is uncomfortable in use and requires a lot of force. The OS is terrible in every respect, unstable, poorly maintained, buggy as all hell and slow.

E.g. Just the other day for no reason what so ever it stopped picking up my wifi network. Even basic functionality like this is bound to fall out. Nokia so far have no idea why it happened. Likewise your services such as Skype (it's primary redeeming feature is being allowed Skype over 3G with good integration via Telepathy) are sure to silently fail in the background as you change networks, say like.. leaving your house.

Your battery life is measured in hours, if you actually use the device, if not it can last a day or so.

If you can avoid it, do, it is a terrible phone. There is nearly nothing good to say about it. In fact I am looking forward to the day I can replace it with the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Calling it an atrocious failure as a product would be an insult to the word.

They now try to get around all these issues by calling it a hacker phone, which I take it is Finnish for "unmaintained, non-functional, expensive junk".

Friends do not let friends buy the N900. Was it not for the fact that it cost me 4000 DKK (~735 USD) I would have sunk it into the deepest part of the ocean by now just to distance myself from it's crapiness.

Nokia should be ashamed.

[matthewbpt]

I have the N900 and it is a piece of sh*t. The screen is uncomfortable in use and requires a lot of force. The OS is terrible in every respect, unstable, poorly maintained, buggy as all hell and slow.

E.g. Just the other day for no reason what so ever it stopped picking up my wifi network. Even basic functionality like this is bound to fall out. Nokia so far have no idea why it happened. Likewise your services such as Skype (it's primary redeeming feature is being allowed Skype over 3G with good integration via Telepathy) are sure to silently fail in the background as you change networks, say like.. leaving your house.

Your battery life is measured in hours, if you actually use the device, if not it can last a day or so.

If you can avoid it, do, it is a terrible phone. There is nearly nothing good to say about it. In fact I am looking forward to the day I can replace it with the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Calling it an atrocious failure as a product would be an insult to the word.

They now try to get around all these issues by calling it a hacker phone, which I take it is Finnish for "unmaintained, non-functional, expensive junk".

Friends do not let friends buy the N900. Was it not for the fact that it cost me 4000 DKK (~735 USD) I would have sunk it into the deepest part of the ocean by now just to distance myself from it's crapiness.

Nokia should be ashamed.
I'm disappointed you feel this way about the N900, it's definitely the best phone I've ever had, and though I admit the OS has a few bugs, it's nowhere near the level you describe in my experience. Mine works pretty fast, the screen responsiveness doesn't cause me any problems (it's resistive so it does need a slight push rather than just a touch like capacitive screens). My services never fail in the background as I switch connection. Battery life doesn't bother me, full day with heavy usage, two days with light usage, but I put it on to charge every night anyway. Also has a great community as well (maemo.org). And now someone's even ported Android to it, which is almost fully functional (Wifi and 3G Data work, but mic doesn't work yet for voice calls), so if I'm bored I sometimes boot to Android and play some of the many games available for Android. The awesome thing about N900 and Maemo is that it harnesses the power of linux desktop on a phone.

Matt

[pwnst*r]

sorry did not suggest if you have the money for n900 please go for that you would not regret it i promise man....

How can you even say that he would not regret it? Have you personally used the N900 yourself?

[TheShader]

gnomeuser, matthewbpt thank you very much for sharing your experiences. :) However, I need a good Android alternative to compare. As I said, if I can't find a Android phone in the same price range with n900 and which has a mechanical qwerty keyboard(this is very important) I would probably go after the n900. I'm also worried about the upcoming successor of the n900. It would have Meego which would be different than the Debian based Maemo, which means it may be hard to get support in the future about Maemo.

[Merk42]

gnomeuser, matthewbpt thank you very much for sharing your experiences. :) However, I need a good Android alternative to compare. As I said, if I can't find a Android phone in the same price range with n900 and which has a mechanical qwerty keyboard(this is very important) I would probably go after the n900. I'm also worried about the upcoming successor of the n900. It would have Meego which would be different than the Debian based Maemo, which means it may be hard to get support in the future about Maemo.

I have no idea what would be available to you but HTC is soon coming out with the Desire Z (the T-Mobile G2 in the US). It has a keyboard and comes with stock Android (as in no UI on top of it).

[gnomeuser]

gnomeuser, matthewbpt thank you very much for sharing your experiences. :) However, I need a good Android alternative to compare. As I said, if I can't find a Android phone in the same price range with n900 and which has a mechanical qwerty keyboard(this is very important) I would probably go after the n900. I'm also worried about the upcoming successor of the n900. It would have Meego which would be different than the Debian based Maemo, which means it may be hard to get support in the future about Maemo.

There are a few hardware keyboard Android phones out there, the Droid/Milestone being the most famous. You can likely pick a first generation Droid up cheaply now that Droid 2 is out. I hear good things about this device and I was honestly looking at it when I bought my HTC Hero, sadly it didn't come with a Danish keyboard (the N900 is the only Linux powered smartphone I know of with a slide out keyboard and a correct DK layout).

The N900 hardware is pretty decent (though the plug placements is an aspect so shameful I am shocked Nokia is behind it), the keyboard is excellent, definitely a step up from the N810 which was already very pleasant to type on. That is why I am looking forward to seeing what the NITDroid project can come up with (they are porting Android on the N900 and the progress so far is impressive). I am hoping that Android on the N900 is a winning combination for a phone but ever since seeing the Samsung Tab I have to admit I am getting more and more interested in replacing both my netbook and my phone with it.

I would recommend looking for a used Droid 1, they should be available cheaply. The Droid 2 has a much better keyboard but the platform is I hear harder locked down which I gather isn't desirable given your described requirements. Also there are many excelent ROMs out for the Droid. Several of my friends have this phone and are very happy with it.

As for MeeGo, till it is feature complete it is hard to test. Having followed the MeeGo development a bit I am some what concerned with things such as their whack-a-mole approach to power saving which seems like it would scale very poorly.

[pwnst*r]

Currently, the Galaxy S with a keyboard is the Epic 4G. That is a really REALLY nice phone.

[TheShader]

I've heard of Motorola Droid before, and it's really good. It has a capacitive screen which I'm sure will beat n900's resistive screen and has multi-touch support. I have a Sony Ericsson P1 at the moment and the resistive screen is not so comfortable to use. Are you happy with the touch screen of your n900? The Motorola is slightly more expensive here and a bit harder to find, also the storage of it is less than the n900's 32GB internal drive. However it's Android and has a better screen. Both are good actually :)

Edit: I saw that the Motorola Milestone has a bootloader preventing the user from using a custom ROM on the device. But it won't be a problem if there's a way to get past that somehow...

[mikropolip]

@TheShader
I've been a long term user of iPhone and now I have n900, which is a great device. Androids and iPhones are toys compared to it.

If you are a Linux power user, Unix programmer or system administrator, this phone is definitely for you.

@gnomeuser
n900 is, first and foremost, a tool, and then a phone.
If you don't understand the benefits of a full blown GNU/Linux system on your phone, you would be probably happy with any average toy-phone.

Yes, and recent software update fixed a lot of usability issues in Maemo.