June 2010
This was a post to test out my new n900 handheld linux computer tablet & smartphone.
Since originally posting this, Nokia merged Maemo (the n900 OS/interface) with Intel’s Moblin, to become MeeGo. Then Nokia withdrew from MeeGo, and teamed up with Microsoft to make Windows Mobile the platform for the generation of their mobile devices.
Bye bye Nokia, I used your phones for many years now, so it is sad to say goodbye.
The n900 and Maemo was a great device, being a proper palm-held computer and mobile phone wrapped into one. The biggest downside was that the screen was too small to use effectively.
November 2011
I gave up on it in the end, because Nokia showed little commitment to the device, the OS, or the users; it was one of those technological dead-ends with brilliant potential. I went back to a Symbian device somebody gave me, and now have a Motorola Xoom. The tablet form is great, you can see what you are doing. The downside to Android is that it is not a fully-fledged OS, and you are stuck with a fairly limited (albeit easy to use) interface. You cannot ‘get under the bonnet’ in the way you can with Linux. So, in some ways it follows the pattern of Windows, locking users out in the way it did with Plug-n-Pray, and gives you an embedded OS with limited configurability;; like Linux it access to apps is easy, but for anything useful beyond a browser, you need to pay up. Unlike Windows software, the apps are pretty cheap. I find it astonishing that printing is not built in to the OS, and you have to buy third-party software to allow printing – I know of no other OS that has ever done that, and TBH feel it is a bit of cheek. An Office Suite yes, printing no. Cables to access both the USB and HDMI ports are not supplied, they are non-standard, and they have to be bought extra, which is also a bit of cheek considering the cost of the device. Why skimp on cables, or having standard ports? Mean, Motorola.
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