

Ask HN: Geek phone / Phone to work - drKarl

My girlfriend needs a new phone and she just told me that I could get a new one and she gets mine.<p>I have an HTC Magic, and my two options are Nokia N900 and HTC Desire.<p>The Desire is like the Magic, but with a faster (Snapdragon 1000Ghz) CPU and a newer version of the Android OS (2.1 and upgradeable to 2.2 Froyo) while I upgraded the Magic to 1.6 cyanogenmod, and it seems it will not be upgradeaable to 2.2.<p>As long as I've read<p>N900 pros:
   Hardware keyboard
   700+ Mb swap
   Great browser with flash support (although Android 2.2 features flash support as well)
   Maemo flavoured linux with out of the box linux shell
   Great 5Mpx Carl Zeiss Camera
   Great multi-tasking capabilities
   32Gb internal space + microSD
   Audio/Video codecs<p>N900 cons:
   Bug 6063 (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6063)
   Resistive screen
   Far Fewer apps than in Android Market
   No portrait mode without exploiting a bug
   Bigger
   600 Mhz CPU 
   Battery Life (Many people reports that it doesn't even last a full day)<p>When I first read about the Nokia N900 i got excited: a linux computer in my pocket!! But bug 6063, battery life and resistive screen and quite a deal breaker for me...<p>On the other hand, I have already used an Android phone for almost a year now, and yet it sometimes freezes and I have to reboot, and is sometimes slow and unresponsive the overall experience is quite satisfying, and I think that with a better hardware (like the Snapdragon CPU) and newer version of Android (like 2.2 Froyo vs 1.6 Donut which I am currently using) would addrees these problems.<p>Maybe the rumored Nokia 920 solves the aforementioned issues, but it is not even officially anounced yet, so we will have to wait. Moreover, Nokia N900 uses Maemo 5, and the next step in Nokia phones will be MeeGo (Nokia Maemo + Intel Moblin).<p>What do you think? Is the N900 worth a try?
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dagw
Everybody I know who has an N900 basically say it is an awesome pocket
computer that happens to come with a really crappy to mediocre phone app.
Basically if you mainly want to do nerdy linuxy things, and can live with
lackluster phone performance then get one. Otherwise you're likely to get
frustrated.

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pook
> (Snapdragon 1000Ghz) CPU

Heh. That is one hell of a phone.

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jacquesm
Maybe he should time-share it with a local university?

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drKarl
Or with the World Comunity Grid with Boincoid, the port of BOINC to Android

<http://boincoid.sourceforge.net/>

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jacquesm
That'll do wonders for your battery life. The OP probably has a portable
generator hooked up to his phone anyway so he probably doesn't care, but for
people with regular phones this might be an issue.

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drKarl
Of course it will drain battery life. I don't intend to use it, only point
that actually there is such application.

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jacquesm
You seem to have done an awful lot of research on the N900, why not put the
same amount of time in to researching the HTC Desire if it is going to be a
choice between those two ?

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drKarl
Yes, you're right, but if I take into consideration that I'm already an
Android user, and I like Android but in my current phone it is sometimes
unstable and slow, I guess that with a better CPU and updated firmware the
experience with the HTC Desire should be far better than with the HTC Magic.

I wish the N900 was usable but the cons seem to shadow the pros. I hope the
next generation Maemo/MeeGo phone is better.

