N900 Software support is shockingly bad!!!

Question

Nokia. Why release a phone with no/very little software support? It's been about 4 months since the release and it's still not much better!!!
I replaced my Iphone with the N900 because it's meant to be an Iphone beater, but the truth is looking sadly the opposite.
Nokia Map loader is not working and the PC Suite has bugs and it's complicated having to switch between PC Suite mode and Mass Storage mode. What's happened to my free Navigation?
Come on Nokia this is embarrasing, I absolutely love this phone and I want to recommed it to my friends, but with the software situation that's not a possibility.

Answer 1

N900 Personal Review
Hi all, I would like to make some comments about the New Nokia N900.
Shortly the phone SUCKS!
I have been a Nokia user for about 10 years, and for the past 3 I have been using the NSeries, I started 3 years ago with the N95, then moved’ on to the N96 an now as you can see I have had the chance to use the N900 even though my original plan was the N97. The reason for this is that I contacted my provider (T-Mobile UK) as I was due an upgrade, and was told that they didn’t do this handset directly, but I could get this phone if I did the upgrade though Carphone Warehouse (Don’t even get me started on them) any way I contacted Carphone Warehouse and told them that I was due an upgrade and wanted the N97, the idiot on the phone started telling me that the N900 was much better and that it was faster and all. I told him I would have a look into it my self, at least to read some comparisons online. After having read the comparison on several sites, on “paper” the N900 sounded much better, faster processor (N97 is about 400Mhz, N900 is about 600Mhz), more RAM, the use of a Linux based OS and so on, sounded great, I accepted the upgrade with 14 days exchange if not happy.
Well I have used the phone for about 3 days, and let me tell you what I think…
The device is not as fast as people say, you would not think that there is about 200Mhz speed difference between them and that the N900 has double of the RAM then the N97. Yes it does allow you to open several tasks at once, but the CPU drain off more demanding applications is definitely noticeable, for example when running a YouTube page in the background with a video playing and opening other apps, the music temporarily stops just like the N95/N96 did/do.
The fact that it’s a new mobile technology makes it also not very popular right now and there is lack of application unlike the Symbian OS used by the N97, even Nokia them self are not up to speed, the OVI map on the N900 is version 1 point something and is really useless, unlike version 3.03 (3.04 BETA out too) of the N97 (don’t forget that I am using the N97 as a Symbian comparison).
The firmware upgrade is very complex for general users, this includes having to use a Flashing Tool and command lines, I had some issues at the beginning and I am an IT technician. The NSU (Nokia Software Update) didn’t detect the new version available even though the phone was delivered with version 1.x and the version available was 3.2x.
Even the phone “Hard Reset” is complicated, once again you have to use the Flashing Tool and download an other file called EMMC that should technically erase the 32GB memory, but be were, after having used this file my contact were still there and some other information were there too such as my OVI e-mail account and my SKYPE account details, there was also a file from the sketch software that had not been deleted and had to do so manually.
Talking about SKYPE, many sites when comparing N97 to N900 state that the N900 has SKYPE and some other software unlike the N97, well I use to use SKYPE on the N95, it may not be inbuilt but no one says you can’t download it, I use to have SKYPE Lite with many more features then the “messaging” SKYPE inbuilt in the N900. I also use to have 3 different versions of Opera, Windows Live messenger, the IPlayer application, an application provided by SKY TV to control TV listing and Remote Recording, Google Map, Google YouTube application and much, much more, most probably you wont find half of those for the N900, but you don’t see anyone stating that anywhere.
The N900 also lack the option to create folder to organize your applications, any application is “plonked” with the rest in a random order and there is nothing you can do about it, apart from creating a short-cut on one of the 4 useless screens and try to organize it that way.
It also seem to lack the use of the SIM contact option, all you can do is copy from the SIM but not use the SIM storage, now my SIM allows me to store 200 contacts, this would A) save memory on the phone, and B) be used as a back-up of the numbers. I normally use it as B, I back-up the numbers on the SIM (apart from the PC) because the SIM does not die as easy as the phone, lets say (and this has happened to me before with the N96) that the phone drops in the bath, the phone would most probably short and die, but if you had the numbers on the SIM you can move to a back-up phone no problem, same as if you drop the phone and it brakes.
An other issues I had with the N900 is that when you create short-cuts on one of the 4 desktop, you cant align the items, so you may have one up, one down and so on, you would think that they would have a snap to grid or something, but no such thing.
The battery is worse then any phone I have seen, I have lost a “line” while playing only 2 YouTube videos over 3G network hardly anything else running, now the videos were about 3 to 5 minutes each so lets say I lost a battery “line” in 10 minutes, I guess with-in 1 hour your battery would be flat.
The battery charger is not a standard Nokia one (pin) but it uses the same socked of the USB cable, maybe they run out of money while designing, who knows, the only good thing about the charging is that you can charge it while connecting to the PC via USB.
The keyboard misses the mouse pad that we have on the N97, and even thought the device supports on-screen keyboard too, I have noticed that many of the application only support the normal slide-out keyboard, application such as the OVI map (while using the search address option).
The messaging options are very limited too, IM and SMS is all included in an option called conversations located in the main menu, as far as I have seen you are also not able to select multi items when trying to delete them, and this does not only happened in the “conversations” section, I had to delete all the inbuilt songs 1 by 1 and several other files 1 by 1.
The camera options are very limited too, and the picture quality is very poor as far as I can see, I have taken better pictures with the N95 2 years ago.
There seem to also be a limitation when trying to edit website short-cuts name on the desktop, the name is basically what ever the site owners use as a title for the site, for example YouTube uses “YouTube – Broadcast Yourself” and that’s what the phone seems to use as a desktop short-cut title.
The 3G seem to also run slower on this device, web-page loading time between this phone and the N95 seems to be slower more then faster.
And this is what I have discovered in 2 and a half days of using the phone, I don’t even want to imagine how dissatisfied I would have to be if I had to keep this phone for 12/18/24 months, luckily I have the 14 days to exchange and will contact Carphone Warehouse in the morning to arrange an exchange for the N97, I have already taken my SIM card out and placed it in a spare N95 I have at home, that’s how quick I want to get away from the device.
My general advice would be to stay away from this phone and technology at least for now, and not to always believe what is stated by device specs on “paper” as sometimes it’s not all as expected.
This phone reminds me of a scene from the film “Bad Boys 2” when Will Smith is driving the black Porsche with Martin Lawrence.
Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence): You mean, y'all paid, what, $80,000 for this car and you ain't got no damn cup holder?!
Mike Lowrey (Will Smith): It's $105,000 and this happens to be one of the fastest production cars on the planet. Zero to sixty in four seconds, sweetie. Limited edition.
Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence): You damn right it's limited! No cup holder, no back seat. Just a shiny **bleep** with two chairs in it. I guess we the balls just draggin' the **bleep** along.