The UK Mobile Phone Blog

Nokia N900 Review Part 3: Web, GPS, Camera and Multimedia!

Welcome to the penultimate installment of our Nokia N900 Review. Here, the phones web browsing capabilities, GPS, Camera and multimedia playback all go under the microscope of the Maemo-toting powerhouse.

The N900 boasts a web browser developed by Mozilla, the people behind the Firefox browsers that many of you will use on your desktop PC’s and laptops. This aims to deliver a web browsing experience like no other and we’re inclined to say they’ve achieved this with ease. Firstly, gone are the days of Nokia’s of old where simply entering a web address meant navigating two to three different menus. Opening the web browser presents you with a list of your bookmarks which you can simply tap on to navigate to or an address field at the bottom which lets you punch in the exact web address using the N900’s keyboard. Once loaded, you’re the full web page without borders or icons obscuring it. Navigation is handled by a combination of dragging up and down (or left and right) and swirling to zoom in and out. Tapping in the bottom right corner calls up the tool bar with, from left to right, a bookmarks shortcut, an option to add your current page to your bookmarks, the address bar displaying you current page (you can add in a new page and the browser will take you there), a back arrow for navigating back and the tool bar icon. Hitting this again lowers a tool bar at the top of the screen which lets you minimise or close the browser using the status bar.

Next to the status bar, we find a description of the page you’re on and tapping on this presents you with several options including reload, find on page, downloads (letting you view and manage current downloads) and best of all new window. Yep, just as on your PC, the browser on the N900 lets you open multiple windows and navigate between them just as you would any other app on the phone using the dashboard interface. The other area that mirrors a desktop experience is the N900’s support for online content, specifically its flash support. Embedded YouTube videos play flawlessly in the browser rather than opening up a separate player in a YouTube client and sites with flash content can stream audio and video content just as if you were sat at your desktop PC. Only you’re not, this experience is taking place in the palm of your hand and can go where you go. There are some minor teething problems. In its current form there are certain types of Flash content that won’t play nicely with the N900 (@ 5ste: Google Wave appears to work fine but Racingpost.com currently only shows text content, no flash) but both Nokia and Adobe (the people who bring us Flash content) are working on updates which will be released via firmware upgrades. Due to its internet tablet heritage and landscape screen orientation, the N900 lends itself perfectly to web browsing on the move. Pages load correctly and in full widescreen without the need to scroll left and right and the innovative swirl to zoom feature gets around the lack of multi-touch nicely. Quite simply, the N900 offers the closing thing to a desktop web browsing experience on a mobile device we’ve ever seen and really can replace lugging round a cumbersome netbook or laptop.

As with previous smartphone offerings from Nokia, the N900 sticks to a tried and tested 5.0 Megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED Flash. Accompanying this spec list we also find some (admittedly limited) camera modes including the default automatic set up, Macro mode and Portrait, the option to tinker with settings such as White balance, Exposure and ISO sensitivity and some limited Flash settings including red eye reduction. And that’s about it. The resulting photos come out better than expected. In good light conditions with the flash turned off and the camera mode set to automatic, the N900 captures good crisp images with little in the way of noise. Colours aren’t too saturated and the autofocus feature is quick to focus on objects both close up and in the distance. The camera key also has a reassuring click to it letting you push part of the way in to focus and then the final click to confirm the capture. Once you’ve captured an image the photo remains on screen for around 10 seconds giving you a list of options of what to do next. Fail to select any of these and the N900 will automatically take you back to the camera viewfinder and allow you to carry on snapping.

It’s in the options once a photograph has been taken that the N900 comes into its own. Nokia are keen to get people Geo-tagging and the feature has never been easier than on the N900. For the uninitiated, Geo-tagging lets you tag a photo with details relating to where you took it. Selecting the Country, City and even Town is simply a case of tapping the relevant icon on screen. A certain town not available? Well, simply add it to the list and it will be ready to select in future. The N900 also lets you add tags that relate to the subject of the photo including pre-sets such as Birthday, Christmas and Travel which are then used when you upload your photos to sharing sites. Uploading photos to file sharing sites is just as easy with a few taps taking care of business. At present only Ovi Share and Flickr support is available but more sites are set to be added in the near future. All in all, while it won’t replace your stand alone digital camera, the N900 is more than capable when called into action, capturing good sharp images. Our only real criticism is the lack of extras such as Face detection, touch focus and other such features that are now common place in camera phones. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise as Nokia has previous form with an unwillingness to add in extra camera features. All the same, it is nearly 2010 so come on Nokia, get your act together!

Video capture on the N900 is even more basic. Video is captured in WVGA resolution (848 x 480) at 25 frames per second which results in nice smooth videos that can keep up with whatever’s happening on screen. Sound quality is equally impressive and the dual LED flash doubles as a video light when recording in low light conditions. You do also get to tinker with the ISO and White Balance but that’s about it when it comes to additional features. It would have been nice to see some fast or slow motion video capture included and HD video capture shouldn’t be completely out of the question but for now at least the N900 keeps things fairly simple. Once videos are captured, you’ll be presented with the familiar review screen and given the option to tag, share, view in gallery and delete as required. The aspect of the N900 that makes video capture shine is the huge storage capacity which lets you record for as long as your memory will hold out. When we started recording, the phone indicated that we had 99 minutes remaining, enough for a feature length movie!

The N900 boasts a built in GPS receiver aided by A-GPS (assisted GPS). These two combine to give the N900 an incredibly quick response time when opening the Ovi Maps application. Upon opening the app, the N900 pinpoints your location almost instantly and despite being inside a building (which can hamper the GPS signal) found our location correctly almost to the meter. Setting up a route is simply a case of tapping the icon in the top right corner, typing in your destination (by address/postcode, place name or point of interest). Once set up, the N900 will quickly calculate a route and mark it with a thick red line on the map. The accuracy comes into play here as you can follow the map to the very smallest detail. Ovi Maps also lets you swap from a traditional view to a satellite view which helps when travelling in inner cities as you can recognise buildings and landmarks. In our test we were unable to try out voice guided navigation but the phone is expected to ship with a trial version with the option to sign up for the full version via a subscription (for which you can set the duration). The vivid display would make the ideal platform for an in car SatNav application so if Nokia can get the likes of Tom Tom on board to develop an app for the device it could be hugely successful.

Due to the N900’s 32GB internal memory (expandable by a further 16GB using a memory card), the phone is a viable alternative to a dedicated MP3 player and as such it is important that the built in media player hits all the right notes. Tapping on the media player icon in the main menu brings up four sub menus; music, video, internet radio and shuffle all songs. After opening music, the default setting is to sort music by album but this can also be changed to sort by artist, genre, playlists and all songs. The N900 supports album art which displays all music using album covers. Once you’ve clicked on the album you’ll be taken to a list of all the songs in the album. Select a track and you’re taken to a player interface with the album art dominating the screen. Options at the bottom include skip and pause controls, a volume key and the track timer which shows how far through a song you are and lets you skip through to a specific part of a track. Sound quality with the supplied headphones is excellent but thanks to the 3.5mm audio jack you also have the option to use your own headphones.

Just as with Ovi Maps, the media player is one of the widgets that can be added to the home screen. From here you are given options such as play, pause and skip and a miniature copy of the album art acts as a quick visual aid. The widget works in a similar way to the minimised version of Windows Media Player on a PC or Laptop and is excellent for keeping music playing in the background while you get on with other tasks. With up to 32GB available you really can load your phone with thousands of tracks and when you take into consideration the ease of use and nice touches such as the home screen widget, the N900 really does become a feasible alternative to an iPod. Video playback on the N900 is equally impressive. Whilst the player lacks the music players home screen support for obvious reasons, watching videos on the 3.5 inch display is a joy. The picture is crisp and sharp and using the kickstand to prop up the phone really does make for the perfect viewing platform. You really could imagine yourself watching a feature length movie on the phone, it’s that good.

Check back on the blog tomorrow for the final installment of our Nokia N900 review as we give our verdict on this seminal release from the Finnish manufacturer.