Welcome to part two of our Nokia N900 review. Today we take a look at the touchscreen and the up until now unfamiliar Maemo operating system.

The N900 sports a 3.5 inch display; the same size as the best in class iPhone 3GS though the Nokia phone does manage to pack in considerably more pixels than Apple’s offering. This makes for one of the sharpest displays we’ve ever seen on a mobile phone with images sporting crisp edges and bright natural colours. The screen lends itself naturally to web browsing and video playback as it’s big enough to display content comfortably and the increased pixel count means you’ll rarely find yourself squinting to read text. The touchscreen display on the N900 uses resistive technology meaning it reacts to pressure on screen, compared to capacitive technology which responds to heat. Resistive technology does have its pros and cons. Whilst it has been criticised in previous phones for not offering the same level of responsiveness as a capacitive display, resistive does allow for more accuracy, especially when combined with a stylus which, due to its reliance on heat, a capacitive display cannot support.

Despite criticisms of responsiveness looming over resistive touchscreens, the N900 features the best resistive touchscreen we have ever used. It’s as simple as that. Rather than requiring firm prods like many of its predecessors, the N900 reacts almost instantly to light touches letting you smoothly sweep through menus and navigate web pages effortlessly. Very rarely did we find ourselves having to repeat our commands as the N900 nearly always picked them up on the first time of asking. A small vibration helps in this department, acknowledging your on screen activities with a light buzz. The only real instance where you notice that the phone is lacking a capacitive display is in the absence of multi touch. Whereas various other phones offer such navigation methods as pinch to zoom, the N900 unfortunately lacks such an option and this is the only real area that lets the touchcsreen experience down. Nokia have thought of some rather inventive ways to get round this such as a neat swirling trick when in the web browser. Simply swirl your finger clockwise on a webpage to zoom in and anti-clockwise to zoom out. It’s a nice touch (excuse the pun) and adds to the overall touchscreen experience. The N900 is easily the best example of a touchscreen Nokia has to offer with some great additions and good overall usability. The addition of a stylus will also please tablet fans though the frankly huge stylus (it feels more like a pen) that slots into the device itself prompted us to stick to a solely finger led method of navigation.

As we mentioned previously and you were no doubt already aware, the Nokia N900 runs the latest version of the Linux based Maemo operating system, specifically Maemo version 5.0. As the operating system has its origins in internet tablets and handheld devices other than your everyday mobile phone, there are certain quirks that do take some getting used to. The first of these is the orientation of the operating system itself. If the position of some key buttons on the side of the phone didn’t give it away, Maemo on the N900 is designed to run in landscape mode. With the exception of a small collection of applications such as the phone interface for making calls, you’ll spend most of your time holding the phone in landscape. Whilst this is by no means a bad thing it certainly does take some getting used to and can be more than a little daunting at first. But, Nokia had promised a powerful desktop experience in the palm of your hand so you didn’t expect this to fit into a portrait screen did you? Upon firing up the N900 the first thing you’re presented with is a rather sparse home screen populated only by a few icons and shortcuts. The first of which is a sort of catch al status bar that includes the main menu icon which takes you into the main menu and a sort of status bar that shows the time, battery life and network signal strength as well as any data connection you may have running. Clicking on this lets you change the time and set alarms, manage wireless connections, change profile, activate Bluetooth and change the volume. Opening this status bar acts as a sort of pop up – your content is still visible in the background but is blurred out of focus letting you concentrate on the task at hand. Clicking on the blurred part of the screen takes you back a step to the last menu; in this case the home screen. This is a nice stylish addition to the OS and one that features regularly throughout.

Below the status bar you’ll find the main bulk of the home screen which is fully customisable with, well just about anything. To add or edit content on the home screen simply hold your finger down on an empty space on the screen and you’ll be able to do so fairly easily. A small ‘x’ appears in the corner of all content already on the screen which will allow you to remove content as you see fit. Adding content is just as easy as a tool bar appears on the top of the screen in the editing view. Simply hit ‘Desktop menu’ and you can add shortcuts, widgets and bookmarks, change the background or theme of the device and manage views. Add your desired content, hit ‘done’ and the N900 will add it to your home screen. At this point you may wonder whether your home screen might get a bit crowded once you’ve added more than a handful of shortcuts but Nokia and Maemo takes this into consideration by letting you add multiple home screens. Similar to the experience found on the HTC Hero, simply swipe your finger left or right to switch between multiple home screens. The status bar in the top left corner is the only ever present icon leaving everything else up to you. We found the perfect set up having a home screen ready for web access with a few links to our favourite sites and a live web feed to a certain social networking site, a screen for multimedia with an MP3 player short cut, a screen for messaging with contacts and push email and finally a screen for navigation. Navigation was our favourite page as it provides one touch access to Nokia Maps and best of all, once you’ve minimised the app, a miniature map of your exact location appears on the home screen. But by far the best thing about multiple home screens is that no two N900’s will be the same, everyone will be able to create an experience that is just right for them.

It’s not just in its multiple home screens that the N900 flexes its smartphone muscles as its equally capable when it comes to the must have feature of the moment; multi-tasking. Yes the N900 can run multiple applications at once but then so could the N97 and N97 Mini along with numerous other Symbian phones. However, what makes Maemo so special is the ease with which it lets you manage open applications. Once you’ve opened and then minimised an application, the dashboard icon will be added to the status bar on the home screen. Tapping on this will open up a view similar to that found when customising your home screen. Open applications will appear as scaled down tiles. From here it’s just a case of tapping on the tile to open the application or tapping on the ‘x’ icon to close it. Simple. To exit the dashboard, it’s simply a case of tapping on the blurry home screen that is still visible in the background. We had around eight applications running in the background at once and noticed absolutely no slow down when both navigating the home screen and in the apps themselves. This is in part down to the excellent ARM Cortex A8 processor which boasts a clock speed of 600MHz which keeps everything running with commendable zip. In addition to the dashboard icon, users can also press the power button and are presented with an ‘end current task’ option.

Whilst not that easy to pick up due in part to the fact that we’ve never used a Maemo device before, the learning curve for Maemo is spot on and challenges you to really explore and get the most out of your smartphone. Adding content to one of the phones many home screens is simple and effective and just one of many great features this OS has to offer. Not only is it great to use, it’s equally easy on the eye with the blurring technique just one of many stylish touches that really proove this is a cutting edge operating system. And if you think it looks good, just wait till you hear the sound effects that accompany some of your on screen commands which sound like they’ve come straight out of a science fiction film! The only area that could potentially let Maemo down is its third party applications because, at time of writing, the app store was not yet up and running for Maemo. Set to have its own designated area of the Nokia Ovi store, for the time being the N900 is supported by the Maemo Select download site which currently offers around 50 free downloads. Nokia have already pushed out the device to key third party app developers in time for the handsets launch so we’ve no reason to believe the N900 won’t launch with a full quota of all sorts of weird and wonderful apps but for the time being we’ll have to wait and see.

Tune in tomorrow for the penultimate installment of our Nokia N900 review as we take a look at the web browser, GPS, Camera and multimedia functionality of Nokia’s flagship device.