Products & Services

Subtle flourishes of the N900

By Mike on 26 October 2009

GLOBAL – Last week I posted an piece on how the N900 is designed to get better the more you use it, and over the past few days I’ve experienced yet more evidence of this first hand in the form of some subtle usability flourishes that I came across by happy accident… although they’ve clearly been designed with calculated and well-considered intent. Read on to find out more and to share your thoughts.

One less box to fill
Repetition is a bore. Repetition is a bore. Filling in multiple similar fields when you’re registering an account or setting up a new profile is a pain, but the N900 does a few smart autofill tricks to help reduce that deja vu feeling. For example, when you set up email and enter your username for your chosen mail provider, it automatically knows to add that username in front of your corresponding email address for that account. It shaves off a few precious seconds in the process, meaning you come out the other side a touch perkier.

Search skill
The N900 web browser is a charmer, but one of its smartest of subtle flourishes relates to search. Bring up the address bar and if you type in a keyword instead of a proper URL, it knows what you’ve done, and instead of bringing up an error page (as you might expect), it performs a handy Google search and delivers a page of relevant results so you don’t feel like you made a mistake. It’s a great little touch that makes browsing even easier.

Getting closer
You might’ve seen that the N900 has some smart web browser navigation skills, what with kinetic scrolling, double-tapping to zoom in on content and the corkscrew gesture of winding clockwise to also zoom in on content and anti-clockwise to move out. But there’s another way that might feel more natural to some – if you’re on a web page and you simply use the zoom in/out buttons normally reserved for the camera and viewing pictures, you can similarly move in and out of the page, and arguably with the greatest deal of precision. I certainly recommend it as an alternative method of honing in on those tiny details you want to make big.

Sounds like it means it
Last night my wife called to me from the lounge because she was convinced she could hear an odd creature lurking somewhere on the other side of the room – in her words it sounded “like an odd little bird”. Turns out it was the noise the N900 makes when it’s running low on battery. Point is, the N900 is helped brought to life via an awesome and playful little audio palette. Aside from the low battery sound, my personal favourite is the neat sound the N900 makes when you plug it in to recharge – the moment it starts sucking power it creates a cool mechanical noise like it’s just received a power-up in a game.

Take a stand
I kicked myself at the weekend for totally forgetting that the N900 comes with a neat little kick-stand – I’ve been sliding back the lens over to take photos, without stopping to look at the detail of the frame around it, which hides the kick-stand that props the N900 up at an ideal angle for desktop viewing – I now keep it sat up above my keyboard, to make reading incoming alerts even easier.

No doubt, I’ve only scratched the surface of the many subtle flourishes that the N900 is home to, but I hope this small collection helps paint a more focussed picture of what I touched on when I began to explore the idea that this Maemo handset has been designed to get better over time.

Let us know what you think in the comments section due south.

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Tags | Maemo, N900, Nokia N900

Post a comment

fernando Says:
October 26th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

The sfxs sound interesting, any chance for a video?

peetee Reply:
November 10th, 2009 at 9:34 pm

good memory, a hefty amount of storage 32GB + 16GB external micro SD – qwerty keyboard – 5MP camera .. Quad Band.

Ovi Maps instead of Google Maps? Where are the precious facebook and twitter apps?

detailed sources: http://bit.ly/nokia-900-full-specs-details-best-or-worst

Its good to see Nokia finally release a new breed of their communicator series, I just hope it won’t turn out to be another “average” phone.

hp Says:
October 26th, 2009 at 9:35 pm

I’ve been queueing for this device since October 3rd, and this tells me I’ve to be patient. Still, this presentation is a teaser. The search features reminds of Chrome, which is my favorite for the time being.
The sound palette has hopefully a “no sounds” option? Years of annoying windows-machines have taught me a lot of workarounds…
One buzz about N900 is the keyboard layout. I take it that a Finnish vendor deliver with keyboards according to all Nordic languages? Much of the commercials available are as far as I can see meant for English spoken markets.
Nokia has also designed a beautiful case (CP-321) for this item. Let’s hope this is available with N900 when it eventually appears.

sung Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 4:53 am

Huh, from the picture I thought you were going to talk about N900 supporting wireless keyboard out of the box. (from what I gather you need to change something in one of the cofig file if you want to use one of those)

HMS Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 9:34 am

Now the only thing you need to do is finally deliver it We ARE already convinced, just want to get our hands on it…

sonsoe Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 11:03 am

for a phone lik this, pump up the battery power to like hmmmmm 1700mah… i think the phone can handle it….

Ash Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 11:05 am

Ash Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 11:00 am
The constant delays in the release of this product is really testing my loyalty and patience with Nokia…I have given up my iPhone 3GS (sold) to go back to Nokia with this device and has been on pre order for good few weeks now…and still there’s no official announcement or exact date from Nokia when I will receive my unit.

I feel Nokia is losing the customer by lack of clear and concise communication and if they set a date for release then they should live up to it otherwise don’t mention one or estimate it better. I understand they want to improve things before the shipping etc. but they should have anticipated these improvements or more time would be required…the least they can do now is come clean with firm dates they can live up to please Nokia?????

mike bradshaw Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am

yet another neat little touch, when you unplug from the charger, there is a pop-up on the screen reminding you to unplug the charger from the wall

HMS Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 1:29 pm

You know, Mike, we only have you to express our frustrations
Maybe you have a way to pass the moods on.
Anyway your work is very much appreciated!

iolo003 Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 2:12 pm

Okay, i think Nokia delayed the device for November so they can add up Portrait Mode to the phone.. Do you think so? hehehe, I will be more than happy and buy two or more!

nintendo ds r4 card Says:
October 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Sounds like a great phone, especially its multitasking features. In the last part of the article, the price is going to be 50/50 with consumers. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that will go for it even if carriers don’t step in, but that’s one of the highest priced phones on the market. If it’s looked at as a tablet, that may change some things in the consumers eyes. Nokia has a good product on its hands.

lucid Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 1:07 am

Please rlease the phone soon! I am seriously considering the droid if there is not announcement soon!

Ilir Says:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am

Possible that Nokia is not able to communicate when it will begin selling this device?? There are people who made the order in late August. A little more respect for consumers would be appropriate.