Ask Slashdot: Life After N900?

Rydia writes "Since it first released, I have been in love with my Nokia N900, and it has satisfied all my needs for a mobile with a high degree of control and utility. Sadly, the little guy is showing his age, both in battery life (even with the powersaving kernel options enabled), and performing in general has been left far, far in the dust by phones that are now considered quite old. The time has come to find its successor, but after a thorough search of smartphone options, I can't find any handset that offers everything for the power user that the N900 did (much less a hardware keyboard). I'd like to avoid supporting Google/Android, but there don't seem to be many options. Have any other techies found a replacement for their N900?"

Comments

Neo900.org

[Zarhan]

It's a niche project, but looks like getting a good techie phone is niche these days. Uses N900 displays and casing, so resolution is not getting any better, but has lots more processing power.

Jolla might be an option once they get the QWERTY "other half" available.

Re:Neo900.org

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm intrigued by the Neo900, it would be nice to switch to something that is simply an improvement without worry about compromise and sacrifices.

I bought a Jolla and it has it's ups and downs. The interface is slick and smooth. The android app support works reasonably well (it's definitely not perfect, but has been good enough for most things I've tried). The sailfish sdk is a lot nicer than the old maemo sdk. The other half idea still seems like it will be nice once things start coming out (or I make some myself). The terminal application is actually fairly nice, though the on screen keyboard is still not as nice as a hardware keyboard.

On the downside, it lacks the 1700MHz band that the n900 had, which makes it worse to use in the US. I think there are some other bands that US carriers have for LTE that the jolla doesn't have but neither did the n900. I read somewhere that the FM (yes, I used to use both transmit and recieve on my n900, occassionally) antenna pins aren't actually wired up, so even if someone activates that functionality in the bt chip, it wouldn't really work. LTE support hasn't actually been implemented in the software yet. The settings seem sparse and missing some options that would be nice. Of course the lack of a hardware keyboard is annoying, as is the lack of IR support (I used it all the time on my n900). Jolla still hasn't publicly released CAD files to make it easy for people to design and print their own other halves. And I feel a general sense of the device not being complete (worse than the n900 when it came out) and that the developers are still almost as closed off and unresponsive as the maemo and meego team at Nokia. I was hoping for a little more openess once they actually released a phone.

Overall, I think I'd lean slightly toward the Neo900 for the short term (particularly for US users), but I still have hope that the Jolla will actually develop into something even nicer, eventually, maybe.

Re:Who was your Highest Bidder?

[__aaqvdr516]

From Google's Privacy Policy Page

With your consent

We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information..

So Google does "share" data with advertisers as part of their money stream. A very specific subset is opt-in, but everything else is opt-out. If services get updated and you're not careful, you can miss an opt-out. See Privacy and Copyright Protection

I'm not sure how anyone can read that and not understand that they're selling your data. They're just calling it sharing. Everything in the EULA you already agreed to in order for you to use a Google service grants them the permission they need.

Re:Get a Nexus device

[Lumpy]

"You can also get Ubuntu Touch."

Spoken just like someone that has not used Ubuntu Touch.

If you dont like to make or receive phone calls, Use ubuntu touch.
If you dont like internet connectivity Use ubuntu touch.
If you LIKE your phone locking up, Use ubuntu touch.

Also when you actually look at ubuntu touch, it's just Android with a UI stapled on top but with no apps, and no functionality.

What he is after is a Nexus 5 that has a pure android on it.