Comments on: Nokia N800 or Apple iPhone?

By: Josef Assad

Josef Assad — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

Neither iphone nor Nokia N800. Nokia e61i. As a phone, it works flawlwssly. You get a beautiful screen, wifi, bluetooth, irda, python (yep!), qwerty, and an acceptable 2 megapixel camera. Oh, and micro SD expandable memory.

By: mrben

mrben — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

Short answers:
1. Yes
2. No

Long answers:
1. I’m very happy with it. It’s a great "geek device", and for many things has replaced my laptop for mobile functionality. Web browsing is slick, and there are a tonne of apps out there. It plays media well, although I’ve yet to push it fully with video. I’ve got the GPE calendar on there, and Erminig to get it to sync to Google mail, and I’ve played a bit with Maemo mapper, which will pair with a bluetooth GPS if you’ve got one. In some ways, it’s a bit of a niche device, because it’s not really a PDA, or a media player, and it’s not a phone. But combined with a phone, and with a few software additions, it’s as good as.
Oh, and the screen is of excellent quality.

2. Personally, I steer clear of Apple products. I always thought that the iPod, while a brilliant design (both of the physical device, and the GUI), I think it’s really expensive for what you get. And there is always that tinge of lock-in. The iPhone seems no different.

Get an N800, use it with your phone, store your media on cheap SD Cards, and lose nothing when you next upgrade your phone.

IMHO

By: Jonathan Carter

Jonathan Carter — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

I don’t own either device, but have played with both, and I own a Nokia E61, which is ok.

If I had to buy one of those, it would be the N800 for sure, it’s a no-brainer. The N800 runs Debian (and you would be able to test Ubuntu mobile) and you can install plenty of 3rd party apps on it… even a web server. The N800 is just so much more practical and useful. The iPhone has more status attached to it, and is more shiney and has more ooooh-factor.

It probably depends on what is important to you. The N800 doesn’t have a GSM phone built in, does it? I suppose that will be quite important if you intend to use it as a primary phone.

By: Andreas Nilsson

Andreas Nilsson — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

I own a n800 and have only played with a iphone on a short occasion. The iphone interface design was really impressive and did quite a lot of smart stuff. I wouldn’t switch it for my n800 any day though.
Running the Pimlico (www.pimlico-project.org) suite of apps on the n800 and it’s really handy for pinning down contacts to people and meetings. I just wish there was a handy way of syncing those with my laptop though.
Both contain quite a lot of non-free software, but at least Nokia is working on it.

By: Peter Brewer

Peter Brewer — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

I am happy with my N800 but will probably get the consumer openmoko device later in the year as I am not happy with my phone.

By: sil

sil — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

I don’t have an N800 (we gave them all away :)) but I’m pretty happy with the browser on my Nokia phone; it’s Webkit, just like the iPhone, and I can also install programs on it too (and have done so; a book reader, the gmail J2ME client, games, lots of others). My particular phone (an E50) doesn’t have wifi, but I understand that later Nokias do…

By: dave

dave — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

You should probably read this,

http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/its-okay-to-touch

It’s written by someone with an iPhone and a N800 who likes both and interestingly, likes his N800 more since he’s got used to the iPhone touch screen ‘paradigm’.

I’d underline the point made by others that the N800 doesn’t have a phone, so really you should be comparing the N800 with the Touch, or a N800 plus basic phone. From your brief list (web and wifi) and the fact I saw your comment on planet ubuntu, I’m guessing the N800 might be a winner.

By: Jerome Gotangco

Jerome Gotangco — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

I have an E61 and an iPhone. I’ve played with a N800 unit for a week before I got the iPhone. It used to be king of the hill for me in casual surfing and stuff but when I got the iPhone, everything just changed.

I will most likely get the N800 for a play unit but it seems that even the iPhone has filled that niche in me (hacked, jailbreaked, unlocked, you name it). An iPhone is useful if you are an iPod user and do iTunes, and probably reserved Apple a place in your heart. If you are just dipping your toes for the first time - run away fast.

By: erigami

erigami — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

What? Nobody’s suggesting to hold out for the OpenMoko?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:24:00 +0000

love my n800. i travel a lot and this has been really handy. having google talk/sip/skype has saved a bunch on absurd international cell phone rates too. absolutely no plans to replace this with an iphone. the free software/hackability aspect is too important. the only complaint is that i wish maemo was a bit more finger and less stylus friendly.