A Closer Look at the Nokia N900

At first glance, the Nokia N900 is a sizeable mobile handset. However, considering its overall power coupled with its huge screen and full Qwerty keypad then that is not to much of a surprise, and when we delve a little further neither does it seem a major problem, in fact quite the opposite.

Firstly lets have a look at this devices size. Measuring up at 110.9 x 59.8 x 18mm and weighing 181 grammes this phone can hardly be labelled as compact, but there is good reason behind its bulk. Firstly the N900 features a 3.5" touch sensitive touchscreen. This screen is larger than the majority of handsets that I have looked at and also displays an impressive resolution 480 x 800 pixels. Perhaps a better way of looking at the phone is as a high powered tablet with the capabilities of performing as a mobile phone rather than as a replacement or improvement on any other handset currently available. The huge screen takes up the whole front of the handset, leaving no room at all for other buttons. The slide out Qwerty keypad is spacious thanks to the size of the unit, and feels comfortable in the hand. There are various buttons located on the sides such as volume on power on and off.

The Nokia N900 features a very impressive camera facility. Shooting snaps at a resolution of 5 million pixels, the camera also includes a dual LED flash facility, helping to brighten up those pictures when lighting conditions are not ideal. Another neat idea from Nokia is including a handy sliding lens cover, keeping it free from any unwanted scratches. On the subject of the optics, the ones fitted on this model are infact Carl Zeiss lens, renowned in the world of digital photography. A 3 x digital zoom and an autofocus are also included. The N900 also shoots MP4 video at an impressive rate of 25 frames per second.

The Nokia N900 is designed with media use in mind, hence the massive 32g of on board memory and the option to double this with a micro SD card. Music sounds crisp and cover art looks nice on the impressive screen, but the screen as you can well imagine is best suited to watching video. The handset supports a variety of video file formats including MP4, WMV, XVid and DivX. You also have the option to share this video via bluetooth or e mail.

If you look past its bulky exterior, the N900 is certainly an impressive beast, and I say beast as i am not sure if the word phone is appropriate. The huge processor power and great 3.5" screen does mean that the Nokia N900 is much more like a tablet than a phone, this is not a bad thing, it simply means this handset out performs the majority of phones for just a little extra bulk.

The Nokia N900 and the Google Nexus One are available now.