Help me decide between the Nokia N900 & Motorola Milestone

[beastkingblast]

Ive decided im gonna get a new phone next week & ive decided it will be either the N900 or Milestone
Both seem very good phones

I'd wanted a N900 for a few months but the lack of MMS was a deal breaker for me, but now i know there is an application available

I like the look of the Milestone, & the Android OS from what ive heard is rather good
But i understand on the Milestone you can only install apps on the internal memory - 512 MB? This to me seems stupid as im sure that can be filled quickly which puts me off big time, especially as there are a lot of apps available - which i like

From reviews i've read typing on the N900 keyboard is much better

Im going to buy SIM free as i dont want a new contract - & obviously the N900 is £100 dearer than the Milestone


All feedback & comments would be welcomed greatly thanks

[jonmorris]

I would go for the Milestone every day, or any Android phone, as I really can't see Maemo/MeeGo going anywhere. That's personal opinion only, but the N900 keyboard isn't that great either (to be honest, neither are going to please touch typers) and the phone is quite chunky and still feels unfinished.

Android is maturing nicely and there are plans to let you copy apps to the SD card on the Milestone. In fact, I think there's an app that will move them there already.

I wanted to believe in the N900 last September, but it has disappointed as much as the Palm Pre - loads of hype and then what? Nokia said the N900 is no. 4 in a vision that would take 5 models to reach perfection; so I am waiting for that!

[RobM]

I'd be tempted with the N900 if I didn't care about the phone parts and just wanted an internet and media tablet that would occasionally be used as a phone.

The Milestone is a much more complete product and Android is a more mature (yet as Jonathan says, still maturing) OS that you can live with on a daily basis without it annoying you.

The Milestone keyboard takes a bit of getting used to as it's very left-hand biased. But I still manage to type more accurately than with onscreen keyboards.

The N900 is more powerful though and internet browsing on it is fantastic. But ultimately, if you're buying a phone buy the Milestone.

[beastkingblast]

well im a big texter so i use the phone quite a bit
BUT i use the internet CONTINUOUSLY all day on the phone, so internet is a major need for me

[normal]

I think it depends if your a geek who likes 'playing with stuff' to make it work better. From everything I hear, the N900 is a great phone if you don't mind fiddling with it all the time. Android is much more complete an OS on the whole and requires less adjustments and patience.

[Ajax]

If your looking for a device which will be your pet project, that you don't mind spending a lot of time playing with, fiddling, doing some series tweaking and the N900 all the way. For the rest of us, the Milestone wins by far, its not even a contest really.

N900 = so much potential, but no where near ready. It wouldn't be unfair to say it feels like a pre-product device in some respects.

The Milestone is solid, and it just generally gets on with the job. Build quality is ace, Android generally works. Its not as "exciting" as the N900 as per se, but it won't drive you crazy.

[beastkingblast]

what things do people find drive them crazy the most with the N900?

[OldHooky]

Milestone.

I went through a similar quandary and opted for the Milestone. I didn't want a handset with a system that was still under development; Android, maturing as it still is, is plenty advanced enough for 99.9% of people, whether casual or business users. Nokia just haven't demonstrated any innovation in recent years that made me believe they would really invest in Maemo. Just look at S60 and how it has not changed in years, despite Apple, Android and basically everyone else trying to modernise and improve the UI. I wish it were a different story, I really do.

The hard keyboard is something you get used to. Isn't any new keyboard like that?

And if you really want to be quick, download Swype. It's a virtual keyboard dream!

[beastkingblast]

it seems a VERY hard decision
ive heard good (& some bad) things about both handsets
the N900 seems brilliant, fast & multitasking seems brilliant
but at the same time the Milestone seems equally as brillant in a lot of ways
ive had Nokias for years now, N73, N95, & at the moment N96 (which is now doing my head in crashing all the time, especially as i browse the internet on it continuously)
i suppose it will come down to which phone is best for the internet & typing texts on etc?

[MilhouseVH]

Originally Posted by beastkingblast

what things do people find drive them crazy the most with the N900?

I haven't commented up until now as I've no experience of a Milestone or any other Android phone (other than a few minutes spent with a G1) so I don't feel I'm in a position to say which is best, but I will give my opinion of the N900.

Nothing drives me crazy about the N900, but I would be lying if I said it was perfect.

It has faults, and a few rough edges, but none of these prevent me from using it as a phone or as possibly the best browsing device on the market (high resolution screen, Mozilla based browser, full embedded Flash Player).

Even the RSS reader, which hasn't been updated for quite some time, is very usable - this morning on the train I read the entire engadget RSS feed which had downloaded over WiFi a few hours previously.

The browser really is superb, and the email works fine but still needs more work to fix a number of minor bugs.

The Skype/GoogleTalk/Cellular Phone integration is seamless, and so much information can be stored against Contacts that one annoyance is that you are now shown too much information at times when the phone should filter fields more intelligently (eg. if I have a contact setup with landline, cellular and Skype I don't want to have to choose which of the numbers is going to receive an SMS - in my case it's 100% always going to be the cellular number). Anyway, there's a bug for that...

Summing up, the N900 is bedevilled by a number of minor annoyances resulting from the fast track integration of the telephony features with a standard Linux OS - a number of integration kinks still need to be worked out. On the flip side, it's the most open and consequently powerful phone available, if that floats your boat - you can do anything you want with this device.

The next major release, PR1.2, expected real-soon-now, will bring Qt 4.6 which will mean increased compatibility between Maemo5 and future Maemo6/MeeGo/Symbian OSes.

If however you want something a little more refined/finished (although who knows what PR1.2 will bring), then I would *not* recommend the N900 right now - go for the Milestone, that way if there's a problem I won't feel at all guilty!

Form factor-wise I guess the Milestone is the better of the two as well - the N900 is chunky, but I do find it's keyboard very usable.