When using the Email app on the N900, many people tend manually setup their email services, without ever knowing about or using Nokia Messaging. They tend to open the email app and follow the Account Setup Wizard or go to New Account and follow the instructions of the same wizard. This is where they’d choose their email services, like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo mail, this is NOT the proper way to setup Nokia Messaging. In fact by configuring it this way, you aren’t even using the Nokia Messaging service.

Nokia Messaging gives you push-type email, that’s in many cases times faster than any email service or client I use. As I wrote in a previous article, it has some neat advantages of its own. Other features of Nokia Messaging can be found here. 

So, how do you properly setup Nokia Messaging on the N900?

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the features introduced with the PR1.2 update was the Email Widget. This widget is supposed to display an overview of your emails, including subject and number of unread emails. Officially this should also work with Nokia Messaging, but it didn’t.

Fast forward a couple of months and we now have PR1.3 and the Email widget now works with Nokia Messaging, but here’s the catch: this time it only shows the number unread emails, but not the subject line of those emails. If you’re using Nokia Messaging (and you should!) you’re now stuck with a large email widget that only shows the number of unread emails, with most of the space remaining unused.What’s even worse is the fact that they don’t plan on fixing this as Quim Gil from Nokia clearly stated that:

“According to the developers, testing with the upcoming update the number of
new/unread emails displayed correctly.

About not displaying email subjects, at this point of Fremantle we are not
going to change the UI specs, sorry.”

I really hope they change there minds and fix this as this email can easily one of the most useful.

Would you like this Widget fixed?

The latest PR1.3 update for the N900 is now available to download. No surprises here as the existence of the PR1.3 repository hinted at the up coming release. An official announcement indicated that the update was just days away, 12 days to be exact.

The update itself (version 20.2010.26-2 or PR1.3 for short) is available as both an 87.5MB OTA update or a very large 200MB full firmware update through Nokia Software Updater. The difference is that the first just ads the necessary pieces, while the second option is the complete new firmware. There’s another option which I’ll discuss below.

What’s new?

-Ovi Suite support to access and sync files and messages

-Ovi Music Store is now accessible through the N900

-Performance Improvements

-General bug fixes

-Aligns the Qt application and UI framework with the planned version for the MeeGo 1.1 platform (Qt 4.7). Qt Mobility 1.0.2 APIs for mobile development are also included.

-Email widget now displays the number of unread messages in Nokia Messaging

Overall, the N900 feels much faster and the slow down after heavy multi-tasking doesn’t seem to come at all. But I’ll have to see how it holds up after prolonged heavy multi-tasking.

Manual Update

After a major firmware update it’s always a good idea to start clean, and do a hard reset, which can lead to faster performance. After installing or uninstalling programs, updates and now a major update on top  can lead to OS slow downs. That’s why we highly recommend doing a hard reset. As always remember to backup! Instruction on how to do this can be found here.

Did you see any new features? Let us know!

Usually we give you one daily tip in our “Tip of the day” section. What if we give you 54 tips? Thanks to Nokia Saga, we have 54 neat tips and tricks you could try on the N900. Some of them I know, but there are quite a few that are new to me and a must-know for any N900 user. Know any other tips? Let us know!

Ah yes, the Nokia Accessories. “Expensive” and often “difficult to find” are some of the words I would use to describe Nokia’s own accessories. In some cases they are also hard to forget. That’s especially the case of two extraordinary accessories: The Nokia Tripod DT-22 and the Wireless Keyboard SU-8W. Ask any Nokia fan and they’ll tell you about these accessories and how useful they really are, so useful in fact, that they’ll tell you how they kept these accessories for years, while changing phones several times a year. Both of them have been discontinued for a couple years now, but you could probably still find them online if you’re lucky. Should Nokia bring these accessories back?

Nokia Wireless Keyboard SU-8W

With so many phones being introduced lacking a physical keyboard, you’d expect Nokia to have an updated version of the SU-8W, but that’s sadly not the case. It’s this cool QWERTY keyboard, about 90% full-size that neatly folds into a compact body. It has all the phone controls and even a built-in, retractable phone holder and not to mention a retro beige color. The color, the “S60” symbols and the fact that it used double AAA batteries, means that it’s not quite ready for 2010.

We can see many people wanting this if Nokia gave it a matte black color and made it rechargeable via microUSB/Nokia 2mm pin.

Nokia Tripod DT-22

The DT-22 was introduced with the N93 and proved to be very useful if you loved taking pictures and recording videos. Due to its adjustable adapter it could not only hold any Nokia you could think of, but also any mobile phone. The adapter used the standard tripod, which meant that you could connect any tripod to it. The included tripod could also connect to any digital camera. It was that useful! There isn’t a thing we would change about the the DT-22, other than a lower price.

Would you like to see updated versions of the DT-22 and SU-8W?

Not feeling the Nokia Stylus SU-36? Looking for something just a bit smaller and that doesn’t look like a tool a surgeon would use? Technically the SU-36 is aimed only at capacitive devices like the X6 and N8, but I’m doubting its usefulness due to the relatively wide point.

That’s why I found it quite interesting when Nokia introduced the Capacitive Stylus SU-39. It looks much smaller, simpler, lighter and aimed at both capacitive and resistive screen. Should work on the N900 and even on the N8 when you decide to buy it. No word on pricing or availability.

Do you still use a Stylus?

Great prices on Nokia N8 Accessories

While full-size SDHC cards enjoy both large capacity of up to 32GB (even larger with SDXC) and high speed Class 10 performance, mobile oriented microSDHC cards aren’t quite there yet. On the mobile front, the industry has yet to produce a card that’s 32GB (or larger) with high-speed Class 10 or Class 6 cards. Until than we’re left with the choice of choosing either speed (Class 6 or higher) or high capacity. Today’s review does just that: We’ll compare the highest capacity card available ( the Sandisk 32GB Class 2) against the fastest high capacity card available on the market (the Lexar 16GB Class 6). Based on your needs, do you need speed or capacity?

A matter of speed

The SD association defines four levels of Speed Class: 2, 4, 6 and with 10 added just recently. Interestingly these Class levels reveal a card’s minimum sustained transfer and not the usual maximum speed: Speed Class 2 guarantees a minimum transfer speed of 2 mega bytes per second (MB/s), Speed Class 4, 6 and 10 guarantee a minimum transfer speed of 4 , 6  and 10MB/s  respectively. Some manufacturer of full-size cards are now even claiming to have a minimum transfer speeds of 16 MB/s or Class 16. When it comes to microSD card, it’s safe to say that they are a bit slower. Do keep in mind that the maximum read/write speed can be much higher but not necessarily maintained continuously. In other words a card can reach 30MB/s, but can maintain that speed for only 5 seconds for example.

Read the rest of this entry »

These are perhaps the best bits of N900 related news a N900 user could hear. The official MeeGo website is announcing that the N900 will soon be getting the PR1.3 update that will hopefully fix bugs, increase performance and add new features. Maybe there is still some chance for that Flash 10.1 on Maemo or even some OVI Maps 3 love.

What’s an even better news, is the fact that todays announcement leaves no doubt about the N900′s future: the final public release of MeeGo is coming to the N900, hopefully by the same time the first native MeeGo devices are released.

We’re extremely happy with these bits of info, as things were starting to look a bit sad for the tablet device. It looks like good times are ahead for N900 users.

Remember this picture? It showed an overview of all Nokia devices that were supposedly going to be launched. Now months later it really show how accurate it really is. It also seems to slowly build its way up to the top. At Nokia World 2010, as you now know Nokia introduced the E7, C7 and the N8 just started shipping. That left out one key device: the X7. Mobile Geek Inc. has uncovered some interesting info that seems to indicate that the X7 may be launching soon. We are hearing that this might happen as early as this month! The Xseries is reserved for music devices and the X7 should be the top music device, just one step above the X6.

Based on what the C7 product manager said, we know that the X7 will have a lot in common with the rest of the devices, as he revealed that “all exactly the same. Same hardware, same chipset, same everything, same clock speed, processor, absolutely everything. In terms of performance, there’s no compromise, they’re all running the same engines. The differences are in the way the peripherals are arranged between the devices.” This means that X7 should be another thin metal devices, like the C7, N8 and E7 with a large touch screen.

If we look at previous music devices like the N81 and N91 it logical to expect music keys and some kind of keyboard, but by the direction they went with the X6, Nokia seems to be moving away from media keys and even physical keyboards altogether on music devices. Some interesting tips we’ve been getting seems to indicate that the X7 will be something like the N8, but without the fancy camera, the first Nokia with 64GB of built-in storage, enhanced audio chip and some funky capacitive touch keys housed on the body of the device. We suggest you to take that with a grain of salt

How do you think the X7 will look like? What about the specs?