Ask a Google Nexus One owner why they chose it over the other Android offerings and chances are they’ll tell you it’s because of the frequent updates. Back in the day you had to take your phone to a Nokia repair center to get a firmware update, that’s if you were lucky. Most of the time the firmware you had the day you received the phone, that’s exactly the firmware it will have at the end of it’s life cycle. But with the increasing popularity of firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) updates, updating using your PC is becoming less popular. The best example of this is the Nokia N900, which got all of its updates using FOTA. So what exactly should can Nokia learn from Google?

The Nexus One not only provides the vanilla Google experience, but also gets lots and lots of updates. Big or small, as soon they’re available to the public, they are available for the Nexus One. This gives you the ability to quickly address issues and give your customers their most requested features that didn’t make it in the initial feature list. The latter is especially important for the mobile enthusiasts that wants the latest features and bugs fixed. Other Android devices with similar specs get the updates many many months later. Better yet, the Nexus One even gets all the major releases. I never heard of a Symbian device getting an update to the next major release.  

In the case of the N900 there has been a lot of improvement when compared to Symbian devices. First of all, because every single update has been done using FOTA, it’s more user friendly. There’s even an early build of MeeGo for the N900, arguably the next major release to follow Maemo. Despite Nokia’s lack of commitment to fully support MeeGo on the N900, we still see the early build for the N900 as a step in the right direction.

A lot is at stake with MeeGo and Nokia should treat it like it’s only child, giving it frequent updates. Listening to community and knowing what they want and putting these in frequently released FOTA’s is a big lesson they could learn from Google.

Do you value frequent firmware updates?

Back in May we brought you the scoop on the upcoming Documents To Go Premium Edition (PE) and now it’s finally here. Technically, Documents To Go Premium Edition isn’t the first documents editor for the N900. That honor goes to FreOffice, but seeing that it’s still in extras-devel repository, it’s not something we would recommend yet. So the first, stable, ready for prime-time release indeed does go to Documents To Go PE.

Now let’s get to the more important details. Buying the full version will set you back $29.99, while the Viewer Edition still costs $9.99. But if you were smart enough to get it during the introduction period, you’ll get the update to the Premium Edition for free!

Where you the one of the lucky ones that go the first version of DTG? Will you be getting the viewer or premium edition?

Why? There’s absolutely no reason why the N900 can’t  support this feature. There’s onboard support for OVI chat and even files can be uploaded to OVI, so why no support OVI contacts stored into the cloud?

It’s true that I should make regular backups, doing so would save me a lot of headache! But fact is that the average user won’t bother making any backups and that both the average and power user will simply we forget to this. For this reason  the process should be transparent and automatic, and should at least allow some level of customization when it comes to the frequency it makes backups. Nokia should enable this feature and allow activation through a one-time setup. Such a feature can be a life saver, but Nokia you should at least enable this for us N900 users.

As a N900 owner, do you wish it had an automatic backup feature that stores contacts into the cloud?

Amazon is now offering the Nokia N900 at a great $399 price, with free shipping and no coupons to deal with. While not as good as Dell’s $369 deal, which now officially has gone the way of the Dodo, the Amazon deal is quite a steal for such loaded device.

I might hit the buy button myself.

Know any other good deals on the Nokia N900? Let us know!

That other browser for the N900 has been updated to version 1.1 and in the process gains a few neat little tricks. Firefox for Maemo now includes interesting new features such as Self-Updating Add-ons, Save pages as PDF and context sensitive menus. This build finally integrates portrait browsing, just like the built-in microB browser and zoom using the volume buttons.

Other usability improvements include Start page with for example a list of your tabs history, there’s also a Form Autocomplete and Smart tap.

This update is for both the N900 and N810. Madhava.com has more  details on the new features.

Want to get this browser? Use the built browser and visit: Firefox.com/m

As you might have noticed, we haven’t been covering Symbian-based devices lately, focusing completely on the Nokia N900 and the upcoming MeeGo OS.  We started The Nokia Guide to cover the Nokia devices we’ve come to know and love, which at the beginning were Symbian-based. But as the mobile market has gotten progressively more competitive, especially from Android, we feel that Symbian-based devices have lost their edge to the point where we’re simply not covering them enthusiastically; we won’t buy them and won’t recommend them to our readers. As a result we’re going to make it official what we’ve been doing for a while now: stop covering Symbian-based devices. We feel that Symbian is becoming irrelevant and upcoming Symbian^3 and^4 don’t seem to change that. Other Symbian bloggers, such as our friends at Symbian-Guru are taking it one step further.

Luckily this doesn’t affect the Nokia N900 and upcoming MeeGo devices. I’m a happy Nokia N900 owner myself and would easily recommend it to our readers. Because Maemo serves as the basis for what will become MeeGo we have very high expectations for this platform and for this reason we will continue to cover Maemo and MeeGo exclusively.

Microsoft recently scrapped their plans for KIN and are completely focusing on Windows Phone 7. Nokia should do the same: scrap upcoming Nokia N8 and it’s QWERTY-based version and focus on MeeGo and getting developers on their side.

What do you think? Is Symbian becoming irrelevant?

Remember the N900’s built-in Sketch app? This powerful  little app has turned the N900 into a popular art making machine with countless examples to back-it-up. Sure, the app has its limitations, but the results speak  for themselves. Just take a look at the Sketches from the N900 Flickr group, Jay’s Avatar sketch, Ms Jen’s sketches and our very own N900 Sketch Gallery.

Now there’s an even more powerful tool called MyPaint, available from the Maemo.org Catalog in the N900”s App manager. The app’s larger than normal download size at 9.4MB is expected considering its various brushes and advanced functionality.

The level of customization is impressive and the brushes mean that you have to worry less about creating certain simple effects, allowing you to concentrate on the more advanced stuff. Luovatone has done just that on the video above, creating a level of realism that’s simply jaw dropping. His Flickr photostream can be found here.

While you can always use your N900’sstylus, you can take it to the next level with Wacom Pens.

Have you tried MyPaint? Share your results with us!

Yes, you read that correctly. The N900 is bow being offered at just $369 dollars! Considering that the N900 is Nokia’s current flagship device, this is an extremely good deal. With the N9 expected at the end of the year, we can expect more of these hours. But if you’ve been eyeing the N900, this would probably THE time to quickly pick one up.

The deal can be found here, please use coupon code LL17PBSTFKZ440.

Via:Engadget

Another great feature introduced with the PR1.2 update for the N900 is Facebook Chat. A lot of people seem to have a bit of trouble login into the service due to the username. The service asks for your username in the form of x@chat.facebook.com. The problems comes from the fact that many think your suppose to use the email that you used to sign up with Facebook.

To get this to work, you should login into Facebook on your desktop and  go to Account>Account Settings>Username. The username given here is the one to be used to log into Facebook Chat on the N900 and NOT your email.

One of the new features of the PR1.2 update is the Email Widget. This widget is supposed to display an overview of your unread emails for all of your email accounts, including Nokia Messaging, making for a very useful addition to the N900. (Here you can find how to setup Nokia Messaging).

But as it turns out, there’s a bug with the Email Widget that prevents it from working properly with Nokia Messaging, Nokia’s star email service and quite a few people are affected by this bug. The widget  does work well when you manually configure your email accounts, but completely ignores and in some cases even prevents your from configuring by pressing the small “wrench.”We really hope that the Nokia gets a fix out soon, as this widget in combination with Nokia Messaging would be a great feature on top of the other cool updates that PR1.2 brings.

Are affected by this bug? Let us know!