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Nokia N900 Necromancy

yaky.dev

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Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#121

Post by BatteryMountain »

sollewitt wrote: post #41

The N900 was my peak “mobile computing is awesome” device. I went to see District 9 in the cinema in Helsinki. Uh oh, the alien parts are only subtitled in Finnish and Swedish and my Finnish is not up to that. I installed a BitTorrent client, found the release on Pirate Bay, successfully torrented just the subtitle file, and used an editor to read the subtitles for scenes with a lot of alien. The N9 had much better U…

Same here. I miss my N900 dearly. It was one of my most expensive items at the time, and I enjoyed this device more than the Galaxy S I9000.

It had the best slide-out keyboard of all the phones, nice and rubbery keys. Super smooth sliding motion.

It also had a FM Transmitter (not just Receiver), so I could blast audio in my first car back then without struggling with bluetooth kits & audio cable (neither was standard).

It also had an infra-red transmitter that was programmable, so you could use it as a remote in certain circumstances.

It the time, the 32GB storage was absolutely massive for a phone.

It also had stereo speakers & a kick-stand, so you could watch a movie on it without issues.

I really miss this phone & era. Maemo OS could've owned the market today, as at the time it was much better than early Androids. Nokia messed up so hard after this, the N9 was shitty in comparison.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#122

Post by t43562 »

Nursie wrote: post #111
larodi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is amazing Nokia missed on the mobile revolution as n900 predated iPhone if I remember correctly. But Nokia did one massive mistake and it was to bet on Linux for this device. Even when they already had lot of Symbian experience, which also was week though when it came to user apps. The modified BSD on the first iPhones was simply blazingly fast.

Good god no. The iPhone was out two years ago before the N900. Nokia was already fucked because it had set up a system in which internal divisions designed competing phones, as a result it had flooded the market with similar but-not-quite-the-same handsets with overlapping features, and it had missed out on usability advances that iOS had made. Symbian was undergoing an overhaul which would eventually lead it to be ’…

The happy ending is that MS took the brunt of the disaster. :-)

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#123

Post by cvak »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #78
sollewitt wrote: post #41

The N900 was my peak “mobile computing is awesome” device. I went to see District 9 in the cinema in Helsinki. Uh oh, the alien parts are only subtitled in Finnish and Swedish and my Finnish is not up to that. I installed a BitTorrent client, found the release on Pirate Bay, successfully torrented just the subtitle file, and used an editor to read the subtitles for scenes with a lot of alien. The N9 had much better U…

I wish the N950 was fully released, there were some produced but I don't think it was commercially available. It was the true successor to the N900, it would have used the N9 software but unlike the N9 it also had a physical keyboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N950

yeah I scooped n950 on some online marketplace for very cheap since it was bricked, fixed it and resold it for profit, but what a beauty of a phone, I wish I kept it.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#125

Post by anthk »

bigiain wrote: post #43
LeoPanthera wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I broadcast my own 3G cell inside my house with some magic radio device?

Not legally. Where I'm from they sold off the old 3G spectrum and frequencies, mostly (all?) to established telcos to use in 4G or 5G mobile services. They will not be happy if you start interfering with their customers there (especially not after the money they spent at the auction for those licenses). There are some weird bits of the 900MHz band that cross into the fairly free-to-use ISM bands in some countries, an…

Europe can use 433 and 866 MHZ for ISM.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#127

Post by SahAssar »

antran22 wrote: post #38

I'm just wondering if there is any real modern pocket cyberdeck with the form factor of those old phones, with a slide out physical keyboard.

I think the F(x)tec Pro1 might fit the bill, but getting it to run real linux might be a challenge.

Planet Computers Astro Slide 5G also sounds like it could work.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#128

Post by carlosjobim »

Sharlin wrote: post #57
girvo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh I loved my Nokia N9. Such an amazing little phone, and it's depressing a little that I can't use them anymore where I live

It was such an incredible phone. Easily rivaled the iPhones of the time and was light-years beyond any Android.

Not directed at you, but what kind of person would [flag] and [dead] the other reply to your comment? Talk about not having a life!

As for the N9, it still has the most modern and beautiful GUI of any smart device, 15 years after being discontinued. It will take at least 15 more years for iOS or Android to reach that level, if ever. The physical design was also very nice and refined.

For those who don't believe me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCFNXhiFnKY

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#129

Post by yaky »

dtj1123 wrote: post #94

Sincere question: Can someone explain how you develop the skills and knowledge required to pull this off? I'm no genius, but I'm reasonably sure I'm not a slouch either. I've got a masters in theoretical physics, I've worked with and written software for four years, I take an interest in anything techy I come across. I've picked up the basics of population genomics and molecular genetics without assistance. I still f…

I read about lithium-ion and LiFePO batteries on Adafruit a few years ago, and saw similar projects elsewhere. The bootloader stuff is on Maemo wiki, along with tools to flash the device (which is also a bit of dark magic arts to me).

TBH, I didn't / don't exactly have a path. I started with Raspberry Pi (and Linux for the second time) 10+ years ago, which led me to Arduino, which led me to low-voltage electronics in general. At the same time, I had an unreasonable dislike of google, which led me to flashing LineageOS on a test phone, which then became my main phone, which eventually led to PinePhone, which didn't work out, but was fun.

Re: Nokia N900 Necromancy

#130

Post by carlosjobim »

mrmlz wrote: post #70
imp0cat wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the Jolla preorder? It was on hn a few days ago. That is the spiritual successor of the N9XX line. https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder

I loved my N9. But i'm somewhat hesitant on preordering that one. I need wireless charging.. And i still dont really get if Android-apps actually work or not, i.e. swedish Bank-Id/Swish etc.

You can have another device for your banking.
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