Greetings shiny, stylish, black, linux based phone. Hello Nokia N900. 

The new Nokia N900 (almost available but  not quite) has crashed into the smart phone market. It is a hybrid of phone and tablet computer, coming down more heavily on the side of tablet computer. It's competition is stiff: iPhone, Droid, Blackberry ...

The numbers all add up: 600MHz processor, 1GB application memory, 32 GB internal storage, 600x480 touch screen display. And there is a string of connection abbreviations: GPS, 3.5G, WLAN, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, WiFi. I think that's everything i would need? There is a nice 5 megapixel camera, but no zoom. When someone makes a phone/computer/camera with proper zoom I will be buying it without question 

However, the big attraction of this phone is the Maemo 5 Linux based operating system and the ability to multitask. Being female, the ability to multitask with my mobile devices is important, even essential, to me. My  brain can handle using the internet, phone and calendar at the same time - surely my phone should be able to as well? (Men beware, you may not be able to handle the N900)

Ohoh - and unlike my iPhone the N900 can handle Flash. Yes I know it's proprietary and yes I know you can do shiny things without Flash. But there is nothing more frustrating than browsing websites composed of blank pages where there should be pretty animations. 

The big draw back of the N900 is size. It is definitely thicker than the iphone. Heavier too. A large amount of that is probably thanks to the fold out QUERTY keyboard. Come on designers - I thought we were passed all that? I love typing. I type faster than I write. But these tiny fold out keyboards are just too small to type on properly (and I have small hands). So they are not quite useful for anything and merely take up space. 

Sleek, black, stylish. So, will it replace my iphone? Sadly not until they make it smaller.

http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/