Two OMAP 3430 Phones: Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid
by Brian Klug on June 10, 2010 9:29 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- N900
- Maemo
- Motorola Droid
- Droid
- MeeGo
- Android
- Mobile
N900 - A tank
Nokia has a reputation for building solid, nearly indestructible phones, and the N900 is no exception. Getting your hands on one, it's immediately obvious that the N900 takes nods from its ancestry: the N810, N800, and N770. The N900 obviously builds on the relatively tall and wide form tablet form factor heritage of those devices, squeezing it down into a pocketable form factor. That's clearly been done by trading the wide, tall, but thin internet tablet form factor from the N8xx and N770 for a thicker but smaller footprint device profile. It's obvious this is an internet tablet scaled down; part smartphone, part internet tablet. Compared to the Motorola Droid and HTC Incredible, it’s an unabashedly thick phone; this is a serious piece of hardware that doesn’t make any design compromises just for the sake of staying slim.
I already showed one photo illustrating the thickness against a few other smartphones, but here's a different angle just to drive home that point - the N900 is beefy.
The N900 has a number of signature Nokia quirks that you'll be familiar with if you've used Nokia devices, but might strike others as a bit odd. First of all, on the top of the N900 is where the microUSB port is located, and a speakerphone outlet.
On the bottom, you've got the spring activated standby/resume switch and 1/8" 3.5 mm headphone jack, along with a second speakerphone outlet and the end where the stylus is extracted. For me at least, putting the headset jack at the bottom is a bit confusing, as you get used to holding it this way (and considering it the top, since power is there) only to become disoriented when it's time to answer a call. I mean, look at the USB cable coming awkwardly out of the top. It just doesn't seem natural!
It's an aesthetic criticism that's hardly a major issue, but it's another small quirk that really drives home the point that this is an internet tablet in smartphone skin.
On the left side of the N900 is the region the stylus sits in for the resistive touch screen.
Finally, on the longer side opposite the stylus is the two position camera button, the power button (for really turning the device on or off), and the volume rocker.
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DaveGirard - Saturday, June 12, 2010 - link
sweet Jesus, that Nokia phone is huge. Does it double as an ice cream sandwich cover?metafor - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Cortex is the CPU designed by ARM. This is available as a hard-macro (layout already done) or soft-macro (just the functional RTL). Some companies license this in either version. For those who license the soft-version, such as TI, nVidia and Broadcom, they can do a customized place-and-route along with clock-tree optimizations and voltage partitioning to try to make the design run faster.However, the micro-architecture is the same.
A few companies have ARM architectural licenses (Apple, Qualcomm, Marvell) and instead of licensing the Cortex line of processors, they design their own. The micro-architecture is developed independent of what ARM did in their Cortex series albeit there will often be similarities.
Scorpion inside Snapdragon was developed in the course of years and while it has many similarities to the A8 from a power-point standpoint, the micro-architecture underneath was designed from the ground up. Everything from the branch predictors, the cache controller, exception handling, execution units and most notably, a partially OoOE scheduler and retirement buffer.
There's also the 128-bit, fully pipelined, partially OoOE SIMD/FP unit.
medi01 - Sunday, June 13, 2010 - link
Well, I find it very strange, that "incidentally" iPhone is never shown in bad light. Could you please update your side to side comparison?Impulses - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link
Personally I think there's better things for you guys to do or test with your time... Who cares if a phone's screen colors are more or less accurate, as long as they aren't outright flawed or ugly to look at it shouldn't be a big deal, not like anyone's gonna be doing any pro content editing work on their phones! (I don't even own an AMOLED screen so I'm not particularly biased one way or the other, I own an EVO atm)mojtabaalemi - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
I hate the design of nokia mobile phones . in my idea an iphone is far far better !paihuaizhe - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link
(nike-alliance).(com)=>is a leading worldwide wholesaler company (or u can sayorganization)
arnavvdesai - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - link
I was just wondering if the author had installed AdBlock+ and then run the browser speed numbers or without it being on. If it was not installed which is what I am guessing from the photos, did you notice an improvement in the render times when it was installed. I actually bought the phone recently after seeing it on sale for 380$ and wanted to know the details. Also, I have heard that the current build of the OS allows potrait mode even for the browser(although it has to be activate through some setting) and not just the phone.drwiremore - Sunday, July 4, 2010 - link
Amanda, delighted to have found you. Given the issues in the title, affecting 20~50% of MOTO Droid users, was surprised to see no mention of it. The MOTO boards are alive with disdain and some feel an in you face attitude by Motorola Droid 2 and X announcements. Would you do an iPhone like analysis of voice, antenna and signal issues across Verizons Droids: HTC incredible and MOTO Droid. Your scientific analysis would be welcomed.