why the heck Nokia N900 is so thick ?

Has ANYONE actually ever used the front facing camera for video calls?

The thought of having to hold the phone in front of my face and talk AT it rather than into it, and being precluded from multi-tasking while IM at it is ridiculous.

Plus based on what I’ve seen of micro-SD cards I’d image that 32Gb takes up pretty much no more space than 1Gb

*Expansion Slot- just like the thin ‘n’ light rest
*Full QWERTY – you know, like the sleek DROID/Milestone
*IR – aprox. 1mm3
* 5 mpx –dual LED – like HTC HD2, which is quite thin if I remember correctly (droid had 5 mp too
*Removable battery – just like EVERY device except for iPhone
*Stylus – hmm, this one actually COULD take op more space compared to competitors
*Integrated 32GB – about the size of a micro SD card at most… wow, that’s huge…. *sigh*
*FM transmitter and Receiver , TV-out chip – you know, like devices like the Zune HD (which had HD radio, etc) and all other mobile phones
*Front camera for Video Calls- well, that isn’t that big… is it?

in other words: the n900 didnt have to be this thick. look at the HD2 and DROID for same/better specs (except for HD2 lacking keybourd), which are all designed sleek. it’s just NOKIA that is why it’s so thick, look at their Xpress music (5800, 5330), all good phones, but THICK…..

The most likely the reason Nokia is fatter is that it won’t shatter the moment it touches a glass table. Mobile phone manufacturers track “field failure rates” of their phones (=returned on warranty). If a phone gets returned or fixed on warranty, profits suffer. So only phones that don’t need to go back for service are the ones that are worth selling. For instance, though the RAZR sold millions, it was flimsy and had a staggering FFR. It created high sales, but low profit.

Hi guys….that was really good justification….
Maemo rocks… A token of appreciation for your hard work resulting in an ultimate OS….
I’m not complaining… But I went thru HTC and Motorola before…. I was ones their fan… The battery life of HTC(elf) and the bugs in Droid(pre-production version) told me to stay away from them…. All models of nokia except N97 have been good to their customers….
And Nokia… avoid models like N97 and keep up ur reputation….
MAemo guys…..please develope a handfull of fancy applications/3d games and make ur consumers happy……cheers…

Sorry, but this is the most hilarious justification for a phone that is just shy of an inch thick. Most people ask me how old my camera is when I set it down not knowing it’s a phone.

The specs on this barely account for anymore size when compared to other current devices. The keyboard is barely better than my droid’s, but I prefer the droid because of more space plus dpad. My dext kb rocks and is the best I’ve owned to date (N900 is my 7th phone in a year to give you an idead of how many I rotate amongst/test) and the dext is much thinner andmore pocketable with larger non-chiclet-give-your-hands-cramps-due-to-odd-layout kb like the N900 has. Ever long press a key on N900? Here: weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. On most other devices you get either the alt-character or a pop-up for variations of the letter, which I have to do often since many on my team are in countries where it’s common (maemo/nokia closed that request and sent customers hiking to ‘brainstorming’ – as usual).

Stylus is great, but I’d happily carry it seperately for a better form factor.

Durability? Have had my droid longer and use it more since bluetooth works and battery lasts longer than the anorexic one they threw in the N900. Anyway, the droid is solid as a rock still with no looseness in the kb, but the N900 is already wobbly. I’ve even left the droid in my back pocket and sat on it a few times once driving an hour to work before realizing it. It’s that pocketable and that durable.

I can’t tell much of a difference in camera or flash effectiveness for what I use a phone camera for. Import pictures require my $5K Nikon so I’m a bit out of focused when all these are low-end. Zeiss – that’s a cute addition to optics that are inevitably scratched in a few months.

The internal memory is actually smaller than microsd.

The N900 is nice, but there is nothing about it that couldn’t have been designed into a slimmer form factor.

Oh, and the speakers are terrible. Complaints on maemo, bugs filed and nearly every review beats them up. The volume is too low for a speaker phone call and even lower for media. Why bother when no one use these things on speaker except calls and if the want external grab a set of $20 units from fry’s. I’m surprised you used that as justification considering how much heck nokia has gotten because of them. Aweful. I’d happily take 8mm off the width to get rid of them.

I like a lot of what you’ve written, very handy stuff, but this blew me away. I guess being a hardware guy who has tons of phones and even N8*0 to compare it to doesn’t help.