Nokia N900 is now a consumer phone

It’s always good to take a walk through the tube even if you can’t stand the delays, grime and the folks playing music. It’s good to get a view on what the mobile market is pitching to end consumers. The Nokia N900 Maemo device was arguably never intended for the average 24 year old female on a 35/month contract. Indeed when I originally talked to Nokia back at the start of Q4 2009, they were — broadly speaking — unsure if any operators would ‘range’ the device. And that issue didn’t really bother them either. The N900 is almost a reference device for Maemo, for the future of the company’s super-high-tech gadget series of devices.

If you hunted around in early January, you could pick up an N900 on a contract from some of the equipment re-sellers online. But it’s only recently that Vodafone in the UK has officially offered the device. Super news for interested geeks. I’m not sure that advertising the device in the tube is the best thing to do. Nokia doesn’t necessarily need normobs or mobile civilians walking into Carphone Warehouse and evaluating the N900 against (for example) the iPhone. The N900 isn’t for the faint of heart — it’s a hugely powerful device that the super-geeks will *love* but that your average consumer will have issues with.

I’m pleased Vodafone has taken it on to give the geeks a choice. I don’t reckon they or Carphone need to advertise that much though. If you were interested you probably were already on the operator site regularly searching for it, right?

Posted via email from MIR Live