Great stuff! Although, as a long-time maemo/meego/nokla fan, I have a bunch of useless but very urgent comments pending 🧐 First of all, I think you are incorrect about the way Nokla positioned N900 in public. It was by no means "dev phone". The emphasis was on "success", "media" (as per N-series) and "connect people". And the latter is what Maemo did best: for example, it was one of the first mobile OSes (if not the first) to implement full contacts integration. You could have any type of contact data linked to person' record in a phone book. Every app exposed its own type of record (like icq uin, jabber address, etc.) so you had like a global contacts list in your phone merged from every app. For example, you could install icq client and it would populate phone book with a list of your online buddies, and then you were able to merge those with existing, having-only-phone-number profiles, with exported icq uin being yet another property of each of said profiles. So next time you open icq client all those buddy uins were actually displayed as profiles from "global" phone book, with avatars you assigned to them and so on. Hell, you didnt even need "icq client" to be a dedicated app with its own GUI. Those IM services acted like adapters, so you could use system chat app to talk to people over any protocol, all in one place. For me personally it was such a killer feature, I stick to this phone for at least an extra year on account of this alone. Also, N900 was kinda pricy. Nokla ran ad campaign, calling N900 something like ultimate way for young (but already soomewhat successful) to get online, connect and have fun typical N-series style. So yes, it was in fact a geek phone, but it was never positioned this way. Secondly, again, for a non-dev consumer N900 was not that good. Dont get me wrong, I absolutely love it, but resistive screen was far from good and phone had noticable problems with responsiveness. It simply lagged. And it lagged much. Too much for regular user to cope with for such a high price. Combined with some sensor-related problems, MMS troubles, and also its weight/size, it lead to not so joyful user experience in upcoming touchphones' world. On the other hand, its successor, N9, is absolutely great! The best, deep black OLED screen, good touch, perfect size/weight, and Maemo, transitioned into close-to-perfection MeeGo. But no qwerty keyboard. Swipes are good, it was really a revolution and to this day is way better than anything goolagol shitphones can offer, but still. Man needs his qwerty. Nokla made a small number of N950 phones, which were MeeGo+qwerty, but unfortunately those never hit first hand market, being (this time for real) a sample phone for devs. I have both N900 and N9, and despite N900 being a very interesting and good looking phone, it's very hard to adapt it to every day use. But N9 is still good. In fact, it's still better than most of modern smartphones out there. Also, I'd like to say that MeeGo was probably the best mobile OS ever (or had potential to be). It was designed not only for phones but for wide array of devices. I absolutely love laptop version of it! Neat, simple, very visually appealing, with GUI being somewhat reduced as far as regular PC user is concerned, but greately adjusted for everyday use in connectivity activities (lol) such as IMs, chats and whatnot. I have a number of tiny laptops originally released with MeeGo onboard, with Samsung N100 being probably the best nettop ever (keyboard alone, man, in this day and age it's impossible to find such a good kb). Although it's not that old as most of your findings, I think it should be noted in case you decide to elaborate on whole Maemo/MeeGo topic. With that being said, I think a series of videos about MeeGo/N9/N950 would be a great niche content to make! It probably wont attract many new users, but it would be an absolute joy to produce. Getting your hands on N950 could be hard to pull off (single item for sale on ebay as of now, $2,5k from Greece, claims to be mint tho) but this is no doubt a great artefact.

I worked at Nokia when all this was being developed; exciting, but bittersweet times. There was some serious talent and tech that got cut short with the switch to Windows Phone.

I must say.. it gives me a strong wave of "this is what Android phones should be" I loved that time, where it was all about features.

Imagine having this phone with "recent specs" like SnapdragonGen1/2 or Dimensity8/9 Series with 4/8gb of RAM and USB-C would be a dream come true.

Like tears in the rain.. Nokia truly made products where user can have full control and innovate with it.

I still have one. Love this thing. Once I used it to jailbreak my PS3.

this thing is bonkers, absolutely nuts for a phone of this time.

Maemo, that's a name I haven't heard in a long long time. Another legendary phone that came out in 2009 was the HTC HD2.

This device was something else. I bought an N900 shortly after it came out back when I was in high school and that phone still sits on my desk to this day. This device (and the N800 I had before it) introduced me to Linux and is the primary reason I am now a software engineer specializing in embedded Linux.

Ahh, I have (mostly) fond memories of working on the N900/N950/N9. And then Elopcalypse happened and the whole thing got flushed down the drain. I still remember the deafening silence when Elop announced his Windows plans to a building full of dumbfounded Maemo/Meego developers. Sad end to to an otherwise great journey.

Damn. Crazy to see what could have been. I didn't know this existed. Also, TV out over TRRS jack was on other N series phones, like the N95.

tip: reduce the music volume anyways, great video and now I really want this phone!

The N900 was my first smartphone, and it's still my favourite. Unfortunately when the first Galaxy Note came out I got the new toy lust and got one of those, and because money was tight I sold the N900. I'm still kicking myself. That, and getting rid of my minidisc player are my two biggest tech regrets. And both of those things are pretty expensive nowdays. 😢 Also I didn't know the technical drawings were available for the N900. That's really cool!

I really like your videos and your style of storytelling, so calming. This type of peaceful material is priceless this times.

This approach to OS could have became a serious contender for android and iOS if it wasn't for Microsoft buying out Nokia for their own Windows phone OS which remarkably failed just like many other OS of its time including Samsung BADA OS which ran on my first smartphone.

The N series were always on top of the game. I was quite a heavy Symbian modder back in my school days, and I really miss those days.

As usual, criminally underated niche content. Keep up the excellent efforts and always remember us loyal viewers before you go big and maybe become a nebula or patreon only content maker. Good job !!💜💜💜

I had (and still have) this phone back in the day and even complete in box, i didnt knew how much you can do with it, thanks for this video now i will have to look into all this 😁

What an epic device that was! I had (have) one. You could do almost anything with it. You could actually over clock and under clock the thing at the same time. Basically, you could add both a new lower CPU freq to save power and new upper CPU freq to go faster. I actually used the thing quite a bit even after switching phones. I had it running as an odd network music device. It was plugged into an analog stereo that it controlled via the IR blaster so it could turn the stereo on/off, volume up/down, mute, etc. It called the IR commands via a web server that it ran so you would actually control it using any other device on the network with a web browser. Oh, and the music was actually hosted on a separate NAS, not the N900. From what I remember, I had some kind of software that read the music files in my collection and pushed them to a web app that I modified to add the IR code buttons to. Great fun. It really did have its short comings though. From what I remember, web browsing in general got to be painfully slow to the point of frustration. Also, phone calls themselves weren't all that great if I recall. But over all, I had more fun with that thing than any other mobile device. I have it in a desk drawer still. It would be cool if you could run it like a thin client these days, though I don't know if it could even handle a VNC stream. Plus I'd need to find a new battery for the thing. The original went all blimp on me. Thanks for the blast of nostalgia! Great content BTW. Love your overall style. Subbed.

You should also look at the Nokia N9 because MeeGo operating system is really interesting to explore because it's also based on Linux as well and also exploring Motorola phones with Linux based operating system would be interesting as well, such as ROKR E2, ROKR E6 and RAZR2 V8

this phone with modern hardware and specs would be a dream come true...

Super interesting. I was already intrigued by the video using the FM antennas to transmit audio, and this makes it more interesting ngl

At the end you described what each of Nokia user felt using their phones...the were from another planet. So advance, so unique. Im loving your channel im a very curious person and i like to see that your content has a lot of weird tech stuff! Cheers from Argentina!

amazing video! looking forward whats next with this litle beast

great video, can't wait to see more!

Thanks Janus! Another excellently curated adventure down memory lane. 👍😎🇦🇺

Ahead of its time,.... thankyou for sharing your knowledge ( N900) !

This is one of the coolest videos i ever seen on youtube

Fantastic upload, much thanks 🎉❤. I bought an N900 when it first came out, in 2009, and am waiting for the full opensource kernel based Maemo Leste to come out. The instructions you gave here, such as flashing and installing Uboot, and root access, are super helpful, and i believe, unique across the internet. Even the forums don't explain it beyond some jargon heavy instructions, which challenge more than help. This is truly an outlier video 😊

I had one of these back in the day, loved that phone.

It is till this day my favourite phone. Very unique and very practical.

The vibe of this ! " In the depths of forgotten time, there existed a relic whispered only in legends-a smartphone unlike any other. Once an overlord of technology, it now lay dormant, its power undiminished by the passage of ages. Lost to memory, yet not to potency, it waited in the shadows, a silent sentinel of bygone days. Few dared to speak its name, for those who did spoke in hushed tones, their voices trembling with fear and awe. But in the quiet of the night, its screen flickered to life with an eerie glow, casting long-forgotten spells into the darkness. The ancient smartphone, a witch of modernity, stirred from its slumber, ready to reclaim its dominion over the world of mortals. Unseen and unheard, it plotted its return, a silent menace lurking in the depths of time. And woe unto those who crossed its path, for its power was as real as the darkness that cloaked it, and its thirst for vengeance knew no bounds. "

I really enjoy these type of videos. I wish I knew as much as you do. Justo knowing that an old device can be functional again is fascinating to me. Best wishes from Panamá 🇵🇦

That Nokia handshake logo video hit the nostalgia button hard!

As one may guess from my user name this was the best phone I ever owned. Sailfish OS, the successor of Maemo and MeeGo is still around and is able to run on various Sony phones. This helped me to avoid ever owning any iOS or Android phones so far. 😃

You're correct is saying this was peoples all time fav phone, and it was i got mine in 2009 and it was amazing times that ill never forget. The amount of things we could do with this phone was unreal. Nokia should of kept at it for a bit longer but with Andriod and Iphone blasting through it was hard for them. Defiantly my all time fav device i ever used.

I still have 2 of these, one has been playing music in the shop for over 3 years non-stop!

I bought it at launch, still have it, still works. It was WAY ahead of its time. Very unique.

I had one of these and I loved it!!!

Had it back when new, and still have it in my collection. Was the best back then 🤩

Could only dream of a phone like this being released nowadays.. 🤦‍♂️

I still have one of these. It was my first phone and I was very recently introduced to Linux. It took some effort to learn its 'how to', but it was an amazing device. 64 GB of storage allowed me to carry around whole discographies to listen anywhere. Very nice camera as well. Since then I've got really used to Linux; in all my machines for almost a decade. Got me inspired to take it out of its resting place and play with it again.

Imagine. Someone getting you interested in a random old phone. Nice video!

i've watched this video 3 times. that just shows how good your videos are, and it's crazy how, with some tweaks you can turn a developer phone into a developer micro laptop.

If N950 just reach the market, I would still definitely buy it. Great content as usual!

its probably my dream phone as computer freak

Loving your content. Sincerely ❤

This is such a cool piece of history. remember back when it came out, I was enamored by the box it came in that you'd have send commands to just to get it open. Naturally most at the time just assumed you were "hacking" the box.

N900 was the best phone I ever had. The charging port on mine fell out 😢. It ran emulators well too. PSX and n64 were so great. The opening sound was so good too, very satisfying.

Bestest review channel

that video out through headphone jack and the radio transmitter data transfer broke my head. how the.. why the.. what the...... enough youtube for today.

I loved the HTC Touch Pro format on phones like this.

Great video! Brings me back to days when manufacturers packed all they could into devices and gave people the power.. now a decade later we're stuck with minimalistic devices.. suddenly I miss my Samsung S5 that had a IR to control the telly when the kids misplaced the remote as they do.

Very nice video. I bought this one when it came out aswell. Living in Sweden, it was a very cool phone!

I still have this phone like new and I have preserved it by taking out its battery. It's the only gadget that I take care of like how a person takes care of his/her jewels or valuables at home 😀❤️ I remember installing 4 OS on it: Android, Meego, Windows 95, Debian OS. Thanks for making this great video, I'll try more things that you have mentioned.

Dear Janus Cycle, thank you for sharing N900 experience. I still have this phone along with its box and really enjoyed it. Here is a list of services and installations i did on my phone, i used to tell my friends about it but they though i am kidding and a phone cannot do all this, so here it goes... Over clocking up to 1 GHz, ran and tested all including Asterisk PBX, Squid Proxy server, FTP Server, Web Server, SMBA , Print Server, Media streaming server, File Sharing across the network like PC, RDP from and to N900, running Debian LXDE and installing many Debian Applications including the Gymp graphic editing software. Having a pressure sensitive resistive screen instead of capacitive meant, you can do precision work like clicking on small controls/buttons etc.This phone offers so much i truly wished and still wish if we had phones like this in modern times for next generation to enjoy technologies like N900. I still play with my phone and occasionally use it in daily life like a classic car.

aaand another phone that goes in my eBay wishlist.

Oh, that brings back memories. I was one of the people to use this phone back in the day. It wasn't really meant as a "developer and programmer" phone, it was mostly internet, media and communication phone, hence the large and high resolution (for the day) display with stylus, stereo speakers and qwerty keyboard. It's Linux-based OS is how it ended up being the ultimate geek phone. Thanks to it's relatively open hardware, it was also possible to install (and even dual-boot) 3rd party OSes on it, including a janky version of Android. It was a really cool device back in the day. There was SO MUCH it could do. If you wanted to watch movies, it had an amazing display with 32GB of internal storage (most phones had 8 or 16GB back then), not to mention the SD card, video output or the kickstand, there's even an IR diode that could be used to control the TV as a remote. You wanted to listen to music? There's really nice stereo speakers, 3.5mm jack, bluetooth and even FM transmitter. There was a physical keyboard if you wanted to talk. Stylus so you can browse the internet comfortably. There's mass storage mode so the internal storage and the SD card shows up as a regular flash drive when connected to PC. You could even run full desktop version of GIMP thanks to some Linux magic. And all of that is just barely scratching the surface of what it could do. Despite all of that, I wouldn't call it my favourite phone, that title goes to the Nokia N9, but it's my favourite hand-held by a long shot. Even years after release I still use it as a quick terminal to remotely login into my servers.

By far, the most incredible tech experience i have ever had.

2001 references made it amazing, subbed :)

Never knew these were so great

My fathw got oneof these in 2009, it was so unique. I could never forget this phone and the landscape experience

Take a look into Jolla and their Sailfish OS. They are successors of sorts (same developers that took off from Nokia at the time) to this N900 Maemo and N9 MeeGo. Jolla phone also had GPIO pins. Unfortunately they only can work on the OS atm, The non-android supported version is available free of charge.

I used to have this phone back in the day!!

I had one during high school, spent years customizing it playing with it

Great video, I almost got one after my n95 (which was brilliant) but went with htc instead.

11:12 high pitched whine from the CRT sent me back to when I was 6 years old

best ARM pocket computer, FM Transmitter, AV out, full desktop, memory stick/card reader, Zeiss camera, stereo speakers, Android app running, satnav, KZfaq machine. In 2009!!!

i had the 770 and n800 back then as tablets...great "machines"!!!

This phone was ahead of it's time but it's was betrayed by the limited ram and processor. This thing was slow and power hungry but had 32gb of storage, amazing for the time. My first introduction to Linux, great memories.

I truly loved The 2001 Space Odyssey reference

I still have mine with the original box and accessories, I loved it so much.

I had this, was the first time I could travel without a laptop and post photos to the internet without going to an Internet cafe! You could overclock it and play emulators, but the real draw was desktop quality internet browsing, ssh, etc.

I still have my N900. I only stopped using it as my alarm clock and podcast player recently as the battery no longer holds a charge. Even though I know the battery is easy to change - I just haven't purchased one yet. I enjoyed your video.

Love how ominous you sound. ;P Had forgotten about this phone. Remember older or newer. But then remembered my N800 build like a brick. Definitely as tuff as the 3210 and 3310. I played hockey with it. Until it went in the water and bai bai. And the 6600 symbian was a all time favorite. I MISS NOKIA. 😢

absolutely insane for 2009

My day has been made

Author, I clicked on your video from YT recommendations and was not disappointed! Never knew this particular model existed and was surprised how seemingly awesome it was back then and, probably, still today. Resistive screen, though, I was hating the thing back in the day when I used to use a Nokia C6-00. Hope you could get your hands on Nokia N9 and review it! I am going to find one for myself to play around. I've heard (and read) it's a really solid phone with a great OS. If only it were chosen instead of Windows for phones…

Dude, I had this one back in the days. It was one of the best phones I ever had. While Iphones were struggeling with 3+ apps opened at the same time, this baby could have 10+ apps opened without lags. Too bad it had no custom android, so it was a hassle to keep whatsapp and all other apps updated but still great phone with an amazing keyboard. After the N900 I had the N9 and it was one of the first smartphones with ambient screen, also it had swipe gestures which wasn't popular even on android.

Awesome video, I also have this phone an i think it's one of the most interesting phone ever released along with Nokia n9. I would love a video on that one as well. Also mine came with a password as well and the seller didn't know it but I managed to reset it by using the terminal to export it as a hash file and using the John the ripper to crack it which took like 0.1 seconds. If you plan on making more videos with this phone i personally would love to see you installing maemo Leste and exploring it. I haven't had the time to do it on my device.

Wow the functions are really cool. I really wish it was released and successfull. All smartphones should be like this and not locked down.

This was my daily driver for almost two years. AMAZING handset.

maaannn, such a nice channel...also, a huge nostalgia dose,,

Great video!

Good introduction for a legendary phone! It would be interesting to see how n900 can handle general-purpose arm-Linux apps and games (considering its power of course).

Definitely my favorite phone of all time, i have the n900, n9, and n95 and still the n900 is in a class of its own

Great smartphone. Had it before my 1st android phone.

I'm in love with this channel. All my childhood dream tinkering.❤

This channel gives me Coldfusion vibes. Subscribed

Nokia tried to save us from vertical videos.

Wow, that was such a cool phone. It would be nice to see an updated, the 9000 version of it.

i dealt with a nokia phone that was a windows phone but not a linux phone i also enjoy watching your videos and learning something new every time i have heard of maemo os once before online i have heard of symbian OS before and it was prone to viruses

Nokia was 10 years ahead from its time, I still have an N97 and kicks all sorts of android iphone ass

this is the electronics equivalent of the clickspring channel

as someone that roots android phones to this day this phone would have been a dream come true back in the day.

Growing up, I always envied the Nokia N series phones: they looked so cool, had unique features, and seemed like Nokia was trying to make computers opposed to Ericsson making iPods. I also had a little Nseries envy from all of my Indian family and Indians' general obsession with Nokia. But when it came to getting my first smartphone, only windows phone Nokia's were available... So I got a galaxy s2 (forget exactly what it was called then bc it wasn't s2). As another comment said, having a linux-style open portable computer with contemporary hardware would be insanely powerful. Android phones (even iPhones) are getting there.

I would like to see a modern phone like this one, with ALL the cool set of characteristics it had, specially Linux on a great hardware

I had one on these and would use it for live synth performances during my DJ sets.

i loved this phone ! i remember buying this when it came out and it was GREAT !

nice. I got two of them in use until today :)