N900 vs. iPhone 3GS 32 GB Specification Wise

Update Sep 9th 2009: iPhone 3G S seems to have 1219 mAh battery. Some sources say 1250 mAh. Palm Pre has 1150 mAh and same TI OMAP 3430 processor as N900 so with 1320 mAh it should do OK, not great though with big screen like that and lot of multitasking.

It occurred to me that N900 is on some aspects totally opposite side to iPhone 3GS 32 GB and in some aspects very close to each other. Both devices occupy the high end handset spot for these manufacturers and are thus getting most attention from tech crowd.

Here is quick rundown on similarities and difference:

N900 vs iPhone 3GS 32 GB

• Dimensions: N900 111*60*18mm, iPhone 116*62*12mm > Otherwise similar but iPhone wins on thickness, though remember that N900 has that qwerty keyboard
• Weight, N900 weights 181 g and iPhone 135g so iPhone clearly lighter
• CPU, N900 has ARM Cortex A-8 pumping at 600 Mhz, iPhone has similar CPU pumping at 600 Mhz, Nokia uses Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 package where Apple uses Samsung’s package, these packages meld CPU + 3D graphics acceleration chips together
• Memory (RAM), N900 has 1 GB of memory (756 MB on swap), iPhone has 256 MBs
• Storage Memory (flash), both have 32 GBs as we compare these models, iPhone 3GS also available with 16 GBs
• Color choices, N900 is only available in black, iPhone available in black and white
• Screen, both have 3.5 inch screens
• Screen touch technology, N900 is resistive and iPhone is capacitive
• Touch modes, N900 is single touch where as iPhone is multitouch capable
• Screen resolution, N900 has 800*480 pixels where iPhone has 480*320 pixels – a big difference here and remember that it is likely Apple will not change this for some time to keep backward compatibility, N900 has big upperhand in this spec
• Wifi, both have B and G support
• Bluetooth, both have Bluetooth v2.1 support with all the relevant protocols
• GPS, both have assisted GPS (A-GPS)
• Digital compass (magnetometer), N900 does not appear to have this, iPhone has – shame on N900 here
• Battery, N900 has user replaceable 1320 mAh and iPhone has non-user replaceable battery of x mAh (what is Iphone 3GS battery capacity?)
• Use cases & use time, N900 has not specified these anywhere, iPhone has claimed 5 h talk time on 3G, standby up to 300h, audio playback up to 30h and video playback up to 10h – these numbers will be interesting to see for N900, because we have not yet seen them I’m definately worries – be prepared to have 2 batteries or charger near by if you are power user with N900
• Charging, both charge via micro USB port
• Camera, N900 has autofocus Carl Zeiss 5 megapixel camera + dual led flash, iPhone has autofocus 3 megapixels
• Browser, N900 has Mozilla Gecko & webkit based browser, iPhone has Safari which also uses Webkit, note that N900 does have full support for Flash 9.4 where as iPhone does not have Flash support and is not likely to have that anytime soon
• Sensors, both have accelerometer, ambient light sensor, proximity senser (why not air temperature, air pressure sensors?)
• Operating systems, N900 has Maemo (based on Debian Linux), iPhone has variant of Mac OS X which is largely based on Unix variant – BSD
• Keyboard, N900 has 3-row qwerty keyboard, iPhone has only virtual on-screen keyboard, I personally really like to have both on my device even with added weight and thickness
• Speakers, N900 has two speakers?, iPhone has only one speaker for audio output
• Included headset, N900 comes with wired in-ear stereo headset, iPhone comes with traditional wired headset – great that we finally see Nokia product ship with in-ear headset (WH-205), but will it be good in real life?
• Multitasking, N900 is multitasking hero – likely more capable than any similarly sized mobile device, iPhone has multitasking for built-in Apple applications but not yet for 3rd party app, big win for N900

One key factor to remember is that N900 is clearly more of a mobile computer than smartphone. N900 is used by default in landscape mode vs. iPhone’s more traditional smartphone vertical use mode. Keyboard is another hint that N900 is geared more towards content creation vs. iPhone’s lean on media consumption. Apple wants you to buy media from them, not that you produce and share that free some might want to highlight.