Since I've decided to start developing for Android I have bought Nexus S as development phone.

First of all I was in love with N900 against Android and phones without physical keyboard as general.

N900 is a geek’s dream phone. It is more like handheld PC. It is as open as a phone/OS can be and performance is unbelievable.

Main problem with N900 is that Nokia already killed it! It was a trial by Nokia and they decided to leave N900 and its OS Maemo in favour of MeeGo.

You hardly find commercial applications. Most apps for it are created by enthusiastic users. Lack of commercial intent is huge drawback for N900.

On the other hand Nexus S comes with latest Android OS gingerbread. You can be assured that Nexus S will get latest OS updates at least one more year. Android has many rough edges but way better than Maemo. You have 200K apps on the market (although only couple of hundred of them are actually useful) and every day you see new ones uploaded.

On the keyboard end I was surprised how easy to use software keyboard. Integrated auto complete make a lot easier to search and type.

So far I am happy with my new development phone and looking forward to learn Java and Android development.

Nokia released Nokia N900 PR1.2 today as download from http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N900.php and it will be available on over the air update from tomorrow.

If you want to re-flash your device with download Maemo flasher from

http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/maemo-dev-env-downloads.php

Image files

RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin

RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin

from http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N900.php

Don't forget to read flashing how to at http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

There is no info about official change log but see Maemo.org wiki for collection of known changes

Yay!!! My favorite browser's Maemo version is ready for download as Alpha release at http://labs.opera.com/news/2010/05/11/. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for download.

I must say it is way better and faster than Firefox Mobile for Maemo/N900!

The only main problem I've noticed is that page load times are quite high when you compare to on board browser MicroB.

Opera Mobile for Maemo is a hobby project by Opera engineers and IS NOT OFFICIALLY supported.

Here are some screen-shots. To get original size right click and save images to your computer.