the n900 does NOT have this and i received a text from vodafone telling me that my hotlink has been disable because the device im using is not supported.

cdouble:

the n900 does NOT have this and i received a text from vodafone telling me that my hotlink has been disable because the device im using is not supported.

Don't feel too left out. The iPhone 3G and HTC Magic (Android phone), both from Vodafone NZ, don't support hotlink either. The iPhone has the Sim Toolkit menu but 'is not compatible with hotlink'. The Magic gets the txt from vodafone saying it is compatible but Vodafone NZ doesn't ship it with the Sim Toolkit Menu. So the N900 isn't any worse off in this area! 

mcub3d: congrats @nztechfreak: lucky! i had to pay tax for mine :( ended up spending roughly $1000nzd all up. how much did you spend?

ps. take care in repository-testing. I downloaded a bunch of beta things and it drained my battery (had memory leak too). had to reflash it to remove it completely.

NZtechfreak: Once I sort out my rebate it takes the total to $670 for the handset, and then another $50-ish for shipping.

Haven't gone near the beta repository just yet, just set it up to sync my google contacts (shame that Google Email sync doesn't work, no matter, I can get push Gmail via Nokia Messaging for now), and installed a bunch of software...

My Zephyr heart rate monitor works a treat in eCoach (although eCoach is a much more basic piece of software than run.gps).

First impressions:

Build quality, a litle plasticky, but feels solid overall. Slider is solid, only a little play in the closed position (maybe half a mm), I think the slider turned out reasonably well because they were so conservative with the small 3 row keyboard. On the keyboard, its a little cramped, but tactile feedback is much better than the N97 keyboard, and they've done some sensible things like putting the function key on the left hand side this time around. Like the lens cover, my last two phones haven't had it, and I really prefer it there (also makes for by far the best way to launch the camera app). The little kickstand seems a bit gimmicky to me at the moment, but nice to have since it doesn't really cost you anything to have it. The screen, as you can imagine, is an absolute finger-print magnet (they include a lens cloth in the package) - seems worse in this regard than the capacitive screens of my last two phones.

Screen is good overall, but doesn't match the best ones out there overall when you consider display resolution, size, and characteristics. Make no mistake, most people are going to feel thoroughly spoiled by this screen - but I'm now used to the 4.3inch behemoth screen that dominates the HD2, and before that I had the 3.7inch AMOLED screen of the i8910, so to be honest for me its a little underwhleming. As resistive screens go this is really pretty good, certainly much better than their efforts in either the 5800 or the N97, but once you're accustomed to capacitive its hard to go back.

Camera seems fine, typical Nokia 5mp fare, not yet taken video with it. Startup time is excellent. Sharing is easily achieved, but hardly sets the phone apart these days, I particularly like the ability to add the tags as you upload it though - very user friendly and an advance on others in this regard.

Speed of use is excellent, although while playing around in the browser with app downloads and installation running in the background I've managed to make the music player stutter a bit here and there, and there is the occasional slight lag from time to time when its doing intensive things.

Music sound quality is very good, but if you look at the gsmarena review you can see for yourself that in objective terms this has very good audio quality output. At the highest settings I found the sound uncomfortably loud, so no doubt this will please the people who are always asking about this aspect (who are obviously just desperate to ruin their hearing). Music player is not quite as slick as HTC's media player, but it detects my mp3tag tags and embedded album art perfectly, which is a boon.

Voice call quality is fine, typical Nokia in that regard.

Battery life - no idea, its still charging. I've read some really troubling reports though, so we'll see if it can cut the mustard soon enough!

maxximuscool: does N900 come with a free micro SD card?