Nokia N900 Running Android AND Maemo

by Rob Jackson on January 25th, 2010 at 11:00 am

I’m sure a lot of mobile fans would agree that they would LOVE to see Nokia embrace Android but I hate to tell ya it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. They’re wrapped up in their own OS decisions… Symbian Foundation, Maemo, etc… and will likely stay the course. But that doesn’t mean developers with enough elbow grease can’t cram Android onto Nokia devices with enough wit and muster.

Check out this guy who was able to get the Nokia N900 to dual boot with Android and Maemo:

We don’t get to see if all the bells and whistles work, but it’s a fun thought nonetheless. If only Nokia was working on doing the same darn thing… *sigh*… we can dream I suppose.

  • swehes

    boot from SD card? That is cool. I wonder if a person could get android 2.1 on a SD card and boot from that on other phones too?

  • Andrew

    It doesn’t look like the touch screen calibration works very well. He is using a hard button to slide the app drawer in and out. When he touches anywhere on the home screen, it attempts to pull down the notification bar. Good work getting it started, but it looks there is still a long way to go before this is suitable for daily use.

  • Jeffrey

    They do on Windows Mobile devices (ie, the HTC touch, etc)

  • Martijn

    In the video (2:00) you can see the that the touch-screen driver isn’t working.
    I presume that before making this practical to use, a lot of drivers need to be written first. :-(
    Creative on the other hand, makes these drivers themself (Zii Egg), would be nice if Nokia did too.

  • Dave

    I had an N900 for about three weeks. Great hardware, sketchy software, but it felt like my G1 did in late 2008; undeveloped but bursting with potential.

    I sold it immediately when the Nexus One came out, and I only regret the move for small reasons. If someone gets a real Maemo/Android ecosystem working, I’d totally move back to a Nokia. HTC hardware just can’t be compared to it in any favorable way.

  • jouten

    @Dave
    “…HTC hardware just can’t be compared to it in any favorable way.”

    Are you saying that HTC hardware is inferior to Nokia’s? Just want to make sure I understand what you are saying.

    Thanks.

  • Dave

    The N900 was the meat in an Android/HTC sandwich over the last 6 weeks. The G1 and N1 are nice, but the fit, finish, feel, polish, thought, and execution on the N900 hardware was one or two solid steps above the HTCs.

  • Eddie Android

    im getting my N900 this weekend

  • Matthew

    Its definatly not working right, when he touches teh screen you see the status bar act like its being pulled down a little. But agree’d its still cool.

  • Jeff

    Dual booting is not ideal. You want an Android Java environment that runs Android applications, but depends upon Maemo for all the nuts & bolts. If necessary, the environment could pause running Maemo applications. You just need the phone, skype, etc. to still run while an Android Java application, usually a game, is running.

  • Josef

    There’s only one thing that stopped me from buying N900. It doesn’t support Java apps (jar & jad). What a shame..

  • Cyclotron Jon

    Oli Pekka – Please give us a Nokia Android!! Still time before Christmas to modify the so-well-made N9oo. Best of European quality shining through. Plus if you get Ovi and other Nokia apps into the Android Market – maybe your earnings will go up.

  • Sl

    Android is dumb java. Do not need to dual boot.
    Just need to port android vm and APIs to maemo and run it in a window ;)

  • http://www.google.com Bhammy

    my nokia N900 is best ever android with maemo stylish in look fast processing graphics with very low price all the top features in others 3g phones

  • http://winaniphone.info Alex

    I think it looks pretty cool:)



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