Skype comes built in in the Converations app. Open the app, click on Converations in toolbar at top and select Accounts. Set up your Skype account and Skype is ready to go

A few thoughts:

1) While the Nokia phones are not subsidized, they can actually be cheaper on another carrier than an iPhone on ATT when you consider the cost over 2 years. Shallimus commented “Do the math.” Here it is… Ex: $500 + $70 * 24 = 2180 for a $500 Nokia phone on a $70 / month plan. $200 + $95 * 24 = 2480 for a iPhone 3GS on a $95 / month ATT plan. $500 seems expensive for a phone, but it ends up being $300 cheaper than an iPhone. (These are plans I was looking at… the $70 plan actually had more minutes and messaging than the $95 one at ATT. Obviously people’s wireless coverages and preferences can change this up.)

2) Nokia now offers free navigation software (with turn by turn voice directions) for its newer phone models. If you don’t have a car gps navigation system this could be a nice bonus. This is not just google maps.. you don’t have to be online to use it and you can get maps from around the world for free. Note: The N900 and N86 currently do not yet have this (Ovi Maps 3), but the n97 mini does.

3) The Nokia phones have nice cameras… the N86 (the slider phone in the pictures above with a regular number pad) has a 8MP camera with variable aperture. (It can change how much light it lets in, like most cameras.) This is no replacement for a stand-alone camera, but is impressive when compared to the iPhones 3.2MP camera. (Megapixel counts aren’t everything, but this one does better than most phones in lower light conditions and has a wider angle than most camera phones.)

4) Be sure to check for 3G (fast internet) compatibility for these phones and your carrier. Ex: iPhone 3GS has 3G on ATT. The N97 mini and N86 will also support 3G on ATT. The N900 however supports 3G on T-Mobile. You can still use all these Nokias on either network, but they will just support slower internet speeds. (No youtube streaming, but email, IM and web are ok.)

5) I have not used the N900, but while it has some very exciting features, it still lacks some basic functionality: No MMS support and some reports of weak battery life, at least with heavy use. (It’s also quite large.) These will probably improve with the successor that should come out this year, but the average person might be somewhat frustrated by this.

I’m still undecided and am trying to hold out until some new models are announced from both companies.

Personally, I think I will be a little disappointed by the iPhone 3GS camera. (My 3+ year old phone has a decent 3.2MP autofocus camera.) I’m also a little hesitant to commit to 2 years of higher than average priced ATT wireless plans. The iPhone certainly is sexier than the Nokias and has a sweet user interface. The Nokias have keypads or keyboards though, which I like a lot better than on-screen keyboards. Getting a gps navigation system out of a phone is also a nice plus. And while not everyone cares about software freedom, I like being able to install whatever I want on my phone.

I am very curious to see what phones Apple and Nokia release in 2010.

…and for those who want ‘subsidised’ phones in North America (or elsewhere) ask yourself who is subsidising the phone? The network from the goodness of their heart? Of course not. So the answer: YOU are, through your overpriced contract. Do the math.

You understand pretty much nothing about Nokia’s strategy in smartphones. They plan to release 1-2 devices a year based on Maemo, max. Contrast this with the 5-10 Symbian devices they have been releasing annually and you can see that it will be very easy for them to manage two platforms. Also, Nokia as a corporation is 4 times the size of Apple (both a good and a bad thing) – so they certainly have the personel.

You also underestimate the level of involvement in the Symbian (S60 no longer exists, thanks) community, so please don’t talk about it like you know anything.

Besides, if I am only going to use it in the U.S., what benefit am I going to see by buying it unlocked?

The bands are only for T-MO, if I use it on Cingular, I’d only get edge. Therefore, the bands by default keep the device locked to one carrier in practice.

I’ve had an iPhone since Sept. with no computer and no day to day issues. I just set up a MobileMe account too. The only problem with that is I haven’t been able to sync my iTunes content. All apps I’ve purchased previously download again for free. The only other problem I can think of is firmware updates. I been delaying buying a new Mac and I’m surprised at how little I miss an actual computer. If I could overcome the iTunes and firmware issues I’d skip the computer altogether.

Therefore they have released a phone pre-2010 with a capacitive screen. But to impy that they’re stubbornly sticking with resistive screens in favor of capacitive screens (then backing it up by saying you’d have to wait until 2010… SOOO FAR AWAY) is ludicrous.

Capacitive screens provide hindrances in that people in colder areas cannot use gloves with their phone (fine unless you’re outside of America) and Asian countries need the stylus for the language support.

You missed the point of Naemo being a thin skin over Linux. Like Gnome or KDE, its just the desktop layer.

That means all of the development tools for Linux will work on Naemo.

Naemo uses one of th standard tool sets in Linux the GTK+ suite. They will be switching to Trolltech’s QT, the other big name in linux screen management tool-sets (now owned by Nokia).

http://derstandard.at/1246541386200/Maemo-switches-to-Qt

QT is a cross platform development tool set. Linux, Mac OSX, Windows, WinMo, Symbian. So you can develop ONCE and run it on all of those platforms.

So “years away” from a polished feeling seems a bit of a stretch, especially since I doubt you have ever even touched a Nokia N900, let alone used one.

Capacitative touchscreens feel more natural because there’s a tight connection between the part of your finger with the most light touch receptors and the screen which detects the electrical properties of your finger. Resistive technology requires two films to come into contact with one another, so it will probably never give the same feeling of immediate, interactive responsiveness. I’m curious which technology will do better for larger screened devices; both have their individual problems to overcome.

The reason the N900 has a resistive screen is probably that the N900 isn’t the final development stage that has been planned. It’s just the Internet Tablet turned into a phone, which I don’t think anyone in the Internet Tablet community was expecting at all. While Maemo has noticeably improved in browsing, messaging, and multi-tasking, the fact that most of the interface is landscape-only shows how much it’s just an incremental step beyond the N800 and N810. Switching screen technologies would have added extra steps to the development process, while Maemo is evidently being developed in other ways right now.

The fact that the N900 is a phone at all is a sign that Nokia gave up on their earlier idea, which was an internet browser companion to a feature phone with wifi and BT-tethering. Nokia did briefly manufacture that N810 for Wimax for use in … Baltimore? But I guess Nokia realized that a smartphone instead of a MID is the way to go.

Nokia is probably as surprised about the high level of interest in the N900. They’ve never spent a lot of resources promoting their Maemo devices. For that matter, they’ve never spent any resources promoting Maemo itself. They went with open source for their OS before Android, etc., but Nokia has never developed an app store for it. Apparently, European corporations are very patient. Nokia’s line of Maemo devices would never have been developed by a U.S. company. The N900 is in that sense really a geek’s phone; geekdom is the community that really raised the N900 out of obscurity just by being interested in it.

As to iTunes, I’m working on an article involving running an iPhone completely from the cloud to see how close to functional it is and for what kind of user it could be a realistic alternative. We’ll see.

Likewise, all the power of Nokia’s platforms demand greater responsibility from the user. The more you can manage, the more you typically have to manage. Again, that’s what many Nokia fans love, but it’s not something everyone will want to bother with, and its what makes me say you really have to want it want it.

Its interesting that the above issue is raised while still pretending it does not apply to the iPhone.

One really can’t own an iPhone without also owning a computer. But instead of viewing the whole package (phone and computer and iTunes account), and the management tasks that package imposes, the article focuses on the management tasks one might CHOOSE to use on the Nokia phone. Nothing obligates you to use these features. They are optional. Not so much for the iPhone where they are virtually mandatory.

Also overlooked (Due to the rules of the Round Robin) was gargantuan increase in risk, management, and warranty issues that come into play when jailbreaking an iPhone, which, I suspect Rene as well as half the other frequent contributors here do.

The entry level user won’t jailbreak, nor will they mess with the default Nokia configuration.