How do the specifications of the Nokia N900 and the HTC HD2 (“Leo”) compare?
Telephones of the distant future (1974 drawing by catmachine - CC-BY)
Towards the end of 2009, high-end smartphones were released by Nokia and HTC. Although they both have large, high-resolution screens they are two very different devices. What’s the comparison between Nokia’s N900 and HTC’s HD2?
Both are convergence devices, but the most striking differences are that the N900 is a chunky side-slider with a hardware QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5 inch screen plus 32GB storage, whereas the HD2 is a thin slate having a massive 4.3 inch screen but no hardware keyboard. HTC’s device has a capacitive multi-touch screen, whereas Nokia’s has a resistive single-touch screen.
The software could hardly be more different: the N900 has a modern, consistent interface running on the Maemo Linux operating system, while the HD2 has HTC’s own Sense user interface on top of version 6.5 of the ageing Windows Mobile operating system.
I have tried to make a direct comparison of the features of these two devices. For the most part, these details are drawn directly from the manufacturers’ specification pages for the N900 (also here) and HD2.
| Nokia N900 | HTC HD2 | |
| Dimensions (size) | 110.9 × 59.8 × 18 (19.55 at thickest part) mm | 120.5 × 67 × 11 mm excluding camera bulge |
| Volume | 113 cubic cm | 89 cubic cm |
| Weight (mass) with battery | 181 g | 157 g |
| Display size (diagonal) | 3.5 inches (89 mm) | 4.3 inches (109 mm) |
| Display area | 5.40 square inches | 8.16 square inches |
| Display resolution (pixels) | 800 x 480 | 800 x 480 |
| Screen type | Resistive single-touch | Capacitive multi-touch |
| Form factor | Side-slider | Tablet |
| Kick stand | Yes | Optional extra |
| Connectors | Micro USB 2.0, 3.5mm audio/video | Micro USB 2.0 possibly with host mode, 3.5mm audio |
| TV Out | PAL or NTSC | — |
| FM radio receiver | — | Yes |
| FM Transmitter | Yes | — |
| Accelerometer | Yes | Yes |
| Proximity sensor | Yes | Yes |
| Ambient light sensor | Yes | Yes |
| GSM frequencies | 850/900/1800/1900 MHz | 850/950(?)/1800/1900 MHz |
| WCDMA frequencies | 900/1700/2100 MHz (Europe, Asia, T-Mobile US) | 900/2100 MHz (Europe, Asia, US to follow) |
| HSDPA | Up to 10 Mbps download speed | Up to 7.2 Mbps download speed |
| HSUPA | Up to 2 Mbps upload speed | Up to 2 Mbps upload speed |
| Operating system | Maemo 5 on Linux | HTC Sense on Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional |
| Battery | 1320 mAh Li-ion | 1230 mAh (extended available) |
| Processor | TI OMAP 3430: ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz | Qualcomm Snapdragon 1000 MHz |
| Web browser | MicroB with Mozilla-based rendering engine | Opera Mobile with multi-touch |
| Wi-Fi | IEEE 802.11 b/g | IEEE 802.11 b/g |
| GPS | Satellite GPS plus A-GPS (and cell-based?) | Satellite GPS plus A-GPS and cell-based |
| Bluetooth | v 2.1 | v 2.1 with EDR |
| Bluetooth profiles | HFP, HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, FTP, OPP | A2DP, AVRCP, BIP, BPP, DUN, FTP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HID, HSP, OPP, PAN, PBAP, SAP, SPP |
| Digital compass | — | Yes |
| Tethering | USB | USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi router |
| Audio playback formats | aac, eaac, m4a, mp3, wav, wma | aac, amr, m4a, mid, mp3, mp4, qcp, wav, wma |
| Video playback formats | 3gp, avi, mp4, wmv | 3g2, 3gp, asf, avi, m4v, mp4, wmv |
| Camera | 5 megapixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash, plus VGA front-facing camera | 5 megapixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash |
| Camera optics | Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens | Unspecified |
| Lens cover | Yes, slide | — |
| Video camera | 16:9 (848x480px) 25fps mp4 | Unspecified |
| Hardware buttons | zoom in, zoom out, volume up, volume down, camera shutter, device lock | Talk/send, home, start, back, end/power |
| Memory: RAM | 256 MB (plus 768MB swapfile) | 448 MB |
| Memory: onboard | 32 GB | 0.5 GB |
| Memory expansion | microSD socket | microSD socket |
| On-screen keyboard | Yes | Yes |
| Hardware keyboard | QWERTY 32 keys, or national variants | — |
| Loudspeakers | Stereo speakers | Mono speaker |
Corrections and clarifications are welcome—please use the Comment facility.
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ahhhhhhhhhhh! Which one do I go for?
it says on its htc website it has 5 pin micro usb so does this have usb host mode?
Hi n96s,
The idea that the HD2 may support USB host mode seems to originate from an HTC press release as reported by Heise (in Germany). Here’s what Google Translate makes of it, suggesting that you can plug a keyboard into the USB port (which means that it supports host mode):
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.heise.de/meldung/HTC-praesentiert-Windows-Phone-mit-kapazitivem-Multitouch-813498.html&ei=FiTOSsXONJSr4Qat4bWJAw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev%20%3Cspan%20class=
The n900 does have a FM receiver, to use it u need to install a community provided app. That’s why nokia didn’t advertise it.