Carphone Warehouse To Sell Nokia N900 After Christmas

The Carphone Warehouse will be selling Nokia’s much-anticipated N900 tablet from 26 December, and the device will also be available from Vodafone stores from 7 January, according to the Finnish phone giant.

The N900 is Nokia’s first phone that runs Linux software. It comes with a touch screen and a full slide-out qwerty keyboard, delivering “a PC-like experience on a handset-sized device”. It runs the company’s Maemo 5 Linux OS on an ARM processor with up to 1GB of application memory and 48GB of storage, and also has built-in HSPA and Wi-Fi.

eWEEK Europe tested the device last month, and found it slightly on the chunky side, but the sheer range of abilities and customisation that is possible with the N900, and the low price compared with other smartphones such as the iPhone, were expected to attract a respectable market share.

Nokia says that the N900 will be priced from £35 per month on a 24-month contract from either Vodafone or Carphone Warehouse.

For those who simply can’t wait, the device is currently available from online stores in the UK. At Expansys it costs £494.99 with a £30 refund voucher to spend on the site, while at Play.com it costs £469.99. By comparison, an unlocked 32GB iPhone 3GS costs £900 on Expansys.

The N900 was originally scheduled to arrive in October, but was delayed until Noevmber while the company awaited developer feedback.

“While we have seen continued growth in Symbian as a smartphone platform, Maemo enables Nokia to deliver new mobile computing experiences based on open source technology that has strong ties with desktop platforms,” said Jonathan Arber, senior research analyst in consumer mobile at IDC in October.