Nokia has unveiled the N900, the first phone to use the company's Linux-based Maemo operating system.

"Running the open-source Maemo 5 software, it can provide more of a PC-like experience on a small device, according to Nokia," writes CNET's Lance Whitney. "The Maemo OS lets people juggle several applications at the same time."

"Under the hood, the N900 sports an ARM Coretex-A8 CPU, up to 1GB of application memory, and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration... other features include a high-res WVGA touchscreen, full Adobe Flash 9.4 support, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 32GB of storage expandable up to 48GB via a microSD card, and a built-in 5MB camera with Carl Zeiss optics," writes Maximum PC's Paul Lilly.

"Most likely, the software on board of the Nokia N900 will decide the phone's faith," writes PC World's Daniel Ionescu. "The Maemo 5 operating system looks promising in early previews, but the apparent lack of an application store could handicap the device prematurely. And last, but not least, Nokia said the N900 will cost just over $700 (unsubsidized and unlocked), so if T-Mobile or AT&T decide to carry the N900, hopefully a hefty subsidy will be put in place."

More here from The Guardian ... more here from eWeek ... and the press release is here.