Frankly, I can't imagine how anyone could buy one of these devices without first realizing that they are not quite ready for consumer prime time.

This assumes that you did a little reading about the device first, perhaps here, before buying. If you did, then you walked in with eyes wide open.

If you just happened to walk in a retail store, and sight unseen and without any prior research, bought a N810, then your rant would actually mean something.

It would appear that you are computer literate (you work on a help desk); therefore you should have been able to make a buying decision with the foreknowledge of what you are getting into.

On the other hand, I almost buy into what you state regarding how Nokia markets the devices -- these are an early adopter, some assembly required, not for computer neophytes, type of product. Nokia, by limiting the distribution of these devices, is as much as admitting that so perhaps they can get something of a pass for not putting a big warning label on the box.

Having said all that, I like the device and the promise of it and will be building software for it.

I see someone has missed a lot of dialog on this subject...

hey texrat don't u work for Nokia? your almost the ultimate fanboy of them all

and like I said I did read reviews and alot of them where when the n800 was initially being released, much like many other products, when they are only just being released there is limited reviews available and only testing products which most reviewers are used to them being a bit quirky so they usually overlook some of the flaws they initially see

pop3 worked for me don't get me wrong, it's just the IT could only handle 20% of my entire emails downloaded and this had nothing to do with memory limitations unless of course on the back-end the only place memory could be stored is on the internal memory card which wouldn't surprise me. I can break it down into laymens terms if you like but since your all so technical I would have expected you to see it for yourself. like I said... alpha versions, at least there is promise for the future

The important point about these gadgets is not whether they are good or bad. The important point is that there is no competition. If you want to put the web in your pocket, you will only find devices with similar limitations. And not many of them.

Yes - they are not ready - if you want teleportation built in.
In the early 1960's I was proud as heck to get one of the first transistor radios that would fit in a shirt pocket, as about the same length and width as the N810 but several times as thick.
Wow - music I could walk around with, at a low cost.
In the late 1990's I loved my HP95LX - I could work on rudimentary web pages in the grocery line, I fixed machines in Bosnia while sitting in a phone booth in Pennsylvania. I hooked it up to a GPS and could track my movement thru Germany at about 140KM/hr. All at low cost.
Now it's 10 years later and I can surf the web and easily view web pages, have a basic GPS. Walk around my property watching my cable TV being served over wireless. Talk VOIP.
But heck I was hoping that the N810 would allow teleportation!!
Beam me up Scotty!
For about a day's pay this thing kicks butt. Compared to a UMPC at 3 to 4 times the cost.
Plus it runs Linux by choice! (I didn't start with Linux until v0.95 back in 1992.)

Thanks testerj for posting, it's people like you that bring this community together. It also gives me more insight as to the type of people at help desks.

I am glad you are so easily pleased gemniii42, you can also buy an electric toothbrush for $4.95 these days at the corner store, I am sure you'd find that to be an 'amazing' upgrade in technology to.

Funnily enough I wouldn't be surprised if you work for Nokia to, it seems that 90% of the responses have been from developers or people that work at Nokia when the start of the thread stated it was not intended for that.

And as much as you feel you have an insight into how help desks operate, I solve more issues personally than anyone in my group, I work with internal staff and I provide QA on different applications and get paid for my opinion, I could care less about your over all opinion on help desks because it sounds to me like you'd make your overall opinion on 1 experience from someone who happens to do that for a living outside of providing their own personal (free) feedback.

If I came from a generation that you did I may feel the same way but my ideals on technology are based on best practices that should be followed before releasing items to the public, I am sorry if I seem disrespectful to you, but I am disappointed in the product I purchased, I am glad you can easily view web pages, whilst I feel that the internet tablet has a superior viewing framework, it's still lacking and could have been much better. And only 50% of the sites I want to view load up properly and many times the browser crashes... bugs, bugs & more bugs, and if you are earning what a nokias worth in a days pay, i feel sad for the organization you work for, because I'd say it was a waste

Don't know what websites you're viewing. My browser hasn't crashed even once..

I don't know, I have been impressed by the N800's ability to render the odd full blown HTML site that I view remotely. However, right from the get go I knew I wouldn't be using the thing to view regular web sites...
I mean, do the freakin' math, the screen on the thing is just 1 tenth the size of a 17" desktop monitor. How could it compare?

What I did know was that instead, I would use the device to view sites I normally view remotely on a 2" cell phone screen...
>> http://home.comcast.net/~fynspy/YoDude_PDA.htm

Now I'm using a device that has 2 1/2 times the size I was used to and as a bonus I can now view the PDF, pics, and some of the video I come across or need while viewing remotely.

For this, I'm very happy. Expecting the tablets to be a replacement for a desktop environment is not very realistic.

Oh the device taunted to display sites properly, I wasn't replacing no "cell phone" type display screen like you...

I expected it to be an internet tablet that would allow me to actively travel around and use sites, review videos and many other things which where "ADVERTISED" as a feature but never actually worked properly as promised even with the skype update.

I found only 50% of the sites I reviewed rendered properly, videos never have played properly. Only some videos will play with one of the 5 video players I downloaded, all of which "look nice" but functionality wise don't do much.

If you all think it's such a great device go and buy some nokia shares so they can pay the developers to make some real software.

Not once did I expect it to replace a desktop environment, please tell me where I asked for that?

The POP 3 mail client couldn't even handle my mailbox, my customized themes became unavailable anymore after the Skype release which I don't even use Skype, I never expected a phone anyhow.

The biggest joke in all of this is the dudes who think they are holding a masterpiece, good for you if you like a fancy piece of plastic, but I expect things to work as they are advertised.

I can't even use the webcam on it to talk to friends of mine, in fact it's pretty useless unless I have a friend with an n800 because I can't video conference with a regular Gtalk user and the rest of it is just confusing to get up and running.

The device looks like an internet ready tablet, but the browser sucks, the web cam is good for nothing and video doesn't even render correctly... So if you think you got what you paid for, congratulations, I am so glad I am not in your family.