Yeah I think that's one thing to take into consideration... how many iterations of PalmOS have there been over the years? Pull out your old Palm (which a gameboy can put to shame) and see how far it's gone. Granted a lot of people won't want to be early adopters of the technology showcased by the 770... I just hope Nokia runs with this hardware platform for a while before releasing something else - - and I hope they avoid the splintering of dev efforts that the Zaurus exemplified. That, and I don't want to shell out another few hundred bucks for new hardware.

Let me be clear... In my mind I'm talking about functionality versus polish. For PIM functionality there is very little functionality difference between a palm III and a palm Lifedrive. It will not be hard at all for Nokia to catch up in functionality, there is a lot of PDA software out there to copy.

The "polish" is the hard part. May the GUI intuitive and easy for "average users" but flexible and powerful for "power users"

In an interesting way, Nokia has reversed the usual pattern of development. With a palm Treo for example, it was not released until it was a fairly polished UI. Then after it was released all the geeks and power users figured out how to extend the platform and do more stuff. By Nokia releasing the 770 in a software under an open source model in a "not so polished" state, they are letting the geeks contribute ideas and functionality. Very smart.

I'm betting the 770 continues to see a lot of polish to the UI and functionality. So far Nokia is doing everything right in my opinion and are doing an excellent job of working with the FOSS community.
David

Having both a 770 and a Zaurus 3100 (plus other present and former Zaurus models), here is my take (use at your own risk).

The Nokia is a generally fun device for web browsing. The larger screen makes a difference. Built in wi-fi avoids having to remember to bring along a wi-fi card. It integrates really well with the stowaway bluetooth keyboard. The Nokia has a vibrant developer community. It is great to see gnumeric and abiword ports progressing. The nokia is my preferred nethack platform. I think the Nokia is going places.

I plan on keeping both devices. The Nokia is fun, has great potential and I want to see how it progresses. I also tend to reach for the Nokia when browsing the web from my couch. However, if I could only have one device the Zaurus is the one that stays. Maybe this is because I am more comfortable with the Zaurus?

With respect to the Zaurus, I love the clamshell form factor and a built-in keyboard for on-the-go entry is essential. Out of the box USB host is great (although can't power hard drives). Expandability via both SD and CF is a plus. It is great having not only a built-in microdrive, but also being able to plug in a 8GB Seagate CF drive.

The zaurus has a wide selection of apps -- perhaps owing to its maturity. For operating system, Cacko with qt-embeded is a good way to go.

However, I have been using pdaXrom (X11) of late. What impresses me is the ease with which the community compiles apps for pdaXrom. Granted the apps aren't custom tailored for the display size, but they are generally pretty useable. Also, the apps aren't restricted to a single toolkit. I can run gtk, qt, wx, and fox apps.

For pim apps, the Zaurus offers platform independent versions of KOrganizer and KAddress Book which at the moment seem to have more functionality than the gpe pim apps.

For ebook apps, while fb-reader has many features I like, at the moment opie-reader seems to support more file formats. Plus fb-reader is also available on the zaurus.