I was reading oneof the many threads about a person leaving the N900 for another device. It made me realize that when parting ways with a very interactive personal device the person is going have emotional/practical considerations.

Here's a short tale of loss and recovery that illustrates how some devices latch in to us emotionally trumping practicality.

Friday afternoon, while in a befuddled state because of a migraine, I went to the barbershop to get my ears lowered. My wife was driving. Barbershop area is local hang out adjacent to several pawnshops, a liquor store, a tavern, very low rent but the barber does wonders with my wife's hair so here we are.

I get home and after a bit want to do something with my N8. It's nowhere to be found. I call it, no answer and I don't hear it in my house, my wife's car, my car. Call it again a few minutes later, it goes directly to voicemail. I send the #lock# and #locate# commands but get no response. Call my son to see if he got the SIM change SMS. He hadn't. The next morning I go back to my office, on a Saturday, to see if I left it there. As I said I was befuddled and did not have a clear memory of the phone after leaving the office. Wasn't there. I call the barbershop, they don't have it. I believe them. Re-hashing it all with my wife we realize the car horn didn't beep to indicate the car had locked prior to entering the barbershop. I assume the locals assembled outside the liquor store have helped themselves to the phone. My loss, their gain. Maybe tis is the difference between them eating or not this week. I don't know. Been ripped off so many times I've had to stop hating the theives, it was costing me too much emotionally.

Had this been my N900 I would have been on eBay buying another one NOW! The N8 hasn't formed that sort of bond with me. I saw it as a $600 hair cut (16 mb Class 10 microSD, Nokia leather-like case). And even remarked to my wife I was considering selling it before it went away.

In any event it is now 27 hours since I've seen the N8, I'm coming out the of the shower (try to reign in your imagination, it ain't pretty) looking to throw on some pjs and call it day. There, next to my pjs is the N8. My wife found it tangled up in the bed clothes when she was smoothing out a lump. She wasn't sure it was the phone I was looking for as she knows, despite the thorough burglary last February, I still have a couple of decent devices. I'm relieved to see it. But if it hadn't been sitting there I was not going to buy another.

So, why hasn't the N8 tied itself to my heart the way the N900 has? On a practical basis it is better at making phone calls, has superior 3G peformance (I use it on AT&T), it is Symbian, which I know and understand, has the über Kamera of all mobile devices, etc. You mostly know it's good points. Here is why I am not tied to my N8 - There is not a thing I can do to the N8 to improve it, add functionality, make it faster. It is Nokia's N8 in the same way that the iPhone4 is Apple's. It's not my N8. The N900 is my phone. Faster, more capable, better than it was when Nokia boxed it up.

For me, being able to improve the device, to customise it at a very low level created that emotional investment. The N8 will forever be on par with my can opener; a device that does its job well but nothing to get excited about.

Then why did you buy an N8, even you have an N900 if you said you love your N900 so much? Just curious.

1. The camera is blow away amazing. I'm going on a trip and do not want to lug along a D-slr. The N8's camera makes the d-slr unnecessary. It takes better pictures than my wife's Nikon S570 point and shoot.

2. Wanted to check out Symbian ^3.

3. The N900 has a high "funkiness factor" as a telephone. I've rejected calls I want to answer, missed calls I needed to take as a result of a combination of the phone interface and lack of patience on the other end. I needed a phone I could actually answer quickly.

4. It was shiny.