A few questions for n810 owners
 

I've been looking for a handheld device without phone capabilities for a while now, and haven't found anything appropriate. I used the ipaq110, but found it extremely fragile, and was not impressed with the battery like.

Looking at the n810, my main use for it would be school. I have one year left of highschool, and after that I want to go into compeng. So here are my questions. Does the n810 come with any address book or calendar apps on it? If not, are you able to install other apps on the device, and if so, are they readily available. I assume you would be able to since it's a unix based OS, but I thought I better ask before investing the money.

Thanks for advice in advance.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

absolutely, you can install all sorts of software on it. take a look around the forums! :)

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I use the default Address book app, and I installed GPE Calendar + Erminig to Two-way sync it with my Google Calendars. Plus theres lots of other programs that you can download that would be useful for school. Also check out http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/ to see a wide selection of some available apps.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

If you are getting the N8x0 as a PDA you will probably be disappointed. The address book applications is anemic at bast and the calendaring solutions have been hit and miss.

Not that people haven't gotten it to work as a PDA, or that you or someone tomorrow can't write your own solution, but for now it's not really a PDA.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

Well, I'm not necessarily looking for a pda, but a device with the features I want, which the 810 seems to fit. If that happens to be classified as an internet tablet then that's ok too. I had a palm T since grade 6 which did me fine for all my pda needs, but lacked nicer abilities like wifi, and decent video play back.

Also, as far as durability goes....Anyone had their 810 survive any falls? My old palm survived the worst abuse a pda has ever seen, but my ipaq broke after a very small drop (thankfully I was still able to return it).

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I've owned many Palm products (Palm PilotPro, IIIc, T|e) and they had a superior PDA experience ( by an order of magnitude ) over the n8x0's. Video playback is not the strong suit of the N8x0's either. Resolution, bitrate, and codec support is limited due to the lack of bus bandwidth and non-accelerated drawing.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

For another view, I have owned 6 palms over the last several years, and used them daily. I am able to do everything I did on my palms on my n810, and a thousand more things as well. If you are going into compsci/compeng then it is probably a good choice. My sophomore son is compsci in high school and just bought one for himself; loves it. The GPE suite plus Erminig combo works very well for me, and, as we have all learned about any technology, they all have quirks.

Extremely happy to have left the increasingly rapid-failure hardware world of Palm,
Oberon85

on a side note, my wife is still using my T3, and loves it!

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

You can get a pretty good summary of what the N810 (or N800) can do by checking out the Wiki at the top of the main page here.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

As to the point of duarbility... so far mine has tumbled to the ground (concrete and industrial carpeting) a ton of times both in the case and out and so far it is fine.

If it were to fall onto a hard corner directly onto its screen, like most other devices, it would surely get hurt, but the average falls for me have been fine.

Typically mine falls out of my pocket (cell pocket in a pair of Dickies) quite often. But it has been great (like all my Nokia phones before me).

I wouldn't recommend trying it on purpose, but as long as the fall isn't massive, it should be fine.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I've actually had a wonderful video experience with the tablets (video encoded with Handbrake and played via Canola).

-T.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

If you make a list of your needs and put them in priority then compare them with $$ value you may not need to "invest" in an N810, but may easily get by an N800.
The N810 is generally running about $325+, an ebay N800 about $175. Depends on how important $150 and warranty is to you.

As far as apps now with AbiWord, GPE suite, gnumeric, etc. either machine is a very powerful package. You can run Debian, KDE, etc.
The sky is not the limit.

As far as ruggedness, I've dropped mine several times and haven't broke it yet.

Good luck, I wish they had calculators back in 1967 when I was at your stage.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I'm fairly new to my N810 and I'm pretty happy with it.

I expected it to be a hands-on device as far as tuning and configuring it and it is, but it's getting better almost daily because of it. :)

I use it as an entertainment device and to stay in touch with my favorite sites and blogs while mobile or at work.

My divix .AVIs play very well using mplayer also.

Not as slick or speedy as an iPod touch, but far more open and rewarding in it's using experience.

-at least for me. :)

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I think the main selling feature is the qwerty keyboard. It seems there are a few online retailers selling it for about $350 shipped, with the 1 year nokia warranty. Really what I need, or would like is:

-qwerty keyboard
-IM program for msn/google talk
-Decent browser, full flash would be nice
-Calender and contact app
-Short boot times (or long enough battery life to run the device all day)
-Not an apple product :P
- Nice video playback
-Small enough to put in my pocket if need be
-User replaceable battery
-A NES/GB emulator would be cool, but definantly not a essential feature haha

The n810 seems to have all of these (less the emulator as far as I know). The only thing I don't like is that it still doesn't come with the usb charging cable. Oh well.

:)

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

There are plenty of emulators, I have not used any though.

There are knock off USB charger that run a few dollars and official ones that are $30. The difference is the official ones have voltage regulation and are less likely to "melt down".

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

My oldest son accidentally knocked my N810 out of my hands as I stood over our concrete driveway. Tablet hid hard and skidded several feet down it. Other than scuffing on back battery cover, no damage.

I've done worse to N800s (including baking some for an hour at 140 degrees farenheit for testing) and all have survived with minor damage.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I also have dropped mine before and it was fine. One time when I dropped it I managed to catch it on top of my shoe. I figured better then then the floor faceplate is scratched but works like a charm. I do have one chunk out of my screen that I can't see when the screen is bright but I can feel it with stylus.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I think I'm going to have to buy one once I get the cash. Very excited!

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

I was a Palm user for many years and find I can work with N810 as my PDA. I installed mCalendar which syncs properly with Google Calendar. I'm a Gmail user and the N810 mail package easily interfaces to Gmail with IMAP. Contacts is the week link as it has no place for addresses or notes. I also installed notecase so I could keep private information encrypted. Maemo mapper can use the excellent Google street maps. On balance the N810 is superior to the Palm whose days are numbered.

Re: A few questions for n810 owners
 

a Sony Mylo does all that too, and is a bit cheaper than an N810. If you know people who have the devices, I recommend asking someone if you can play with theirs for a little bit to see if it's what you want. I was pretty much all set on getting a Mylo instead of an N810, but then I played with my friend's N810 and fell in love. Now, I'm glad I got the N810 because I've discovered programs to install so I can pretty much do everything I do on my laptop, but if you don't *need* to have those capabilities, I'd look into something cheaper.