Waah!!! My $400 Canon digital camera I bought last year was EOL'd. My friend's $500 G7 lasted about 6 months on the market.

Know what? BFD! They still work for there intended purpose and so will my N800. EOL or not.

Babies, time to clue into how market cycles work.

The 810 didnt have enough to warrant getting rid of my N800, and one has to figure that the 810 replacement is far back enough that by the time it comes out, it may be a valuable upgrade. It will probably just take a while is all.

- at the current pricepoint the n800 is a disposable item...

- but my biggest worry would be discontinuance of the BP-5L (and apparently, it's such a common form factor there will be many in the pipeline for years to come; btw, i can still buy new batteries for my IBM Z50 MIPS notebook [running NetBSD] more than eight years after IBM discontinued the product! )

does this means, if something goes horribly wrong my n800 and send it to nokia, i'll be getting and n810 back in the mail?

There is one thing - the hardware on the N800/N810 is quite a bit more similar than the N800 compared to the 770. So much so that people got the N810 OS2008 to run on the N800 quite easily...

So if we don't see OS2009 for the N800, OS2009 hacker edition shouldn't be as hard, as far as I understand...

Huge understatement there, the N810 is really just a N800 with GPS and a keyboard.

There's no way in hell we're not getting a straight edition of OS2009. They couldn't pull off dropping support for the N810 with only one OS edition under its belt.

- unless you're a former Sharp SL-5500 owner - we got one rev of Lineo's Embedix, but several FOSS projects picked up where Sharp left off... unfortunately i was relieved of my SL-5500 by thieving Florida Van Lines movers during a transfer three years ago (along with a cherished CF WiFi card)

- if one judges Nokia's Linux intent by the recent server debacle, this line of tablets could be dropped by corporate without warning or any consideration to the consumer - it has happened time and again with nearly every Linux-based consumer product in the past 10 years from a variety of companies... (ThinkNIC, Linksys EtherFast Instant GigaDrive, Sharp Zaurus [USA], Agenda PDA, Corel Netwinder, etc.)

- but the good news is that Linux will continue to be offered on increasingly smaller yet more powerful handhelds - and that's a win!

:-)

Calm Down Paris.... Most of us don't have money to waste and Junk to pile up just because some company demands we do it. There is no wah. I do understand EOL and product cycles. I also understand that I don't like having a product constantly abandoned just because. Maybe for you throwing away 400US is not a problem. But take that x20 and you get the # my company was considering buying for internal use. Take that x1000's and you get all of the corporate sales that won't happen due to overly short product cycles.

Now since you are talking EOL and market cycles lets look at a business depreciation cycle. Normally that is a 3 year cycle from purchase to EOL minimal. (6 years is the high side of that) Having Nokia abandon a product like this every 10-12 months won't work in that environment at all, as you don't get full tax write off in that short a time. On the other hand this may be a big opportunity for Asus.

Think about this one. The basic blackberry. How long has that square little unit been on the market? Yes there are some new versions but the product (original) is still supported.

Unless of course you believe that the n series is a toy. Then I guess 10 months is ok...

Just to clarify, this:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list...velopers/32858

is where I heard the "rumour". And FWIW, the reasoning of the OP against this [hypothetical?] move by Nokia seems perfectly sound to me.

Bingo.

A few of you would do well to disabuse yourselves of hyperbole. "Abandon"? Please. Even the 770 wasn't completely abandoned.

And where does the 3 year number come from, linuxrebel? That doesn't match current cycles in communications devices, which in some cases nowadays have 6 month lifecycles based on impatient consumer demand.

Relax folks. The N800 will continue to be viable for some time. Bury it when you can confirm it's really dead, not before.

/me awaits Nokia shill remarks