As a few of you know, I work for a small (*cough*) software company in Redmond: I started three months ago, and I've been using the N800 constantly.

We're not really big on open source culture, and so the N800 has come as a complete surprise to my co-workers (and corporate IT, of course ) --- they've never seen anything like it besides the iPhone. I've already sold a small handful of N810s and N770s --- barring a developer discount, I'm told the N770 is the best deal in mobile computing right now.

I've gotten used to having the real web with me, and I've gotten used to finger improvements (thumb board, large menus, finger drag scrolling): it's really awesome to sit down with people who work, for example, exclusively on mobile software and get nothing but "WOW!" reactions from them. These guys carry iPhones and high-end HTC devices, and are just blown away.

So anyways, big selling points I take for granted:

1) 800x480 screen: still extremely rare on mobile devices.
2) Battery life
3) Flash 9 (even if it's slow)
4) Real SDHC slots
5) The browser
6) The thumb board ("How much did that thumb board plugin cost you?" )

It's great to realize that all of the complaints I have are A) fixed in 2008 (well, 2008v2 for A2DP) B) fixable in 2008 (finally, modern GTK!) and C) entirely trivial compared to browsing with a three-year-old browser on a 320x240 screen.

I used to regret my 770, thinking it a dead end --- now, I can't imagine downgrading to an Apple or HTC offering: here's looking at OS2008...

Great post. Yes, OS2008 shows a lot of potential. I know it is promoted as an open device but I do like the idea of adding commercial apps to the mix.

On the N810 unit that I have, A2DP isn't working well yet. I must be just using the headset profile right now. All audio, even from apps like Rhapsody, outputs in mono.

According to bugzilla, A2DP on 2008 is still the same software-transcode solution we had in 2007: allusions are made towards putting it on the DSP, which would solve the problem nicely

Well, is it high-quality mono, or scratchy mono? Headset profile will sound like crap, but OS2008 might be mixing both channels to one for better performance. Same thing on some Windows Mobile devices, IIRC.

Nice to see that post, aleksandyr... but don't you mean you "sold a handful of N800s"? Or are those advance N810 sales?

But can you confirm that the headset profile is working well? With Skype also?

These are crazy people who insist on typing multiple-page e-mails on a TyTn/Mogul/8525/whateverthehecktheycallit. They liked the thumb keyboard, thought it was awesome for short bursts, but when I showed them Outlook Web Access running perfectly and then mentioned the N810's sliding keyboard...well...that's when I had to break out the drool buckets.

Yes it works. I've tried it with Gtalk. Not yet with Skype though.

Great story! Your overlords at the "small" company in Redmond haven't strung you up? They *know* it's not CE right? (The fact it *does* stuff should be a good tip off)

Thanks for the post. I have similar stories and always like hearing them. In fact, speaking of Microsoft Exchange... I've also shown it running perfectly on my N800 to some of our IT folks and all of them were blown away. Actually, I wish that there was a good open source version of the Exchange UI so that I could access my own email accounts. It really is a nice interface for small screens.

T.

We have the proxy-server-from-hell where I work and whateverthehecktheycallits are strictly reserved for senior management

Imagine the response to N810 + DUN + Outlook Web Access !!!