Re: unfair review?
 

Many N8x0 users already carry two devices. I carry my cellphone and N800 around. Though I can see the no phone part as a positive, it can be a negative as well. Also, batter life is an issue regardless. If you were to connect to the internet via bluetooth on your phone, the battery on your phone will be the limiting factor. Once your phone dies, say goodbye to the net if you are not around free wifi.

Re: unfair review?
 

The review seemed totally fair to me. I own a N800, which I enjoy playing with, but consider it solely a toy and probably the first of all my devices I could do without. In terms of usefulness, it may be great for System Administrators, programmers and linux hobbiests, but the absence of useful mainstream type applications like PIM syncing with desktop and Office type document manipulation, will forever relegate this device to a very small niche market. After all, if it can't satisfactorily replace other devices you carry, it simply becomes another device to carry. As for the functions it does perform, it doesn't excel at any of them. It isn't a great media player and even it's primary function leaves a lot to be desired (try watching videos browsing on CNN, for example).
I read all the objections thet it isn't intended to be a PIM, etc., but limiting it to a device for accessing the internet will ultimately kill, what could be a great device, dead. Specially since it isn't even great at that yet.

Re: unfair review?
 

That's a poor analogy. A better one would be a car -- a car completely capable of doing everything an ordinary car can do -- that comes without turn signals or headlights. Having the manufacturer say, "Oh, we never intended that you should TURN, or drive at NIGHT," is just asinine, and is no excuse for such an obvious omission.

The n810 is MORE than capable of serving as a PIM (among its many other potential uses). It has, across the board, better hardware for that purpose than any of the current generation Palms. There is simply no excuse for it.

Re: unfair review?
 

Oh, what the heck. Why do people keep saying this? Oh, I know. The GVM doen't replace Palm devises perfectly, so it's junk. Download Datebk5 and install it into the GVM and you will have syncing of Datebk and your addresses with Palm Desktop. Then if you want to sync Palm Desktop to your Google calendar use Companionlink. It all works now.

Re: unfair review?
 

I find the keyboard on my new Nokia E61i much more comfortable to use but that's purely a personal thing.

I think what people (Including reviewers) have to remember here is that this market is in its infancy. I wrote a long post last year on another forum about how good the mobile web was but also how bad the experience can be. Over the next few years we're going to see speeds increase and a plethora of new devices from Nokia and others that will make our current methods of mobile net access seem like stoneage relics.

I loved my N800. I love my new N810. I use it almost every day on the train to work. I really can't wait to see what the next few years bring.

Re: unfair review?
 

As a complete noob to NITs and Linux but not to technology or computing (I was a DOS programmer in the early 80's) I feel compelled to comment on the suggestion that one should read the manual. I have written tech manuals and find the N810 to fall short of being very helpful. The way I have learned to use my tablet is to read all the posts about it on this site for 3 months and to watch the videos in the Tablet school. It is not easy for a noob but it is coming slowly. If Nokia expects to enter the general market they will have to make it more accessible to a less tech-educated/interested sector.

Re: unfair review?
 

I think consumer devices should be made such that you don't really need a manual in the first place, since the reality is that nobody reads manuals, apart from the geekier part of the populace.

Re: unfair review?
 

It would have been nice if the manual had mentioned a 'swap' key as it was referred to in many places when I was trying to upgrade the OS. And I have to assume that holding the swap key while turning the unit on brings it up in some sort of bootloader mode?

Re: unfair review?
 

The issue with the Nseries is that it has no focus.
Non-tech people generally aren't sure what they're for - 'Internet Tablet' is very broad.
Tech people just see Linux Palmtop and immediately think they can do anything with it.

The fact is, as an Internet Tablet, it isn't very good for web browsing - It can't render pages in full-layout as well as an iPhone or iPod Touch, but also can't render it in a stripped-down but purely readable layout as PalmOS units can do.

The video hardware is (According to Antilles and others) too crippled to allow the unit to be a good video player, and this is the experience I've had - It really struggles to smoothly play full-rate FMV that my Zod2 and TH55 can play with ease. I'd say it has about the same performance as my old T665 unit did with Kinoma videos.

While the unit has PIM software, I find it takes too long to pull stuff up - It just doesn't come close to competing with my PDA.

The unit just can't multitask - Load a couple of apps and the thing starts to lag like crazy; Even opening more than one Web browser window causes noticable degredation in performance. If it was using a state-switching system like PalmOS, the 400MHz CPU and 128MB RAM would be incredible, but it is using Plain Old Linux and such a system is just not powerful enough to run a 2.6 kernel and multitask without having more uLinux patches hacked in.
The fact that it has so many tasks running stock doesn't help either - My OS2008 N800 has more daemons running post-boot than my dual-core server!!!! :eek:

The resource tightness makes it unstable - I've already crashed the N800 more times in a month than I've crashed my TH55 in years (Tips - Try not to let MicroB+Flash and MediaPlayer load at the same time. Also, delete and recreate your Swap file (If you use one) after EVERY crash; Maemo doesn't sanitize it after crashes and won't notice if it's corrupt; This is exacerbated by the FS being FAT32.)

As it stands, it's a nice toy, but I think it needs a lot of developing before I'll think of it as a useful tool.
Nokia either need to enhance future lines so they're better at being more general purpose, or tighten up the OS so that it's better at what it is supposed to do.

Re: unfair review?
 

Hi folks

I’m the editor of the Mobile Computer site and I’m pleased to see that the N810 review has provoked so much healthy discussion.

I don’t usually feel the need to reply to such things, but I like ITT (I’m an N800 user myself and have found some useful stuff here), so I’ll try to address some of the meta-reviewers’ (I love that idea!) more negative points.

I can assure you that the reviewer did spend several days using the N810 before writing the review and I think he was pretty even-handed. I should also point out that Scott, the reviewer, is a professional journalist with many years’ experience – try Googling him sometime – and not just a blogger with an axe to grind (and that’s not to knock bloggers, of course). Review sites that are nothing more than an excuse to rehash press releases and pander to advertisers are ten-a-penny, but Mobile Computer is not one of them - just read a few of our other reviews and you'll see how fairly we treat all products.

Now it’s great that people are passionate about a product, but dare I say that this can make some people a little too forgiving of its foibles..? The purpose of a review for a mainstream site like Mobile Computer is to honestly evaluate a product for people that may know little or nothing about it, and want to know how it compares to other similar products that they may be considering.

Now whatever you think the N810 is good for, the fact remains that as a handheld internet device, it lacks some features that most people would expect to find – all of which have been covered in this thread. Nokia may well have omitted them intentionally, but it is a reviewer’s prerogative to question such decisions in the light of other products that perform a similar function. If this runs counter to some people’s own impressions of a product, then that’s inevitable – reviews are subjective, after all – and that’s why all reviews at Mobile Computer are open for reader comments.

If you think a review contains a factual inaccuracy, then you are absolutely right to complain – and point it out to the site – but accusing a review of being “lazy” and containing “misinformation” when it simply states an opinion that’s different to yours isn’t really fair.

Anyway, this is a great thread and I'd love to see you make some comments on the site. Keep up the good work!