First impressions, DUN with Sprint Treo 650.
 

Hi:

After lurking on the forums for a few weeks I broke down and bought an N800.

I've been a long time Palm Pilot user having many palms, handsprings, and sony clie's. My current palm product is a Treo 650 on the Sprint network.

Maybe I'm strange, but I almost never use the PIM applications other than contacts for the phone. I use the treo for web browsing (it sucks on the small screen), chat (it's pretty good), and the occasional game. (oh, it's a phone too)

What I've wanted all along was a handheld device with a decent screen for web browsing, email, and chat. Hoping that the N800 would be all of this, I rushed to the nearest CompUsa and picked one up.

In the car on the way home I opened it up and turned it on. (I wasn't driving) The battery had over 1/2 charge out of the box. It was birght and sunny, the screen didn't impress me with it's daylight readablilty. It was usable if I kept the screen in the shade. After playing around with the menus a while I brought up the connection manager and paired it with my treo. No problem, it paired up on the first try. Next I set the Treo up to share the network over bluetooth by turning on Dial-up Networking in the Bluetooth app. A minute later I was on the web. Here I am surfing the internet in the car, not bad for the first boot.

Indoors the screen is much better, about 90% of the brightness of my Treo and a bit brighter than my powerbook. I love the resolution. No problem at all connecting with our home wireless network.

Form factor: A nice compromise between portability and having a decent screen. I think I would have preferred a bigger screen and a thinner bezel on the sides. But the fat bezel does provide a convienient place to put your thumb when holding the unit. It looks better in person than it does in pictures. It slips into a shirt pocket nicely. While bigger overall than the Treo, the N800 doesn't feel any heavier. Build quality seems pretty good, most parts fit snug and the gaps seem even. The only issue is the battery cover, it seems loose and moves side to side a fraction of a mm.

On the road: Tampa airport serves up free wifi throughout the terminal. No problem getting online there, also success in Dulles. Away from wifi, it's easy to turn on the Treo's DUN and connect. The connection through sprint is slower than wifi, but I have an unlimited data plan.

Overall I'm happy with the N800. I've downloaded Gaim and have it working for MSN and AOL chat. I've also installed LXDoom, EightyOne, Canola, VNC Viewer, and Other Maemo Weather. All apps are running well.

Can't wait until Skype is up and running. . .

Bob