Yepp. But if you're patient enough (which usually means less than half an hour) it will eventually start charging. Actually the devices behaves as if the battery was totally empty. If you read the user guide then you'll see that this is how it goes with a totally empty battery. First it won't be able to boot into this charging mode not having enough charge left. I guess in that case it does use some simple (and slow) charging electronics to give some initial charge to the battery.

I contacted NokiaCare about this problem and they told me that they were not aware of it. All of you should also mail them so that they notice it. Here is the link for the reporting form:

I also opened a bug here: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2707 . Please take some time to confirm and vote for it.