if your main concern is reliability, i would reccomend buying one from a local retailer, even if you have to pay more. then you can exchange it easily and quickly if something does go wrong. i have experienced power isues once, so i would reccomend buying a desktop charger and extra battery. i am also not deep into linux or programing, but thanks to these forums ive been able to do everything i need with it. i even got lucky and found a usb cable in my dadś junk box that auto detects my HD archos mp3 player. i run freespire linux on my desktop and just realized that if i share folders i can access them using file manager on the n800. this works with windows too. my only gripes are that itś a bit slow to load aps and browsing is also a bit slow. of course im´comparing to a desktop.... microb crashes sometimes, and other apps also crash every now and then. but is use this thing with my 29 dollar amazon bt keyboard all the time.