Hello all:

I have been interested for some time in acquiring a "color" ebook reader. The only thing out there that seemed to fit the bill was along the lines of the REB1200. Long out of production, they occasionally come up on eBay and still fetch a pretty hefty price ($100-200 range for one in decent condition w/AC adapter.)

I had been lurking on the MobileRead forums and the N810 happened to be mentioned. Did a little research, stumbled on the Maemo community here, and read some reviews from when it was first released back in the day. The N810's maturity was not an issue for me ... heck, I'd been looking at getting an REB1200! On top of all that, the REB1200 is in the stone age compared to the N810.

So, Buy.com had them for $219 and that seemed to be a decent price. I continued to read the forums here and researched all of the device's capabilities and shortcomings. I've been a Palm user since the very first Pilot back in '96 so the Garnet VM was an unimaginable plus.

In the meantime, Buy.com dropped the price to $199. Things were looking even better. Still researching and it's starting to look like I've just about covered everything. It looks like the N810 has everything but the kitchen sink (but then again, I probably just haven't found that feature yet.) Then, the SmartQ 7 get's reviewed on MobileRead and it looks pretty decent. It's got a bigger screen, is faster, cheaper, takes standard SD, etc.

Well, Buy.com drops the price on the N810 to $179. After finding an online coupon for $10 off that brought the price down to $169 delivered and consulting my Magic 8-Ball - SOLD!

My N810 arrived today and I am pleased with the unit just out of the box w/o any tweaking. I think things will only get better w/all the available apps/repositories, tips, and hacks.

BTW, the maemo.org community was a substantial factor in my decision to go with the N810. It's not just the hints and tips here. It's the people and their attitude. I've seen posts from people that obviously haven't taken the time to search the forums first and some people with questions that were frankly just rude. They would have surely been flamed on other forums, but not here. Here, it seems that courtesy and patience prevail. On top of that, plenty of people here really seem to know their s#@t. Count me in!