So last wednesday, I won a N800 off of eBay. Original accessories, no scratches, said the auction. But the crazy thing is, I won it at $93, 25-30 dollars less than comparable auctions. The seller provided no pictures, but I didn't plan on winning at such a low price!

I got the UPs tracking number. Scheduled delivery for the 30th.
Blast. That was 6 days away from when it was shipped. Oh well. I stalked UPS.com for the tracking.

Peculiarly, it stopped at Texas, passed Louisiana where I live, and stopped in Mississippi. I did a double-take, and shrugged it off. I'll wait on Tuesday, I said.

I checked UPS Monday morning, and it seems it was "out for delivery"! Ahoy! It came in at 2:30


I gleefully got my package, in a very big box. With lots of bubble wrap. I opened it, and viewed the n800 in pristine, scratchless, glory.

I turned it on, to see if the screen would pop up. Success! It works!

And it looked like it had a fully charged battery to boot, with a different looking battery meter that was full. But I got a little concerned when it displayed I had only 3 hours of battery life left.


I checked out the battery pack, and I noticed what I thought was a place holder for a mini-SD adapter, but the mini-SD adapter was already in it's case. I checked it out. Lo' and behold, the seller threw in a 2GB Mini-SD card!


I decided I better get the firmware updated, so I downloaded the update wizard. I stuck the cable in, and the charging cable in, as not for it to die

But I couldn't get it in USB mode for my life. I tried over and over again. Then I thought, "Maybe if I take the charger out."
That did the trick.

I proceeded to upgrade the firmware, but in installing the firmware messed up. I decided I'd use a longer cable mini USB cable, since I wanted to be able to see the screen up close while it upgrades. My computer proceeded to not recognize the device. Uh oh!
I tried it in different USB ports, and still no dice. I grumbled while I plugged in the original USB cord. And it worked. New firmware is a go-go. By the way, battery life was looking normal with 3 hours being at about half battery. When it was fully charged, it held 7 hours of battery.


I went into the livingroom to enjoy my new mobile computing.
The power went out in my house as I was fiddling with control panel options, but it came right back on.


I clicked the application manager to get new applications, but noticed it was taking a VERY long time. Over two minutes passed and it was still trying to update. I minimized the window and tried the web.
Like the application manager, it hung up. I glared at the device, threatening it to explode.

Then I realized. The power-out knocked the internet out of sync. And there was no telling when it would come back. I reset the router and modem, and crossed my fingers. No dice. No internet connection.


At this moment, I felt betrayed by time. I was sitting in a chair with a brand new Internet tablet without the internet.

I fiddled aroudn with the pre-installed programs, but I sat with a huff. Put some music and videos on the 2GB card to test out Media Player

An hour later, after another router reset, the internet came back on.


I quickly enabled the maemo extras repository and began downloading programs. Pidgin, personal menu, canola, mytube, media box, youamp, and the like.


I noticed "Tear" wasn't in the list, so I went to this forum. After about an hour and a half of scratching my head, enabling probably 3 or 4 different repositories, I got tear to work. And it is much faster than microB! And I was happy with microB, actually.

But I ran into Tear's minor bugs. Youtube playback within webpages weren't happening. But I understand it's a "beta at best" according to Bundyo. Also, I wasn't able to send email through gMail's default webpage, but switching to HMTL made it faster and fixed the sending problem.


I then enabled screen rotation and the large status bar clock.
The screen rotation is nice, but I didn't find many webpages that I visit make good use of it, aside from the iPhone version of facebook. I then noticed a problem. I was running out of space on my status bar! I did some tinkering, shooing the "connection" icon away, keeping only what I needed. As long as I don't add any more icons, I'll be safe.


I then got into pidgin, and set up all my accounts. Shame that I can't be running my MSN on two different programs, since I use pidgin on my desktop. I downloaded the facebook chat plugin, but that crashed my pidgin and closed it out. I'll read into that later on the forum. But chatting on pidgin made me realize: Typing is slow on any mobile device! I eventually got the hang of using my thumbs with the finger keyboard, but if I ever got into a lengthy chat away from the computer with someone, then I definately need a hardware keyboard, for long-term use would cramp my hands terribly.


I tried out the different media players I downloaded. One was best with video, one was best with audio, and one was best with youtube. Oh well. They're all sitting happily under the media section of Personal Menu.


Then I looked at my space left.
Zoinks! I only have about 22MB left! I was planning to boot the Os from the memory card a while down the road so I can use more memory, but at this rate, it'll be sooner than later.



Other than a few minor quips, I am thoroughly pleased with this nifty device.