I have a 770, an 800, and an E70, so I have a pretty good perspective. And from that perspective, the proposed E90 will be less powerful, less fun, and a good deal more productive than the 800.

Why? Well, after a year of Maemo development, the built-in email program on the 800 is useless with IMAP. The version of Opera is so quirky that the forums generally recommend Minimo -- but Minimo is so unfinished that a single button press can blow up the whole app. Installing software is much easier with repositories, but the forums are still full of users finding "x component not found" error messages. And I've spent days trying to load SdictReader dictionaries, but can never get the dictionaries to show more than a truncated word list. And then there's the whole "it's not a PDA, so we're not going to include decent contact or calendar software" thread, or the challenges of the handwriting recognition, or...

The E70 has a small screen, a relatively slow UI, and limited-to-non-existent video capabilities. Yet day to day, that's the tool I rely on. It has Wi-Fi and 3G/EDGE, so I always have a connection. The email works acceptably well with my office IMAP server. The browser is ok for on-the-fly browsing, which is what I need it for, and Opera Mini is an even better alternative. It syncs nicely with my Mac. Dictionary software is available from reputable sources, like Collins and Oxford. And the keyboard, while mainly limited to thumbs, is still far better than the 800's on-screen version.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the screen on the 800, and the speed, and I love playing around with it, but for every day use, the E70 works, while, more often than not, the 800 doesn't.

I think Walter Mossberg's review from last year still holds true -- the 800 is a marvelous piece of software that is held back by unfinished software.

As usual, this is an opinion, so I'm sure many of you have wildly divergent views

Charlie