The iPhone is the new HUGE. It's not even believable what they've done with this thing. I will get to the iPhone in a moment, but first let me say my peace regarding the N800 and my growing disgust.

I've been a loyal Nokia supporter since long BEFORE the N770 even came out, and when it did I was amazed. I was flabbergasted. I loved it. In many ways, the 770 was better than the overrated N800 which followed it.

For one, the touchscreen on the 770 actually worked, so when you typed on the screen, it registered. My N800 only registers 50% of my taps... resulting in no end of frustration on a daily basis. And I can NEVER get the "back" button to register.... so I can't erase errors or mistakes when typing. What a piece of junk the N800 has become. I've been growing angrier as I wait for each new firmware revision hoping they will fix the touchscreen. No such luck. It gets worse the longer I wait. Last night I tried to use handwriting to get around the N800 not capturing my clicks... but when I put the stylus to the screen the drawing showed up 2 inches to the left in slow motion. I went immediately and re-calibrated the screen with the Control Panel option of the same name. It did not work. I rebooted. That did not work. Its horribly flawed. For months my N800 has been giving me so much grief just being able to get information INTO the darned thing that I went back to using my N770 because it actually works. I still love my 770. It is still useable and functional.

Why did Nokia bother to change the 770? The case design for the 770 was great, and not having a case for the N800 sucks. And they went with substandard touchscreens for the N800, when the 770 was superior. Why downgrade to CRUD like they've done? The touchscreen clearly does not work on the N800 and it's a dead piece of junk to me now. Everything boils down to the user experience... the machine may have more CPU and memory, but what do those things matter when my experience SUCKS?

Programs freeze on the N800, apps won't load (or take 5-10 minutes to load in some cases, and often NEVER load!) I reflash and nothing changes, still all the problems. I've been thinking of giving up on the N800.

And then, out of the blue, I saw the iPhone commercial last night and my mouth started watering. So I went to the Apple website and started watching the videos, and my jaw hit the floor. The iPhone is so far ahead of anything else that it's not even funny. It's like a 2-year leap forward over anything else that isn't already an iPhone 'knock off'. The touchscreen is fluid and brilliant, the controls are amazing, it's like something out of the future, or from Star Trek. This is every techno-geezers dream come true. This thing is so cool, even women will love it. It appears made to cater to both women and men equally.

The interface is amazing, from the transitions, to how it's layed out, and how it functions in concept. It combines everything together at long last.... video player, photo viewer, phone, iPod, PDA, GPS and mapping, it does it all, and with so much polish you just can't help but begin drooling as the videos unfold before your eyes. And it performs its every aspect at top quality. This is not a jack of all trades master of none deal-io, this is jack of all trades and yes, we've mastered them all, too. Have my cake and eat it too? Are you crazy? Apparently not, the iPhone is real. There are some drawbacks, however....

3 Things Not in iPhone's Favor:

1) It might not have the N800's screen resolution... it's res is 320 x 480, still good enough for TV... but the screen size is smaller, which could end up making the dot pitch equal overall. Not sure about this point yet.

2) No Maemo portability. No new programs or user-created additions like the N800 can do. Have to wait for good ole Steve to hand down the next program it can run in Apple's questionable updating prodecures.

3) Apple. If they've locked this thing up like they have everything else, it will probably end up pissing off a lot of us who buy it. Or they'll somehow shoot themselves in the foot over this new product like they always do.

Either way, I think my N800 is about to begin collecting dust, or I will sell it, or something... And I'm breaking my Sprint phone contract, too. Because... sure enough....

I'm going iPhone.

Later.