Currently have an N800 that tether nicely with my AT&T 3G phone, and the last time I did the bus thing, it was "ok". I'm now getting ready to start riding the bus again, and the ride has gotten a bit longer as the city tries to get more folks around for the same dollar of gas.

My biggest complaint with the N800 has been how hard it is to type on the thing, and that I can't get Pandora to run on it with any reasonable speed. My second biggest complaint has been the "fun" it takes to get one of my Anime MKVs with subtitles into a form I can watch on the N800.

I thought about taking my laptop along instead, but in addition to being much bigger, I have never been able to successfully get it to work with my 3G phone (Samsung A707 on AT&T if you're curious).

So, I'm thinking maybe the N810 is the solution to my problem. Is it? Will it handle YouTube and Pandora reasonably well? Does it tether at least as easily as the N800? Does it have a version of the GiMP or a similar program for when I'm trying to be productive? Would it allow me to be tethered, and to still use a pair of bluetooth headphones?

If not, is there anything else that folks could recommend?

Thanks in advance!

As an alternative to Pandora, may I suggest http://www.last.fm? You can access it either via the web browser, or there are two clients for the N8x0: Vagalume and Canola has a plugin. Pandora has too much baggage with regards to its flash (?) interface.

I don't think the N810 will be much of an improvement. I'm pretty sure that inside it is identical to the N800. Well, with the exception of the GPS chip and keyboard chip. The CPU, RAM, graphics, etc., are all the same.

Hope this helps!

It should greatly improve the ease of typing though.

The only thing the N810 will help with is your problem with the typing. The hardware keyboard isn't perfect but it's decent enough.

Everything else will be more or less the same between N800 and N810.. they run the Same OS (OS2008) and so tethering is exactly the same..

As far as GIMP.. you're only option there is either Easy Debian or Deblet. Also gives you a full running browser and perhaps Pandora might work on that?

Sounds like I might be better off keeping the N800 and hacking it some more

Though the keyboard would be nice...

Last remaining question for either would be the bluetooth headphones. Can you use those if you're also tethered to a phone for the internet connection?

Thanks again for all the help!!!

Regarding the "fun" with making your anime playable have you tried alltoavi it takes a mkv file and makes an avi with hardsubs.