I agree that the software's not as good as I'd like it to be (I'm not sure it's *possible* to meet my exacting standards, however). But it should be kept in mind that £250 is a *bargain* for a 330MHz ARM box with 800x480 screen, built-in wireless and Bluetooth, running Linux etc.

If the software was as good as everyone wants it to be there are two possibilities:

1. The devices would have been launched a year later for twice the price.
2. The 770 (and hence N800) would never have been released due to the length of time of development and the necessary resulting cost being prohibitive from a business point of view.

Personally, I'm glad they were released at the price they were - and am just trying to contribute whatever I can to make the device better for my own needs.

I think that review was pretty spot-on. They summarize it very nicely at the end there; "...the N800 is a tough sell. It is one of those devices that is genuinely fun to use but difficult to justify buying." Keep in mind they are writing a review of the device from the point of view of the average consumer, not a geek looking for a new toy.

They're not that expensive. That's not one of my problems with it. Also, hardware-wise, the N800 is pretty cool (except for some bad choices in button design.) Well, the CPU could have been a 600+ MHz instead; with throttling during light use it wouldn't even have really hurt battery life, but that would probably have driven up the cost.... but I digress. The hardware is mostly quite nice.

However, it seems, in my opinion, that the software is an "on-going beta"... this seems like one big experiment in the open source world by Nokia, and they started with something pretty bad in the first iteration of the 770 and now they're slowly issuing these "betas" improving things as they go.

Unfortunately, and in contrast (and I know it might be a bit silly to keep harping on about a product that hasn't even been released) Apple changed the playing field quite a bit. The demos of the iPhone show a truly seamless, graphically excellent and totally visually consistent device, with real 3d-graphic processing power. Compared to that, the N800 (and every phone out there) looks pretty darn antiquated. I would have no qualms handing an iPhone to just about any non-***** consumer to use and expect them to enjoy it based on the demos we've seen, but an N800? Some of my nerdy friends, yeah, but someone who isn't a geek? Naah.

The 770 is a great enthusiast device, for people who like to tinker. For the average consumer, it's pretty blah. The N800 is a bit less blah, but still very much a niche product. There is nothing here to excite the bulk of consumers.

That's not to say I'm not tempted to get one, I definitely am. I had a lot of fun with the 770, and I'm sure I'd have more so with the N800 - but the things missing from it just make it far inferior to a high-end Pocket PC for me, and there is no way I'm going to be carrying yet another device.

"It is one of those devices that is genuinely fun to use but difficult to justify buying.", indeed.

I would probably pay $650 or so for an N770 that performed email, PIM, and web-based tasks perfectly, but that's me. I think they misspent some development time making the N800 "fit" into the Nseries in terms of aesthetics and whatnot. They should have spent that time improving the software instead of making it more like an Nseries device. I hate the prospect, but I suspect that by the time 3G becomes inexpensive in US, N800 will still be suffering software pains, and I will be doing all of my email and PIM on the latest Symbian phone.

I think you both ^ have equally valid points.

At a certain price point, I daresay many would forego the N800 or 770 for a cheap laptop. It's obvious to me that, right wrong or indifferent, Nokia compromised. It could be argued they leaned too far toward keeping cost down at the sake of more robust software. I think a hacker mindset pervades the tablet development program and certain assumptions were made because of that (ergo the consumer community would graciously accept a strung-out OS deployment given the other favorable aspects of the devices). I could be wrong, but that's the perception I get.

Looks like I have misspoken on the part about Nokia and it's relation with the open source communty, here is part of a review from RogerS's review posted under General Discussions > News:

".....Strategically, Nokia opted to enlist and encourage the Linux community. Again, maybe their experience with a non-desktop Linux proved lucky, but as far as possible they have chosen to go mainstream. That means not just using Linux, but building Linux up for everyone else. Seeding the developer community with devices is good, but who remembers that the 50,000 euros collected from the initial developer device sales went to the Gnome Foundation, not to Nokia? Nokia has paid Linux developers and contributed code. They're good citizens.

So Linux on the internet tablet isn't free. But Nokia is getting the most bang for its OS buck this way, which previous Linux-y tablets failed to do.

And does this mean that there will be non-Nokia tablets running Maemo in future, with Nokia getting not one penny in royalties? Yes, I expect so. That's the way it works." Glad to hear that! Man was I wrong.

In my opinion, at this point any other manufacturer would have to be on drugs to build a tablet and put Maemo on it. Maemo is by far the worst part of the entire package. The hardware is very nice, but the OS... the hardware and Opera is what carries this device.

I am not praising Maemo, am agreeing (from what I have read) that Nokia seems to be dealing fairly with the open souce communty.

Right, I didn't mean to attack Nokias treatment of the community either, just reacted to the whole "other tablets with Maemo" thing. From what I can see, Maemo is a pretty primitive GUI.

What makes Maemo a primitive GUI? Maybe we can find some points that Nokia can make better.

I don't consider Maemo primitive, but I think it's good for stylus use. Primitive is that you cannot rotate the GUI and all size values are hardcoded. What else?