"PS N800 or N810?"
N800 - Has 2 memory card slots. Radio chip too.
No Keyboard, GPS.

N810 - Only 1 card slot (the other is used by a internal 2GB which can corrupt sometimes). No radio.
Has transreflective screen, keyboard & GPS (although people report problems with it).

Dont forget the N810's FM Transmitter

Think I'll get a N800, to begin with... Just need to find the money. Oh well, hey I'll go and get a sock in put it in my mouth so I stop going over the same facts over and over again lol.

Cheers

I have had similar probs connecting with free public wifi on my N800/ITOS08. I get a message I am connected to the network but can't bring up anything after that...including the standard User Agreement page many sites put up.

I was sure it was a Tx problem so I reset the Tx from 10mW to the 100mW max setting. But, no joy. I have not looked into it further as I carry a Cradlepoint Travel/Pocket router and have an EVDO mobile broadband connection. But it might be nice to figure it out so I can save battery power on the router now and then.

Not sure the exact reason but I have had the issue at several locations. So, I am guessing it is some sort of config issue on my end. Since the UA page will not come up (even though the auto redirect URL shows in the address box) it's not a simple matter of a ping to another site...until you agree to the UA there is no access granted. Might even be a browser issue for all I know yet.

Next time I am at Von's (yup ours has a free wifi...weird huh?) or Staples I'll try a few things. Our Von's has a Starbuck's in it so I can sit, have a coffee and see what I can manage.

BTW: scumgrief excellent full answer to a question!! I think we all forget sometimes most users are not experts in any OS and leave out what has become trivial to us. Plus ya never know when what is simple or trivial to you might help someone who has experience...so very nice answer on how the ping command works.

I too frequently cannot connect to public wifi. Just today i could connect to an open wifi signal with my N800, but could connect perfectly easily with my laptop. This has happened on numerous other occasions.

I connect all the time at home, no problem, but there is definitely something amiss with the Nokia tablets connecting to public wifi signals.

very frustrating, indeed. Does anyone know what the root cause of this issue is???

EDIT: Just today i could NOT connect....

No idea - I can connect to any network I can find, as long as it's open. Are you sure these are open networks? I've never had a problem connecting, as long as it was a good network, not a spoof, and it was unsecured.

Don't know about that. But I can tell the following story:

a) Either "free public wifi" is related to the WiFi signail of the Nintendo DS game console (which can actually communicate using WiFi) or,
b) Another windows machine, with the symptoms stated above.

I turned on my N810 aboard an airplane (commercial airline) , in flight, at cruise level (when you are allowed to turn on computers) and my N810 started detecting that "free public WiFi" onboard and at 35000 ft !!!

A girl sitting next to me had a Nintendo DS turned on also, so I really thought this "free public wifi" was actually from her toy console....

Go figure ! Any comments ?

The "Free Public WiFi" that you see most often is due to a bug in Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista. If a laptop connects to an ad hoc (i.e. peer-to-peer) network once, then the next time it is powered up, it will advertise ITSELF as an ad hoc network with the name of the last ad hoc network it connected with.

To tell the difference in what type of network you are trying to connect to with your N8x0 look VERY CLOSELY at the ICONS in the list of networks found.

An INFRASTRUCTURE network shows as the WiFi symbol. These are OK to connect to.

An AD HOC network has the WiFi symbol with a little DOT OVER IT. Don't connect to these--chances are that the person who's computer is advertising itself as an ad hoc is either a hacker or has been hacked by a hacker. Either way, ad hoc networks are suspect.

Alas, i can tell this really isn't to go anywhere, but yes, I am sure the it is a real/valid/ functional INFRASTRUCTURE network that can be connected to by other devices.

As I've said before, I can connect to some signals, but not all, not consistently. Just b/c wifi connectectivity works with some access points some of the time does not mean it works. I am still 100% convinced that there is either software or hardware issue with the N800 (presumably n8X0) wifi.

I am going to try the power thingy mentioned earlier in this thread to see if that may help...

Problems connecting to open wifi spots are sometimes related to the fact the WAP is not running dhcp and wont hand out IP addresses to clients. This you would have to know what IP range is being used in order to connect to these type of wifi spot. This is where kismet comes in handy since its able to detect the ip range of such WAP`s I connect to a whole bunch of open wifi all around and never had a problem.