I was expecting two solid pages! Enjoying it that much, eh?


}:^)~
YARR!

Capt'n Corrupt

I second that call about the problems with the dpad. The outer ring needs to be made bigger and the inner ring smaller.

Nokia needs to be courting the mobile gaming production community here. Having a couple of PSP/Nintendo DS games ported to the N800 would be awesome (I know, it's not an easy undertaking .... but I don't own nor plan to buy a PSP/Nintendo DS and I assume there are other people out there in the same boat). Of course, that would require somone either porting their proprietary graphic libraries or someone writing them from scratch .... hmm ... not sure what the chances are of that.

When saying that gps lock is slow.. how slow is it on average? 30 - 60s? 1-2 mins? more than that?

seriously... really enjoying it. I'm probably one the most skeptical people on this forum. but i must say, I'm pretty impressed with this so far.. although watching youtube is just slightly bearable..

net's a bit slow at times but now its like, I don't have to drop what i'm doing just to chat/check email or whatever. its with me wherever I go. just put on pidgin, and setup gmail with jaber. its awesome. next tasks, getting UKMP installed. (is there an easy step by step to follow somewhere?) installing bomberman and popping in an 8gig micro sd.... and again, because of the way i naturaly hold it, i have no issues with the light sensor. and the DPAD i feel is in the perfect spot.

hmm when is the new canola for os'08 going to be released?

I just placed my order from Buy.com! I really hope they actually have it as the page says, since every other webstore that listed today as the restocking date haven't shown new stock. So, this is a heads up to those who are looking for a place to buy and also a question: how good is Buy.com with correctly listing stock?

Anyway, this isn't the place for this post, I know, but I'll make up for it with a first impressions next week--hopefully.

Good to hear, mate! The fact that you're both skeptical and impressed is quite the impression. Like you, I bet I'll keep my N810 pretty much within arms reach until I buy my next internet tablet!

You may want to consider the new MediaBox media player that was recently released. It's supposed to use MPlayer as a backend and is 100% finger friendly. Plus it has kinetic scrolling, which is at least fun to look at! I've never used it (or heard anything on it), but it looks promising. You can find a link in the last page of the links section.

I wonder if the DPad complaints are due to those familiar with the old DPad but are forced to change. I can't see the DPad being an issue for me either.

Thanks for the review.


}:^)~
YARR!

Capt'n Corrupt

I really like the n810. There's so much that I like that I think I'd be better to talk about the things I੍ don't like. The list post will be shorter and easier to read that way.

1. Software installs/uninstalls are slooooooow. Is this reflashing itself or something?
2. Software installs/uninstalls don't automatically resolve dependencies. Sure they check dependencies and tell you when there's something you don't have, but it doesn't try to resolve and install those dependencies for you like the aptitude does on debian/ubuntu. I really expected the installer to be like that.
3. System updates have to be done with a computer. Really, why can't the updates occur over wifi like software? Just download to the internal memory card and have it reflash itself. I don't see what's so hard about this. Maybe I'm being naive, but I used to work on embedded hardware at IBM. Flashing SES firmware was always simple once you got the binary copied. It flashed itself.
4. Why does the default software suck so much? Come on. Nokia can do better than this. The media player should already use mplayer. Why should I have to go and download it myself? Again, probably being naive, but licensing shouldn't be that difficult if they would base it entirely on OSS instead of being half-in/half-out
5. Settings are scattered. You can't get to every possible setting from the control panel. For example, there are different kinds of lock. Only one of these can you change from the control panel. I already forgot how to get to the others.
6. Hold button is inconvenient. When the keyboard is out, I can barely reach it. Even while it's in, it's difficult to move quickly.
7. Power button is inconvenient. I can barely push it. If I didn't use it so much, this wouldn't be a problem though. Normally, you don't want to hit the power button by accident. I use it so much though for switching to/from offline-mode, that it's become inconvenient. If there were an easier way to get to that, I suppose, I wouldn't care as much.

I really like it otherwise though. Best one I've ever seen. I especially like that it runs linux. I'm a linux developer and I can't wait to hack it.

Some comments/corrections:

It does. It only does it when you're installing from a repository (as with Debian/Ubuntu), and obviously only if the package's dependencies can be met with your repository list.

This is why everything should be being uploaded to extras(-devel), and why developers who create their own repositories are making their lives easier at the expense of their users.

There are some tricky issues here, different to embedded hardware. However, the primary reason is that it's not been a high priority and the Maemo team took their time in understanding how best to do it. It's definitely on the roadmap and should be available by Diabalo or Elephanta (the next two major Maemo releases, equivalent to IT OS 2009 & IT OS 2010 ?)

Serge has done a lot of work on getting mplayer to the state it's in. Perhaps the Maemo team didn't have those skills onboard? They also wanted to go for a GNOME-like stack and so the media framework is based on gstreamer.

mplayer definitely is a better engine for the majority of use cases, though. But if it was default one of the best third-party applications (things which Nokia want to foster) would be removed from being a third-party application ;-)

Not got an N810 yet, can't comment on its hardware :-(

Again, can't comment on the hardware issue. But I guess Nokia aren't expecting users to be using the power button that much. It's designed to last longer when not powered on/off constantly, as the startup is very power intensive, compared with the aggressive power adaptation used when the device is idle.

...and that's the best bit :-)

If you've got specific problems (such as particular bits of Control Panel not making sense), targetted bugs in the Bugzilla at http://bugs.maemo.org/ are your best recourse.

okay, so my first thoughts, in totally random, stream-of-consciousness order, as I sent them to a friend this morning (I really should edit this a little better for public consumption, but can't be bohered to atm...)


I definitely like the look/feel more than the n800, though it will take a little while to get acclimated with. the back of the device is completely flat, and when holding it, my index fingers miss the curved part of the n800, which they seemed to fit under nicely. I dunno if I explained that right, pick up your n800 and you'll see what I mean.

It feels a lot smaller to me than the 800 -- might be because it's flat on the back, and also thinner and narrower. Fits better in my pocket too.

I don't like the stylus. It's much thinner than the n800 stylus and just feels cheap. The stylus from my n800 seems to fit in my hand better. I also like that the metal end on the n800 stylus helps balance it in my hand. The n810 stylus doesn't have that. Given the fact that the screen moves, and they lose half the usable space, they did what they could, and I guess I'll deal with it.

I don't like that I was forced to remove the screen protector because of the damned tamper-proof barcode / sn sticker.

I don't care for the car mount -- the only provided way to mount it to your car is with screws... they could've used strong tape, or industrial velcro, or even a giant suction cup... I'm not too keen on screwing crud to my dashboard.

I liked that the camera on the n800 could be rotated, but I can see why they took that particular bit out -- it eats up a lot more space.

I love having the built-in keyboard. the keys are a bit mushy, but you get used to them pretty quickly. I can type on the thing at a pretty good clip, even with my fat fingers. I almost think it would've been better if they made the keys a little smaller, but left space in between them. Still -- I already feel comfortable enough with the keyboard that most of the work in the console I've done in the last hour or so, I've done with the device as opposed to via SSH from my laptop.

I like having the gps built-in. I actually used it while walking yesterday from my office to the store. I used it with the included map application on the way there, and Maemo Mapper on the way back. Worked great both times. took a few minutes to sync, but after that worked great. I think I instantly liked Maemo Mapper better than the waypoint app too.

I actually like the included case, the device fits into it snugly, whereas my n800 is constantly falling out of the case it came with.

Some people have complained about the d-pad being in with the pull-out keyboard... this doesn't really bother me too much, even as much as I use the d-pad, the device fits in my hand just as well with the keyboard out as in, so it's all good. I really think shrinking the home and escape buttons on the face, moving the d-pad off the face, and moving the speakers to the sides were good design choices.

Incidentally, the speakers sound just as good as on the 800... I even notice a little more separation when the device is in front of me than I did with the 800.

Overall, the n810 both looks and feels more refined than the n800... I think the device is a keeper.

Me too - note to future owners though/hope this helps someone - I discovered you can remove those silver residue/diamond shapes with some anti-static cleaning spray or white spirit on a bit of tissue/cloth (see the 'penny pinching screen protector' thread.. )