Bite what ? My Ethernet cable ? :-)

I know that this is my first post..and yes to answer the first question...I did read through all 11 pages of this thread and I "think" I know the answer, but want to clarify it. The "codes" were sent out to the first 500 lucky people to sign up. I went to www.n-series.com to look around and something is not right. I can not scroll left or right nor up and down on the page. I see things to the right, but no scroll help. I tried it in Mozilla and IE. But my main question is this....am I right in assuming that the discount codes were only offered to the first 500 people?

If so, I guess that means I will have to pay 479 for it. But did you know (I am sure you did) that Dell has it for sale too?...

No.

There was a deadline that has long since passed, but it wasn't a matter of first-come, first-served

IIRC, something like 900 people applied and a group at Nokia determined which applications were more deserving and those are the ones that received a discount code. All kinds of criteria were considered, with a much broader base than was applied with the earlier tablets.

Roger

Roger, you explained it so well..I appreciate the help. I am just trying to make sure that I get this tablet with the right applications, etc on it. Many are being sold on Ebay and after reading this forum, I am a little hesitant to get one from there....now to find one.lol

Another day goes by with no news about the codes being activated. I'm still very grateful for having been chosen, but waiting for weeks with no real news is getting a bit hard to take. Makes me think of Waiting for Godot (does the N810 developer program really exist? Really?).

According to Nokia Canada, today was the last day to place an order and have it delivered in time for Christmas. So much for that - the next major block of time I'll be able to set aside for Maemo projects will be February (admittedly, with some tinkering along the way). Surely I'm not alone in having limited free time (note the double entendre) to spend on Maemo projects, am I???

Please, can SOMEONE give a clear reason why there is such a delay? Given the N810 user reviews already in existence, the tablet works. Is this an administrative delay, or a technical one? Will people with a development code get a different version of the N810 (maybe with WiMAX, or lasers, or ???).

Perhaps the box will include "Head On a Platter", courtesy of whomever is responsible.

On the bright side, everyone here is happy, healthy, and ready for a relaxing holiday. I suppose that's all I can ask for. Happy Holidays, all.

My completely unfounded an paranoic theory is that it is intentional. Sell as much devices as possible before Christmas to customers who pay full price an who possibly wouldn't buy it after Christmas. Developers with discounts may not bring enough profit to shop and may decrease (limited?) stock. Also they will buy the device later for sure. Maemo != Nokia marketing department. Again, this is just my theory. It is quite probable that I am wrong.

I do not think that 500 units are enough to decrease the stock so much.
I was thinking about some legal issue, but they've done it already for the former tablets... No idea what's causing it.

I was sure I would get it by Christmas (heck.. I've got the code two months ago almost!), but looks like I'll be lucky if I'll get it before the new year!

Well, lesson learned for the Maemo team. They sent us the codes ahead of time (well, at that time they were also sure the tablet would be ready the week later) and now we all need to wait before getting our hands on one of such cool device we all deserve.

I hoped a lot for xmas, because this wasn't an impossible task. Now it's to late in Europe too, because I don't think Nokia shop is as fast as Amazon
After the xmas and new year days I'm very busy because a few projects starting @work with release dates, so I only have the weekends the next few months to get familiar with N810. Of course, with the usual breaks from monday to friday...
With an SDK only, I can't imagine the handling of a real piece of hardware and thinking about ideas for projects (no, I don't have a 770 or N800).
Like Nokia, I must change the priority of my interests, so no one will be disappointed I know today that I have a lot of fun around xmas time because I'll be starting another thing where I'm very interested. The next 14 days I can code, eat and sleep like I want. This timeframe help me a lot to get familiar with something.
If N810 comes after new year, I think I use it as an usual music player ('promoter' only) next 4 months because I can't start two private projects of interest. Sorry, I have 24h/day like everyone.

Merry xmas and a happy new year to everyone!

I have to say, it seems as though the entire window of where this program would have made the most sense has come and gone.

How many weeks ago could we walk into a Nokia Flagship Store and buy one? Given the poor resources attributed to the firmware servers both recently and when the first beta of OS2008 was officially launched, I would say that surely *someone* botched this whole developer's discount program entirely.

Just so that I have it right, the entire purpose was so that developers (and in my case, bloggers) could have a chance to handle the new device and work up new applications, update old applications, and work up solid hands-on reviews so that consumers can get a good idea of what they're looking at.

I would argue against the above theory by saying that Nokia would have benefited from MORE sales by already offering up the codes. There would be more applications, more solid implementations, and more general chatter on the web about the device.

This seems to me to be the case.

Disagree. It could be the result of any number of things.

This seems to me also to be the case.

The high-profile bloggers in particular can do nothing to promote the device without a device.

On the other hand, there is nothing preventing the porters / developers from installing chinook SDK and making the N810 / OS2008 launch better and more successful by having more 3rd party apps available.

From the perspective of promoting our favorite platform, we should be doing this. However speaking personally, my motivation is pretty low right now.