Sorry to babble the bandwidth, but I just have to rave a bit about what a great tool this Nokia N810 is.

I recently took a long group tour overseas. Wanting to be in email touch, but not carry the weight of a laptop, I bought an N810, plus a little Linksys WTR54GS travel router for hotels with only wired access. Little did I suspect all the uses I'd find for it:

• Email using Claws Mail (for both my wife and me).
• The usual web browsing.
• Phoning home with Skype for pennies a minute.
• Storing PDF documents - the contents of the notebook that the tour operator provided us (right there was 1 1/2 pounds less to carry), the U.S. Customs Service pamphlet, and complete manuals for the N810, the Linksys, my two cameras, and the shortwave radio I bring along.
• But I didn't use the shortwave too much, because I've loaded half a dozen PBS stations and BBC World Service into the Internet Radio applet.
• Reading the New York Times. (I'd load half a dozen articles into browser windows in the morning, and then read them later when out of WiFi range.)
• Playing DOOM on long plane flights.

I didn't expect to use the N810 at all at home, but having all those streaming radio stations available was too good to resist. So my clock radio has been retired. (Just wish there were a clock radio applet that would turn the thing off after 60 minutes.)

I had hoped to use the N810 on flights to check the plane's position, but the GPS is too lame for that. So I relied on the Garmin iQue that I've carried around for years. (Like many iQue owners, I call mine Betty; it just seems to fit the navigation voice. So my more sophisticated N810 is now Veronica.)

I feel a disturbance in the Force...

Yep, someplace with lots of wifi access reasonable could indeed make these things VERY useful.

It's called 3g.

With price varying from 100$ to 52428$ for the first Go (the second Go start at 6144$) in a developed country like Canada, even 3G may not be considered "reasonable".

Canada isn't—and hasn't ever—been relevant.

On a more serious note, assume all my comments regarding data access to be related to US data access. Besides, wv9k is in the US and I was responding to his post.

That's North America though. Go over to Europe and 3G prices can get very reasonable (at least in some countries). I pay less for my 3G connection than I do for my broadband connection.

3G technology isn't expensive, it's just the network operators who try and milk people by locking their phones and forcing them to sign long contracts. None of that has to happen.

Try Australia *sobs at services people call real wireless internet*

In the UK, I still pay more for my 3G network than my broadband, byte for byte, but at the current rate it won't be long before it is equal.
Currently my broadband would be twice the capacity for the same price, but that is a lot better than a few years ago, so this time next year I think it could be the same. Especially since the bbc iPlayer has upset the broadband services that say 'Unlimited' (one of my pet peeves). They may have to start telling the truth.

Where I am it is NOT reasonable :-(. Best bet locally are the Jack In The Box :-(.

But it is better than the z31 as an ebook reader, so I am happy :-).