Once again the differences between the markets seem to shine through. There are millions of people who buy N-Series phones and then, 3-6 months later Nokia has released an updated version of software which is incompatible with the device or even hardware which is much better ( I just bought an N78, the N79 has already been announced and will probably ship within 6 months of the release of the N78). The E71 was released with S60 fp1 AFTER fp2 was already shipping on other devices.

@Allnameswereout : If you can do what the box advertises on the N810WE then even if an N900 comes out a month later that won't diminish the value of that N810WE.

Remember that as much as Nokia has been in this business for going on 3 to 4 years, and they talk about becoming an 'internet' company they are still primarily a phone manufacturer. In the phone world, phones are considered old after 4-6 months and end of lifed after 1.5 years. If they EOL the N810 and introduce a newer, faster more capable device decide if you want to buy it or just stick with the N810 which will probably receive some cursory upgrades for the next year at least.

@mobiledivide: you know, but the tablet is not the phone. it's more like computer, that's why i expect better software upgradebility.

i've got n800 with most recent os and i see different problems, if most of them not so important. but browser could definately be better. i was not nervous, becouse i was waiting for promised upgrades. it seems they are gonna let me behind.

the fact is, i quite like my tablet. but if they forget n800/n810, just like they forgot n770, why should i believe that n900 won't be forgotten in a year or two? (especially if I won't buy n900 immidiately, because of money. i've bought n800, after n810 went out, I believed they will support n810 (therefor n800 too) at least for 2 years).

I guess like Ragnar says I buy my devices on what they do for me now not in the future. Right now the utility I get out of my N810 is vastly superior to every other similarly sized/priced mobile device. Thats not going to change with the release of an N900 or Maemo5. I will still surf the internet, check my email, read ebooks, listen to internet radio and use VOIP to talk to my parents on another continent.

I like the idea of laptop speed and 3G so I will probably upgrade but that doesn't mean that the N810 becomes useless.
I have an N800 right now with Chinook, as a dedicated SIPphone/movie ticket purchase machine/recipe book/FM and internet radio player in my kitchen. Its the BEST kitchen device ever. I haven't even upgraded to Diablo since I see no need.

It's amazing how true YMMV is.

the big diff between the nokia phones and the nokia tablets is the os.

symbian is not openly available for just about anyone (yet). linux is. so when one end up tying down linux to the whim of nokia, one start to understand the orthodoxy of RMS.

now the recently announced open driver for the wifi helps in some way. but there are still much of the tablets firmware thats under nokia control, and that will be hard to replace if one wanted a fully open maemo to maintain after nokia have pulled the plug on official support of the tablets.

One good thing is that even if Nokia doesn't provide an N8x0 OS based on Maemo 5, some of the changes Nokia's making will make it easier to provide a mostly or completely open replacement OS for the old ones, ideally matching library versions to Maemo 5 to allow many Elephanta apps to run. The WLAN driver release is hugely major in this regard; as for other stuff, the X server may be a bit troublesome in bringing a full Maemo 5, as the video chain is expected to be completely different on the N9xx, but kdrive works, and some such hybrid seems very possible now.

A major question is whether such an OS should be Maemo based or Debian based, but that doesn't matter near as much as that it is more possible now.

There are many more differences between Symbian and Linux besides the openness of the source code.

Depending on level of support I'd say lack of official backports for:
1) Security and reliability fixes.
2) Features.

There are many shades of grey between those. What is IE7, 1 or 2? A-GPS, 1 or 2?

I imagine a N810WE customer would feel bad knowing there is a N900HSPA, while she'd like to have bought a N900WE or N900HSPA with Maemo 5. It'd depend on many factors though such as but not limited to price as well as the timeline between the releases. IOW, releasing the N810WE before the announcements wih details about N900 and Maemo 5 would have been smarter, business-wise.

Consider I bought a N95 in july. In august I hear about the N96 release. Now, once the N96 is released, the N95 will drop in price because of a new product in this series. This is another reason why a customer could feel bad (price example). However, the good news is that many new features for N96 (software-wise) have (or will) see light in the various N95 versions.

OTOH, new doesn't mean better, and when Maemo 5 comes out there will be rough edges, too. Also, a community supported OS2008HE might cut it for some users.

How about just fixing the N8x0 battery run down problem related to the wireless being left in full power mode? I'm really fine with no more feature updates from Nokia but I will have to flash back to the original Diablo release rather than wake up to a dead tablet in the morning randomly.

For that matter I feel the same way about the 770 - I would be totally happy with the state it was left in if the stupid browser didn't crash randomly. How about an internet tablet that you can, oh I don't know, browse the internet on?

Frank

Erm, because you have a broken router that doesn't support WiFI PSM? :\

No, notice the part about flashing back to the original Diablo. Chinook, Diablo 1 both ran perfectly with my router. Never a battery run down, ever. Diablo 2 comes out and within a week had my first run down. Same networking hardware in my home.

Frank