Two recommendations:
Wash your hands and get a good screen protector.

Finger usage also has the advantage that the stylus doesn't scratch the screen or screen protector. Who would want to scratch their €400,- device with a stylus? Finger prints can be wiped away (but aren't visible on good screen protectors anyway), but scratches cannot.

A stylus will never scratch a screen unless the stylus is damaged or the screen is dirty and has a grain of sand stuck to it which the stylus can push around (and the latter is equally problematic when using a finger).
Screen protectors are often softer though and some of them can be easily scratched with a stylus.

Anyway, it's been an interesting read and I found the discussions useful. My thanks to qole and Jerome and others - I learned a lot.

The only problem seems to be that the next device might be arriving a little late - I think we all imagined it would be here some months earlier.

Personally I think Nokia device will be both too late and too early. Too late because iPhone and Android will steal all the hype - OTOH Nokia is master in regaining of supposedly lost market share. Anyone remember claims about collapse of Nokia due to missed clamshell fashion?

Too early because idea of always on-line mobile tool sounds expensive. Lately T-Mobile in UK announced PAYG service for data. 2 pounds per day. 60 pounds per month. And this is in addition to regular mobile bills. In one year before (realistically) N9x0 will appear market can change but...

One year seems realistic, given that Nokia doesn't even seem to have an internal hardware prototype, nor an early alpha of the operating system, nor even the SDK.

It does sound like it might be a game-changer when it eventually arrives, looking towards the future with its "everything-over-IP" approach. But it's a long time to wait, for those of us looking to upgrade in a shorter timeframe. I guess Nokia put a lot of time into the Symbian and QT acquisitions over the past year, which might have delayed some other things.

Shorter term, the S60 touch screen phones might overlap with some of the low-end internet tablet uses. The leaks of the 5800 touchscreen "tube" look impressive. Nokia has said that their first S60 touchscreen will be "mid range" and released this year, so maybe we'll see a "high end" 800x480 S60 touchscreen phone in the first half of next year.

In the meantime, it strikes me that Nokia could do worse than to re-launch the N800 at a lower price. It's popular with its owners, and another six months of N800 sales would swell the ranks of internet tablet users. If anything, the N800 was ahead of its time when it was launched, and was perhaps under-appreciated. Today there might be a lot of interest in "real mobile internet with a genuine Mozilla browser".

(PS: I've been lurking here for many months without posting, so now's my chance to thank everyone for all the informative and interesting posts.)

Roger.

Very cool! I've been participating in that internally for some time (I helped alpha test the original vpn gui) but was unaware that the project now had a public face. That is a load off!

Already in the UK, a separate HSPA SIM slot is viable at £5 per month:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...681#post224681

The beauty of this is you can choose the best contract for voice/SMS and the cheapest data connection - which seems to be three's PAYG.

HSPA may be viable in most of the world today, but what will it be tomorrow? It seriously looks like the USA may go LTE for it's convergence protocol as both Verizon and AT&T are looking for 4g protocols.

As long as the n9x0 is "not a phone" you will still need a shiny 3g+ device in one pocket anyways, you might as well tether. This will provide you with all the access you need and be future proofed ( especially if Nokia used it's weight on the N series phones to make tethering easier * hint hint * ).

Another good summary here:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...o-maemo-5.html

How low could Nokia go with the N800? I've lost track of the current lowball pricing, since I bought at $400, but anything substantially under $200 might have a big impact. Better yet, go $99 and take the world by storm, and everyone would be pantingly ready for the N900 when it gets here.

n800 is discontinued... all supply is old stock and used. It's seen a huge uptick in my circles since it fell to around $200 street. This should tell Nokia something.