Hello

I was considering purchasing the N800, and I wanted to ask a few questions.
note: I'm considering N800 as a candidate for mobile note-taker and reference carrier/finder.

How is the battery life? This is very important to me since I travel extensively. Some sites say ~3hr while some other say ~5hrs. If wifi is connected with screen brightness at minimum, how long would N800 last on full charge?

Is it possible to turn off wifi antenna and bluetooth when I'm not using them? (when reading pdf or typing up something) How long would the battery last when wifi and bluetooth is off with birghtness at minimum?

How will this device function as an electronic reference? Is there any limit on the size of the pdf document I can read on the device? Say, will 700+ pages with diagrams and graphs open and read without problems?

Is there any kind of stable openoffice-like implementation for N800? If not, do you think there's likely to be one in the future? How likely would that be?

Is there a better device right around the corner that I should consider?

How long will Nokia support N800 in terms of OS upgrades and such?

How sensitive is N800 to little shocks and moisture? As much as any other gadget or is there some physical vulnerability I should be aware of?

How active is the free software development and repository for N800 (was it OS 7)? Just starting? Only a few working? Dying off? Do you think it'll really take off soon? How likely would that be?


I'd really appreciate if someone could give me some answers. Thanks.

Battery life depends on how you are using it. I would estimate about three hours at worst. I typically use mine more than six hours daily and switch batteries at least once. I have my brightness at about miniimum but can't tell the difference.

There is no problem with reading pdf files of any length that I have encountered.

Independent software development is pretty active and seems to me to be accelerating.

You can get a pretty good idea of the answers to your questions by browsing the forums here, and the maemo.org pages.

It's good to buy the nokia n800. I like the OS 2007 better.

I have a question, my friend got a nokia 770 and flashed the new OS 2007 hacker edition. The OS load but when he tried to re-start he just gets a blank white screen. we tried flashing it back with the original OS but that did not work. Still gets a blank white page. any idea?

Oh, you carry a secondary battery? Is it easy to exchange them?

I wouldn't recommend the N800 for the things you want to do with it. The N800 is designed as an Internet tablet, not as a notetaker. It can do that, but there are other devices on the market that are better at it. Also, you would need a full blown keypad to take notes efficiently. I would use a Nokia Communicator or a PDA with keypad to take notes. They are in the same pricerange. In fact, the Communicator is also a cellular, so you could get a bargain. And the Communicator has great battery life.

Great for taking notes: