I took my underpowered toy () downstairs to a meeting a little while ago because I didn't want or need to lug my laptop. I was asked to perform some configuration work on a corporate database and the N800 performs that task very well... even quickly. At the same time I was able to access my corporate email using the Outlook Web Client and a custom VPN tool. I could also instant message colleagues if I needed to using the sametime protocol on Pidgin.

Is this how everyone will use theirs? Nope. But the possibility is there for that and more thanks to the openness of the device. Could the N800 use some improving? Oh hell yeah. I still don't get what's going on (or not going on) with the webcam, which is as close as you can get to a useless appendage without actually being one. Do I think that improvement is in the works? Of course. And that's arrived at without the benefit of inside info.

Simple.

The Power of Cheese. nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna...

For 10,000 years man thought the moon was made of cheese. In 1969 we went there and proved it wasn't... we haven't been back since.


***

When I first got my N800 I compared it to a lot of things (mostly to justify the cost) I never was able to so in fairness to the OP, in my case it was an expensive toy.

What it does have over PDA's is speed, persistent storage, and battery life.

Now back to the toy thing...

When I first saw the potential for WiFi's spontaneous, portable, remote net connections 2 or 3 years ago I went out and bought the best hardware/software I could find. An iPAQ 4150 with BT and WiFi and paid close to $500 for the thing.

Talk about disappointment. Yeeeesh, the browser was crippled by MS so that it would only load their favorites easily and then it directed you to some pocket PC site that promised you great content (for a subscription fee of coarse), it couldn't load WAP pages, and JAVA script wasn't even a consideration.

It did have a PIM and MS apps however, if I wanted to sync the content with my desktop apps I needed to convert it. This sometimes required costly third party apps. After about 6 months of tweaking and another $100 in apps I had something worth carting around with me.

That is until the battery went dead...

Now everything had to be reloaded, re-tweaked, and in some cases re-registered with the software house before the app would work again. (Silly me. I used my middle initial for the owners info the second time and didn't know this change would affect the hash used to generate some licenses.)

In any event the experience was so painful that I was afraid to use the thing away from the charger for very long. This made the thing less than even a toy so for 2 years it sat and I didn't use it.

Then came the N800, woo hoo! As a toy I take it everywhere. Because of battery life when I do find a connection I have the time to configure it and download or search, load, and view what I need. Because of persistent storage I no longer have to worry about how far from a charger I am... I never get the dreaded message.

...and as far as speed goes it is a hell of a lot quicker than walking to the library, searching a catalog, selecting a book and finding the page that contains the information I need.

Some dude once said speed is relative or some such.

So is comparing the N800 to anything else out there.

BTW, my first home computer was a toy by my definition. I didn't need it for work because no one had them. Most couldn't imagine at the time what use would come of it...

I'm thinkin' the same goes for the IT's.

...things change.

Also... Because I have the N800 for what I bought the iPAQ for I now use the iPAQ more!
I loaded a navigator program to it, bought another BT GPS receiver (after seeing what Navicore could do on the N800), and have relegated it to my work vehicle where I can keep it on charge.

I'm sorry for replying only to this part of your message and taking it out of context, but N800 processor is capable of running at 400MHz, http://www.mail-archive.com/maemo-de.../msg10622.html

Maybe we will get this speedup in one of the next firmware updates

How long do the updates take to come out ?

I don't really post that much on this forum but I do read it a lot and I was blown away by responses people said about the Internet speed. Maybe my N800 is just super-powered or something but I have never had to wait over 2 seconds for a page to load (unless its a page with a video on it or lot and lots of moving graphics / .gif images) and most the time I am connected through a cellphone that is not capable of 3g. Not to sure if people are exaggerating their load times or not but I would have to say mine just about matches my desktop when connected to any legitimate wifi network that has a good signal, and when connected to a cellphone it lags behind my desktop by about 1 to 1.5 seconds which isn't much considering that I can get the Internet wherever I am as long as I am within the At&t Network or another network it can roam on that already has Internet settings on my phone like T-mobile. And I am using the default browser that came with the newly updated Firmware.

I don't have too many complaints on my end, and the only ones I have are about certain software that I would not have even expected to run on this when I bought it like emulation speeds and such. I think its a great little device and I use it as my daily laptop. I do not carry around any other laptop anymore because this thing has bettered all of my old ones even my UMPC (which I should have never bought) And to top it all off I get 7+ hours of battery life on it which outlives almost any laptop to my knowledge (unless you get some sort of extended battery). Maybe some of you just need to update to the new firmware (which I also don't seem to be having any of the problems other people had with it in the other forum?)

Here's an interesting comparison of recent mobile devices (Pepper Pad 3, Archos 704 WiFi, Sony mylo, Apple iPhone, Nokia N800, and Archos 604 WiFi.) on their web browsing performances:

http://www.pocketables.net/2007/08/review-website-.html

Nice link. The N800 had a very decent showing in that comparison. It's especially interesting to see how well the devices stacked up against two "high powered" full on UMPCs. I also found this quote from the reviewer quite notable:

"The Pepper Pad 3 is the only x86-based device of the bunch, which is why it performed the best, so it's technically out of place.Regardless, although there was the occasional oddball variation in loading time, the processors actually made less of a difference than I expected."

Interesting. Have to wonder which variables made the difference on each device considering that the N800 was near the bottom as far as processor speed goes.

I think your n800 is definitely superpowered as the link provided by Yss shows that while the n800 does better than some of the competition, the only time its actually loads a website below 10 seconds in for Google news, which barely has any thing on it (text with some very small pics). For most websites as per the tester, >15 secs is the norm for the n800. Please refer to the quotation below per Yss's post

He tested a few sites. That's far from "most" sites. Also notice that on those sites, the N800 outperformed almost everything else. So ***** and complain about the N800 if you choose, but unless you want to carry around a clunky laptop or UMPC, you've got nothing better.

I don't think the link I posted claim to provide high accuracy data of the comparison, and moreover I can't seem to find any reference of what type of broadband connection do they use in that test. Knowing what kind of speed his desktop\notebook are getting from that connection would be useful too.

Anyway, I personally think the N800 is a very fine mobile device that seems to be in a class of its own as of now (price:size:weight:capability). I don't do heavy browsing on it, but when I do browse it exceeds my expectation for a mobile device. My mobile device list spans from the original Palm Pilot, to CLIEs to the latest Treo, pre-linux Zaurus up to a few of the latest linux Zaurus, the first PocketPC ipaq to HTC universal, WinCE based hp Jornada, and a few other things... Does having tried these many devices make me more forgiving of the mobile platform capabilities? I don't think so. Although it forces me to understand the limitations of the form factor:capability better, it also enables me to recognize a noticeably positive jump in the evolution of the mobile device.

Everyone who has seen my N800 wants one. They immediately think of 'laptop replacement for traveling'. These are people who use Treos and Nokia E90s daily. But I don't think they would be happy if they buy an N800 and try it themselves. Why? Because the N800, out of the box, does not have a very appealing software and functionailities preinstalled and preconfigured.