I find discouraging that I don't get even charging icon after long period of time... I will try to take battery out for the night. Ehh. I got this as a gift from US (I am from Poland) and while it is not impossible to return IT to buy.com it takes much long time and costs some money

It IS impossible, read carefully returns policy and I will not fit into 14 days...

I would guess that the battery is faulty? My N800 won't turn on, even connected to the charger, if the battery is fully discharged. I have to charge it for 10 minutes or more before it will power on.

Sorry for not wading through a 10 page thread, but has anyone tested the batteries, themselves?

Try with my method...several short pushes on power button ...

Holding my breath. Unbricked, but only "Charging". I will wait to "Full charge" and will turn on without disconnecting with charger.

Maybe later I will check battery *and* charger.

Some people tested batteries and in some cases batteries were OK, in others weren't.

Kinda lame but even "Charging" shows terrific quality of this screen. I bought N800 primarily as e-book reader and I am happy about that. But good e-book reader requires decent automony. :/

Here is my solution proposal to this problem:

Take battery off and put it back. Try to start the device from power button. Try this way again and again. It took me quite many times when got succeeded but it works!

I think it doesn't matter how long you keep battery off from the device.

This way it has worked for me

My guess is that this is sw problem which will be fixed in next OS release, hopefully

OK, it works.

After this good news: looks like something is terribly broken. After going *puff* it required several hours of charging just to show "Charging" icon. Later it lasted at least 3 hours to "Full charge" (I went sleep after that). First time it was like 30min. But now I am really reluctant to make experiments...

OMG, I just had to register after reading this thread. Another buy.com N800 buyer here. I ordered on 11/20 received it on 11/27. I was out of town, so I didn't get to play with it until 12/1. What do you know. I put in the battery and charge it up. I turn it on and play with the unit for about 15 minutes and then turn it off to set up my wireless router. I go back and try to turn the unit on... Nothing. I plug it in and just as other have noted, I don't even see the "charging" icon. Nothing. I pull out the battery and put it back in. Nothing. I hold the on button for >30 seconds. Nothing. I get frustrated and put the damn thing down and go eat dinner. I return, press the on button. Presto, it works like a charm. Play with it for about 1 hour, show the wife. Download her email from Yahoo. Try some video stuff, everything works perfectly. Turn it off to put the kids to bed. Try to turn it on again. Nothing... Now I am pissed! It went back to buy.com the following Monday. The replacement arrived today. Work has me out of town again, so I won't get to play with it until Saturday. We'll just have to see how it goes.

FWIW, the first one came from a buy.com wharehouse in California. The replacement was sent from somewhere in Pensylvania. I'll let everyone here know how it works out.

Another "me too" story very similar to the one quoted above. My place of work ordered FOUR N800's. Three were good, the fourth has this "can't start" problem.

It worked the first time out of the box. After playing around with it for awhile, I shut it off. It would not restart. Completely black screen, and no blue light around the control buttons when the ON button is pressed.

Went to the web and found this thread. The only thing that worked for me was to keep the charger plugged in until the "charging" icon magically showed up on the until-then blank screen. (It took at least 1/2 hour for the charging icon to appear after plugging in the AC adapter.) I could then start the unit.

After finally getting the N800 to start I shut it off (pressed the on/off button and selected "Shut down" or "Turn off" or similar from the menu) and left the unit in the charger overnight to make sure the battery was fully charged.

In the morning, I unplugged the charger and tried to start the unit. No good. Completely black screen, no 'blue light' when the ON button is pressed.

Drove to work. Unit started fine. A miracle cure! Shut it down. It would not re-start.

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Since I had a perfectly good unit to work with, I determined that IT IS NOT THE BATTERY OR THE CHARGER. I took a fully charged battery from a 'good' N800 and inserted it into the 'bad' unit. The 'bad' unit still was 'bad'. Same for the charger.
*************************************************

I suspect it's a problem with the unit's "sleep mode" as others have pointed out. To the best of my recollection, this is what I did with the 'bad' N800 when I took it out of the box:

- Inserted supplied 128 MB memory as per instructions.
- Inserted battery.
- Plugged in AC adapter (saw 'charging' icon but DID NOT wait for battery to fully charge)
- Started unit and played with it. Everything fine.
- Shut down unit - AC adapter is still plugged in.
- When I saw the "Battery Full" indicator, I unplugged the AC adapter.
- Troubles began, as per above description.

So... not wanting to trash another N800, I was careful to let the battery fully charge before starting the 'good' unit for the first time. Have no idea whether that contributed to the problem.

Another observation, which others have pointed out. When you shut down the N800 with the AC adapter plugged in, it goes into some sort of 'sleep mode'. Leave the AC adapter plugged in, and restart you'll get a quick start without a 'progress bar'.

If you shut down the N800 with the AC adapter unplugged, it truly shuts down. It takes longer to start, and you'll see a "progress bar".

So what happens if you shut down the N800 with the AC adapter plugged in, and then remove the AC adapter? Is it still 'sleeping' or does it turn off completely? or does it turn itself into a useless piece of crap?

Call me suspicious, but I plan to never run the unit with AC adapter plugged in to avoid this problem.

I don't want to trash another N800, but maybe someone would like to trash theirs for the sake of science! At your own risk, try these steps and tell us if it ruins your N800:

1) Run the unit on the battery for awhile so it could use a recharging.
2) Turn the unit off.
3) Insert the AC adapter and wait for the "charging" icon.

LEAVING THE ADAPTER PLUGGED IN:

4) Start the unit. Play with it for awhile, but not long enough for the battery to recharge.
5) Shut the unit off (AC adapter still plugged in)
6) Wait for "battery full" icon.

7) When battery is "full", unplug AC adapter.
8) Try to start.

Did the above trash your N800? Anybody?

I have to believe Nokia knows this is a problem. For every one of us that takes the time to report the issue on this forum there must be many more that have failed units who are silent about it. Nokia, are you listening?