No, you can do it - but you will normally be charged per MB unless you have signed up for a data plan. For example, I don't currently have a "data plan" for my mobile phone but for the last month (October) I've been having to check email on my N800 while away from home and I received my bill yesterday - £60 for data calls, ouch!

My service provider - O2 - has a £7.50/month data plan which provides 200MB/month data usage, but I can't add it to my current voice plan - that's just dumb, and it's also not a very good data plan (I can get 1GB for £5 elsewhere!) but it's still cheaper than £60! Right now I'm waiting for the N95 8GB to appear on either T-Mobile or 3 in the UK and then I'm switching as these two networks have competitive data plans... or I might switch sooner and buy the phone SIM free.

To sum up - unless you have a data plan in place you'll get slammed when you use your voice plan for data calls.

I have to take exception to that "low standards" statement. I believe it is quite the opposite. Safari 3 is a known beta product but compared to WAP intenet access from most phones it is mannah from heaven. Secondly the product overall is well designed. I just got myself an iPhony (an iPhone knock off) and it has made me appreciate the attention to detail that went into the iPhone UI and believe me, it is the UI that is selling the iPhone. What people have is a low expectations of cell phone UI's and are blown away by the relatively high standard of the iPhone UI.

Wiz: I'm going to side with Apple customers having low standards. If Apple decided to sell pure white cutlery and place settings for $200 a spot, they'd go like hotcakes. Here's my litmus test on the situation:

Google: Apple Tattoos
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en...-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Google: Nokia Tattoos
http://images.google.ca/images?svnum...=Nokia+Tattoos

Well, I ended up ordering myself an Asus EEE.

I have my iPhone and the feature cross over from the N800 was just too great. Having hacked my phone again and loading all the neat apps on again, I just couldn't justify a second ARM device... compiling x86 apps will be nice on a tiny EEE.

I will likely revisit the IT hardware (even in its current incarnation as the N810) at a later date, but for now the iPhone really just beats it down in the pocket internet department.

Safari, Linux tools, terminal, nes emulator, multi protocol IM program, accelerometer games, a working IMAP client (lol...), awesome h.264 support with TV out... In my phone 11mm thick.

Hopefully, with some additional development time, the 2008 OS will receive some of the goodies that will bring me back. I'll pop in the discussions still, as I enjoy this community very much I just want it to get a little closer to being a computer... Maybe a switch to x86 will provide that.

from what i read, people who criticize the concept fall into 2 categories:

1) some of them wanted a different device in the first place and now make nokia responsible for the fact that the tablet is not a smartphone. well: nokia does sell smartphones. they can go and get one.
2) die-hard fans who feel everyone in the world should want a tablet (better yet: a nokia tablet). they want nokia to pack the strangest features into the thing so no matter what peoples needs are, they'll alwas end up buying a tablet.

i think the concept is great as it is. the actual implementation got worse from model to model, but theres still hope. tablets will not be mass market products for some time to come, so we neednt try to find ideas how to make people want tablets as much as they want mp3 players. it wouldnt work: in the end, we'd have a phone or media player, but no tablet anymore. what would this be good for? theres no lack of phones or media players on the market, is there?

Is that entirely the fault of the community? I haven't seen it definitely defined what an "internet tablet" is. What IS an internet tablet ... and, more importantly, what IS NOT an internet tablet. Defining scope is very important.


To me, it's a portal.

It doesn't need to have a cell phone inside it, but it needs to be able to act as a portal to my cell phone (remote control it).

It doesn't need to store all of my MP3's, but it needs to be able to access my storage (online, or via bluetooth HD).

It doesn't have to be the central authority for my calendar, to do list, documents, but it should be able to give me some access to them.

etc.

And, the most direct use I have for it, is remote access to the systems I run (ssh, web browser, VNC).

However, since it's not really clearly defined what the envelope of this design might be, I also see it as having potential to take over a lot of the things my desktop does. Certainly not for hard-core uses (heavy development work, high end games, writing and design work that requires a large screen), but it can certainly take over a lot of my lighter-weight things (display and light editing of documents and spreadsheets, minor calendar stuff like quickly adding a simple appointment to my calendar, etc.).

Further, it's not clear to me whether or not the tablet is expected to be 'always connected'. Certainly that's not a reasonable statement _now_ (because wifi and GPRS/EVDO aren't really omnipresent in everyone's life), but once WiMAX is present, it might be. So, which is it? Is it reasonable for me to expect a local document editor, highly featured local email client, etc. (from the base tablet, with full integration in the tablet's infrastructure, not from add-ons). Or is the right answer from Nokia that "you can do all of that via online/web applications, and that's what we expect since it's an _INTERNET_ tablet"?

Since the 'net isn't omnipresent with these devices, I expect some ability to do off-line work on it, and to have full access to things like my IMAP folders. Maybe that's not a reasonable expectation for the long term goal for the IT, but I think it's more than reasonable for the current state of the IT. But, most importantly, I don't feel like Nokia has adequately given the scope of things like this, and therefore set proper expectations.

Without setting proper expectation, and defining scope, you're going to get that category #2 you stated. People who want to throw in the kitchen sink, because they haven't been given a proper definition of the device that says "we're not a kitchen sink".

I haven't held an n95 but next to the iPhone, it looks like a massive brick.

Everything held next to an iPhone looks like a massive brick. Well except for the sliver, but that's a pos.

You mean the motorola SLVR? What's wrong with it as a phone?

I was contemplating getting it from MetroPCS (unlimited minutes for $35, and add $5 for web access, and then unlock it so I can use tethering for my N800).

But is the Internet still the same Internet as it was back in 2004, when the 770 was being designed? I don't think so. Back then a browser without extensive Java/AJAX/Flash was feasible, because they weren't essentials. Nowadays they ARE essentials because of YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, Google Docs etc. And that's just right now. There's such a thing as future-proofing. Who knows what will happen in the future? Silverlight? Integrated web apps? Will the Nokia platform be able to deliver when they go mainstream in 1-2 years time? Maybe, but it'll be slow and painful.

The N810 does nothing to address any of this. It merely includes a keyboard, because Walt f***ing Mossberg moaned about the lack of one, and it includes GPS, because somebody has decided all Nokia devices should include GPS.

What should have occurred was a brave decision to perhaps use a new hardware infrastructure that's faster. Apple would have taken this decision at the drop of a hat. I see PDAs that have processors twice the speed of the N800, and better battery life. Don't tell me it can't be done.

Note that a hardware improvement is only one example of how the brief might be out of date.

Nokia is merely improving the device, rather than looking hard at the device itself.