I bought a n810 used on ebay, and seems to have a lot of stuff from this site, which I found googling. I don't have much free time, and already spent a few hours trying to figure out my new-to-me, but technically very old school` device to everyone else.

It came with nothing, just the core system, and charger. No stylus,
and no usb. Not a problem as I can pick up the usb cable at the
swap meet for a buck or under. When stumbling upon this site,
I noticed the n810 already had a lot of things installed on it,
that i've seen available for download. Such as nes emu's,
but no roms on the internal. Custom start up screen, and
some homebrew apps. So this device must be flashed
already ?

The nokia ovi store doesn't even show the device on the list, so am unsure how to download games or apps from there. I went to some other sites and downloaded .jar files, but they won't install, and found out that n810 doesn't support jar without some type of
homebrew app? I would like to play newer type games, like need for speed, bomberman, Eternal Legacy HD, and games if available in HD, or landscape mode.

Also Im guessing that if a video file is like 720x480 resolution, it wont play on my device? I'll need to re-encode it to 240x something? Any new up to date converters that work well
besides ones from 2008?

Is my n810 just too ancient to do awesome things??lol

My problem is really I don't know how to install stuff, and
what kind of stuff it supports. I want to run flash games
too. I dunno it all seems so hard and time consuming.

Hi Welcome!

For converters read: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=88964

The last 2 pages have better info on the encoding settings.

Read/Search around threads in the N810 sub-forum and you should be able to get what you want. Addison is a member who is one of the few members still active in the N810 forums so you could contact him too in case of doubts.

Thank You.

Yes.

No.

Oh dear Lord, no.

This is more a of hacking device.

It's still really cool if you don't mind keeping things old school.

Shucks...well, I got it for $40 shipped, which was a deal considering it was in 9/10 cosmetic condition, minus the extras that I dont need though. Glad I did not pay more since it cant do jack S!#.

Maybe I shouldve spent a bit more and got a broken iphone but wifi still works on ebay, or a ipod touch.I Wanted something cheap with a qwerty keyboard though.

I bought it so that I could check prices of things and what they are worth while at the swap meet. It'll serve its purpose, but wish I
could use it to watch movies or play games while i'm waiting
for the bus or am on the bus. Public transportation sucks and waiting takes forever.

Maybe I should just buy a cheap PSP too, but i dont want to carry so many breakable things on me. Makes my pockets heavy too.
I was thinking of buying a psp, because they have wifi also,
but none of them have qwerty keyboards. I need to be
able to type fast and i dislike touch on screen keyboards.
Now that I know how limited games are and etc, I will never
buy the n900.

Thanks for replies, if anymore info avail. pls lmk ty.

So let me get this straight... you bought a 5 year old device for $40 and are disappointed it is not more powerful than a PSP? Wow.

Seriously, the N810 is a very nice device. Rather than scorn it as garbage for what it can't do, dig a little and find out what it can.

Thedead already gave you a pointer to converters so you can watch videos (I used to do this all the time with my N800, which is the same device, sans keyboard) and found it plays videos very nicely.

As for installing software, this is a true Linux device (unlike Android, which is a Java engine running on a Linux kernel)... just use the built-in application manager - there's a ton of software (including many games) just a few clicks away.

If you have any inclination for learning Linux, this is a fantastic device. If not, you probably should have done some research before making an impulse buy of something you don't want.

As far as it being "flashed"... I think you're thinking this is something it is not. This is not a locked down cellphone or game console. No flashing is required to install whatever you want. As Addison already said, this is a hacker's device... it was never locked down in the 1st place.

For what it's worth, my wife loved her 770 (predecessor
to the N8x0) and used it daily until I bought her an iPad. The iPad cost 5x as much as the 770 did, just to keep things in perspective.

Also, the N900 *is* a phone, but it too is unlocked in every way. It is dramatically more powerful than the N8x0 devices and even has 3D hardware, but it won't emulate hardware newer than itself either.

One thing you should be aware of, your timing could not be worse. Nokia just abandoned everything not related to windows phone, including all Maemo devices. The repositories are in a state of flux as they transition into the hands of the newly formed nonprofit, Hildon Foundation. If you can't install software via the application manager, that's probably why. Give the guys a chance to work out the problems with the new servers and you'll find more software available than you probably care to read about.
For the mean time, browse and search through garage.maemo.org, that's the main development site.

If you think you can buy a PSP or iPhone for $40 shipped, good luck. I've never even seen a broken one go that cheap.

What do you mean? N8x0 does have 3D hardware, i.e. a GPU. It's running a OMAP 2420 chip, ARM11 at 400MHz and a PowerVR MBX. The difference in power between the N8x0 and N900 can easily be seen by comparing the iPhone 3G and 3GS. 3GS still keeps up.

True, but you should mention that only the shakiest of experimental software exists to exercise the PowerVR parts of the N810, and
all efforts with that software appear to have coasted to a halt in 2010.

Andy

As a proud owner of the n900, I'm offended, just kidding, but seriously I have no clue about the n810 but the n900 is great, you can emulate everything from a commodore 64 to a playstation, just fine. I'm also pretty sure that there's a nfs game in the repos, as well as angry birds, and some cool little games like sdlcave, and papertoss, those are great for waiting in lines.

woo some ppl getting a little touchy =p

I didn't have high expectations, but I didn't have super low expectations either. So because of it's limited capabilities,
I'm not interested in trying to make it into an all-in-one
portable entertainment machine anymore.

Ive owned similar devices that have a web browser in the past; Iphone 3g, and psp, but again neither had a physical qwerty
keyboard. I did buy my psp 3000 (that I later sold) in near mint,
fully functional for $50 about 2 years ago. My local craigslist
have 2 going for $30 with games right now. I think older models are just phasing out cause of the go and vita.

I use to work at a video game store, and a long time ago
I use to be a collector of games, and those old school
one's no longer interest me at all anymore. I adapt to
gaming with the current times. It's like once you had
steak, you don't want to go back to eating burgers.

I downloaded the poker game off this site. Its nothing
dynamic or anything, but I guess it can keep me busy.

When the palm treo650's first came out, I grabbed one
and used to convert videos to watch on it all the time.
It's just time consuming and a pain in the ***, to
convert and transfer repeatedly. Although I don't have
a usb cable yet, I did convert a video file of a 45min tv
show within 20min using handbrake while using the
fastest settings avail. Time consuming is what it is,
but then I don't think there are many handheld
devices that will just take and play any file that
is put on it.

The one other thing that I really want on it though is
to be able to make voip calls free or subscription.
I currently have magicjack as my only phone line.
I read some posts about it, but to be honest they
write in a very intelligent manner, most of which
I don't understand. From what I took in, Skype
use to be available for it, but now it is not, and
google voice was also available, and not its not?

So It is already going to serve its purpose, and
tomorrow at the swap meet its gonna go for its
first run, and I'm guessing I will be stopping and
going trying to stay still to keep a steady
connection, but we will see.

I think the OP would be better off buying something like this instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?client=...&v=8AyVh1_vWYQ