Well, I might be the last person posting on this thread. It's perhaps becoming useful for people getting N770s second hand because the places where they're sold new is drying up.

I got mine in an excellent deal along with the Navicore Personal 2007 navigation kit. Effectively the N770 cost peanuts if you deduct the cost of the GPS unit and navigation software.

So the question is: In October of 2007, is the N770 worth consideration?

God, yes. Definitely. If you can still buy one new, do so. They're so cheap as to be the biggest bargain this century.

I sit here in shock having played with the N770 for a day. I can't understand why the reviewers were so down on it, although I understand the firmware has been significantly improved since the early days in 2005. But, really, it's a terrific and usable device. Yes, it's experimental. But a lot of love has gone into making it work well. And it does. Mostly.

The Good:

The browser. It's a real browser, not a mobile browser. You see sites as the designers intended, or you can opt to let the browser rearrange the contents to make them fit better (which I find I do rarely).

Once you set the swap properly, and increased Opera's cache size, it's pretty stable. I've just used the full Gmail website -- the complete AJAX experience. Composing mail, reading... It works. Even Google Maps works... just about. It's insane. Yes, it's not lightning fast but, let's be honest, web browsing rarely is, even on high-powerd computers. The system is mostly responsive, in a similar way -- not lightning fast, but OK.

Also good is the software installation system which, like Ubuntu, is repository based so that dependencies are managed automatically. This is the only bit of Linux foreknowledge I've actually needed. Otherwise I have no clue that I'm running Linux, although I did download an Xterm, just to have the thrill of running shell scripts while sitting on the loo.

The battery may well have come through a time loop from the future because it lasts an unbelievably long time. I spent a few hours wifi browsing (screen at full brightness), and then spent an hour or so listening to Internet radio through the speaker, and then a while more browsing, and still the battery is alive. I'm locked into a battle of wills with it. When will it eventually die?

The Bad:

The stylus keyboard is annoying. I'd just prefer to type the complete word and ignore the autocompleted entries, but they eat into the spacebar area so I often end-up hitting one by accident. I can't find a way of turning this off and that's one other complaint: The OS is surprisingly un-customisable for a Linux distro.

And why aren't there any cursor keys in the text entry area? And why can I never actually get the finger keyboard to appear?

It looks like the Maemo community has forgotten the those using OS2006. All I can find is a website with a list of apps so long that it causes Opera to freeze. The new cute interface at Maemo.org throws up OS2007 software that I can't use, and I can't find a way of filtering the results, unless I'm searching for a specific software package.

But these are minor complaints.

What you have with the N770 is a very usable Internet computer. Mine is also a pretty good in-car GPS unit too. If you want stuff that "just works" then this 'ain't for you. If you don't mind putting in a little effort, and can withstand the odd unexpected event, then the N770 is for you. You'll love it.