Well I have given it a good month with my nokia 770. I think I have gotten over the honeymoon phase, and have some real impressions.

First a little background. I am a computer "guy" and have toyed around with Linux (enough to be dangerous) but I am a huge fan of good interaction / user interface design, and I have gone through an exhaustive comparison between the IT, the Archos, and the Iphone. I will still get an Iphone (after I buy Xmas presents for everyone else), but while I had a good deal available for the IT, I decided to take it.

I currently use a Sidekick as a phone, so I am, again, a big fan of KISS. I like "power" but I like the option of not always having to think to use my devices. I have used a number of different cell phones and operating systems, so I am used to relearning something new.

My unit was a used model (like new condition) with IT 2007HE installed as well as the microB browser, and a few other programs. I was really impressed with the "fingerability" of the device. I don't like styli, so i was happy the OS was accomodating. I could IMMEDIATELY see why this was not a huge splash for consumers, the device was a bit sluggish, and the steps I had to go through to find/add software repositories would turn off most people immediately. The Internet Tablet School is/was a brillant idea and I have NO idea how noobs got around before it.

The device speed is comparable to a windows mobile phone, or a S60 phone. Some processes take 1-3 seconds to load/act making the user think they did not press they key right. I often ended up with having to reopen menus or had two items open at a time because of this. This is less of an issue if you turn unit sounds on (you can hear the click of a successful selection), but I hate system sounds, so it took me a while to get used to this.

The browser was slow as well. So slow in fact that I began a comparison to the proxied speed of my sidekick 2 on GPRS. The browser challenge stalled a couple of times as the microB browser had issues with:

* pages that auto refreshed (ESPN's scoreboard system for example)
* flash based clickable banner navigation (The expandable banners on top of Autoblog)
* Ebay in general. (No idea why, but links would just randomly stop working).

I knew there were other issues with the tablet as I could not browse the file system from any program other than file manager (for example, if I went to change the background to an image that I had on the memory card, the program would crash).

At this point of frustration, I opted to change the OS back to the "original" IT 2006. The nokia OS manager was an easy tool, and 15 minutes later, I had a new tablet.

Tablet Review: Round 2

SO MUCH BETTER!!!!

Seriously, the browser, operating system, all the loaded programs are much better than the IT2007 HE firmware. I know I know, the HE was never meant to be end user material, but I didn't think there was going to be this much difference between the two.

The OS change coincided with a restyling of Maemo.org that improved usability and software downloads exponentially. All in all, this combination would be nice to show off to end users. I am assuming IT2007 on the N800 is the same, as is IT2008 on the n810 (both are on the "to buy" list).

I have to make a side note. I hate using styli (mentioned before), but the 770's is really useable and I find myself not minding as much. The overall experience has been good on with IT2006, and I have found enough software to meet my immediate needs of pdf/e-book reader, web browser, and entertaiment unit. For the prices they are going for now, used, (~$100 USD) I consider it a real bargain.

It's a bit like windows mobile OS. Out of the box, it's ok, but to make it worthwhile, you have to play around with it. I think the line would do well to have something along the lines of what apple has done. Maybe fork the product line. An internet tablet that requires little to no thought to run it and do exactly what it's designed to do REALLY well, and then a HE edition line that allows a number of people to play with it will.

I am very happy with my purchase, I can't say I would have been had I taken the plunge earlier, my background really helped get over a lot of frustration.