Hello all, I'm sure you've seen me post here and there with questions. I thought I'd post on my experiences these past 3 months with the tablet. I've owned a 770 (on day one no less) so I am quite familiar with the platform.

I will cover the positives, negatives and thoughts on improvement in here. It's by no means an all inclusive review, just things that have impressed or disappointed me.

What I won't do is ask for features that aren't feasible or that require a hardware revision, I want this stuff to happen on current hardware.

The kick-stand. Best feature ever. I prop my N800 up for video playback on flights, and everyone comments on how cool my "little computer" is.

Finger input. This is one of the strongest additions to the 2007 platform. Having it open up larger menu's when I'm digging around the menus is great, and I hope they extend this feature to applications like the media player and file manager.

That said, those are the improvements I've seen between the 770 and N800. I have a lot of gripes.

Battery life. I understand this will be improved with the next firmware update. If I leave an intensive site up and lock the screen, the battery will be dead in the morning. I'm not sure if this is a bug or what, but you'd think the N800 can suspend the processes to prevent drainage. This might be a side-effect of the "always on" approach. They should give me an option, because I prefer to have a charged battery.

Flash usage. This is a fairly low power device, so when browsing a flash heavy website (such as IGN) it slows to a crawl. A recent feature to the Camino browser, and extension to Firefox is a flash "blocker". It doesn't remove them, but places a flash logo in the place of the animations. If you want to view them, you just give it a quick tap and it starts playing. Since we're forced to deal with Flash on most sites, I think this is a great compromise and in my mind, a necessary feature on the N800 (or Internet Tablet platform).

Video playback. I love mplayer and all, but the Media Player should be extensible. Allow developers to just create a nice mplayer plugin with all the formats, and allow them to make their own optimizations (unless this is already possible). That would allow programs such as Canola to tap into more formats, and we're not stuck waiting on Nokia to license stuff (like the problems we've run into on having updated flash / opera on the 770).

Browsing. Allow finger browsing like Apple's iPhone. Double tap to focus on a column or picture. Drag and scroll smoothly as an option would be great as well. Sure the screen isn't optimized for this, but I'm sure a decent alternative could be developed.

Bluetooth support. A2DP, and headset profiles... Please =) That would be the final touch to making Gizmo (and Skype at some point) perfect for VOIP.

And lastly, what's with the built in email client? It's really quite dysfunctional. I would prefer a clean list of messages with a preview pane. Why is it opening multiple windows on such a small device =( Its painfully unintuitive. Email version 2.0 please.

In its current state, I feel that it is a "gizmo". I don't needto grab it with me all the time because its full of tiny problems. With these issues addressed, I think the average user would be much more keen on picking one of these up. Sure, there is email alternatives, bluetooth hacks, screwing with the opera input.ini to change button mappings, etc... but it will be a geek only tool without some big changes. A non savvy user is typically lost on this thing whenever I just hand it to them without instruction. They are blown away when they see me use it, and they want one until they use it for more 10 minutes.

So yea =) Thats off my chest now. I hope that at least some of you share my qualms with this device, and I really hope that Nokia addresses them in one or two firmware updates.

A better email client is in the works.

for the 770 too?

April 1st is next month...

I agree that a device sold to the general public should be more stable. I feel like I am a pretty savy computer user and I am having some issues with my n800. This is my first Internet Tablet and I am not yet a Linux user.

The one thing that has been most frustrating is the RSS reader applet. After about three weeks of use, the RSS reader has stopped syncing the couple feeds I have.

I think the Internet Tablet is a great platform, but still needs a little stability. I look forward to learning more about these devices and hope to be a contributor beyond just a user/ complainer.

Thanks for letting me rant a little.

The RSS reader on the N800 has many qualities in common with the email client. I would even suggest Nokia don't bother shipping the RSS reader in future updates unless it is significantly improved (even rewritten). It's appalling.

The Internet Tablets ship with three major applications showcasing internet communication - email, RSS and browser. Only the browser is of acceptable quality - the other two applications are way below acceptable quality. Nokia should focus their attention on resolving the deficiencies that exist in the email and RSS applications.

The tablets have been shipping long enough for there to be no excuse why Nokia persist shipping devices with such shoddy applications masquerading as first class examples of what can be achieved on Internet Tablets.

My RSS reader routinely goes amnesic and looses all of its subscriptions, I've given up trying to rebuild it as they will all vanish in less than a week anyway.

I really hope the new OS build does something to remedy the strange power management behavior. A simple option/button to sleep and don't wake up for updating at night would probably improve life for most users greatly.

WOW, I just bought the N800 this weekend-waiting for shipping.
When I read posts like this current one or the:
"Nokia 800 hanging on boot" or "Nokia reboot screen of Death"
I get somewhat concernend that I made the right purchase.
Are all these problems comming from people "tinkering" with the N800?

I may add "Canola" and upgrade the OS 2007(if needed) as detailed here: http://www.nokiausa.com/support/phon...1,N800,00.html
I just hope everything goes ok, I'm pretty excited to get my hands on the N800 and show it off!

I wouldn't worry too much. The nature of user forums implies that you won't get many messages of the type: "Wow! My N800 just works; I never have any problems with it."

for the record...

My RSS feeds have been working fine for a couple of weeks now. Adding and removing them, adding folders, they seem to work fine for me.

I don't know what the deficiencies in it are? maybe there are features that RSS readers have that I don't know about.