The option to be "always on" is critical if the tablet is used for VOIP.

Presence is a nice concept but should not be imposed.

Sometimes, one does want VOIP or IM to work like a plain old phone - where it rings and rings regardless of the user's presence. Every decent IM software is able to be configured in this manner.

But I understand that the "always available" mode is sometimes useful.

My N800 is always on. Using wifi at home and at work or when its around.

I BT tether when I'm on the road using 3g/3.5g on my phone (flatfree umts/hsdpa). Sucks my batteries dry, but enough chargers around.

Same here - plus my current O2 data plan is charged by the MB and it cost me £60 just checking email using my N800 in October (must switch to 3 or T-Mobile when the N95 8GB is available!) I dread to think what the cost would be if I left the phone permanently connected, so I voted "other".

I voted Always on.
However, depending on what networks are actually available I will sometimes be in the 'Aways available' category instead, in other words: I prefer to be in control _sometimes_. On other networks I instead just stay 'Always on'.

As for the battery drain, I've been looking at this a bit. I experience big differences depending on how I'm connected. At work I'm online the whole day (8-10 hours), with almost no visible drain to the battery at all: At the end of the day I'm still at 9days/6 hours. But at home I have a somewhat flaky connection which sometimes is very slow (the wi-fi router -> internet connection even has some packet loss now and then which slows it down even more), and here the N800 battery drain is dramatically higher.

I've previously mentioned that I have another router which always drain the N800 quickly, this seems to be the router itself which forces the N800 to never go into wi-fi power savings mode.

So, to stay always-on with low battery drain:
1) A high-speed, low-latency internet connection is best (presumably because it lets the Internet Tablet use wi-fi in quick short bursts, which lets it go into power saving mode more quickly).
2) Beware of any other issues (e.g. router problem) that could prevent the Internet Tablet from going into wi-fi power saving mode.
3) Online via BT doesn't seem to drain the N800 much, but unfortunately my phone definitely feels the strain after a couple of hours. So, get a good phone..

My preference would definitely be Always On, although for reasons already stated this isn't currently an option due to data rates and phone battery life.

I imagine it would be relatively easy for Nokia to add location aware profiles as discussed in the excellent podcast. There has been a Symbian app called CellTrack available for my Nokia 9500 Communicator for some time now which does exactly that using just GSM data: http://my-symbian.com/s80/software/a...Auto=479&faq=2

Actually since my first comment I have sat back and actually noticed how I use my ITT. And the always on vs available answer changes depending on the use. So here are some of my more common uses;

Second Monitor - huh? Well I find my N800 sat plugged in next to my main PC monitor running skype, gtalk, mauku and a couple of yahoo piped location rss feeds. Essentially the N800 acts as a comms tool, right there and always on.

Podcasts/Music - around the house, in bed (sorry for the mental picture there peeps) and when out walking the wifi & bt are off, kagu in screen off mode and so effectively in always available mode.

In the Car - Always on. The BT is working overtime with a gps and maps (thank you gnuite maemo mapper rocks and I can't wait for v2 this weekend), kagu is pumping out whatever and once I can sort out my 3g modem (bleedin Jasjam) i'd expect a couple of other yahoo piped traffic feeds to be coming in.

So for me where I have access to power the N800 is always on, I love the instant updates. But for me often the freedom and longevity of not being tied to a power source rules.

So I guess what I need is something like an iGo emergency battery pack stashed just in case.


In the car

Forewarning - straying a bit off-topic.

What if you didn't have to choose. Imagine a location aware device (n810) that could be setup to automatically determined when your device is 'always on' or 'always available'. Say you show up to a location, work/home/preconfiged-hotspot (anywhere with a known wifi connection), and bam your automatically switched to 'always on'. But at the same time being configurable to the point where it auto switches back to available-mode when entering the conference room, class room or the can. That'd be pretty cool.

I don't know much about the battery drain of GPS enabled devices (I've only got a BT gps myself, and its battery life is pretty decent, powering just itself that is). I'm assuming that sort of app would be a battery killer. Just a random thought.


As for myself I'm not in contact with the world at large, no IM or VOIP. So I throw my vote at always-available. Plus I'm at a bloody university 12hrs a day with a funky wifi that robs the life from my battery (15min inactivity timeout, constant reassociations while on the go, more laptops than you can shake a stick at all fighting for first dibs on one of three channels, its not pretty).

So yea, with current options I'd say always available.

I chose "Other" as my usage is a combination of both, as ak.n770 suggested. The city I live in does not have a Wi-fi cloud, and while the university campus has it, I tend to cycle from location to location and so I cannot use the tablet on the move.

So: indoors: always-on, outdoors, on-demand. I refuse to subscribe to a cellular data plan until we get a decent plan here comparable to those in European countries: $10-$15 per month, 3G speeds, no limitation on tethering to other devices.

I've yet to see a gps that works inside an office building, mine barely works inside my house. My wifi is always on though. I can connect at work, any of the 32 schools I support computers in, any of the UAF campuses, they have a pretty descent coverage, and at home and anywhere on my property. I have found, however, that if wifi and bluetooth are on at the same time, I only get about two to three hours of runtime.