I have the 770 and this is just the same sucky thing just a bit faster...

Why can't they make these things as thin and cool looking as Sony's new book reader (With color screen) Now that would be a gadget worth buying...

I bet it took everything in you to restrain yourself from writing the word iPhone in this one.

jk

So let me get this straight - $400 is a "great price" for an internet tablet? Another $100 will get you a iPhone that is a phone/4gb video ipod/internet tablet (and more), which btw is actually a tad overpriced on it's own. This Nokia should definitely be $250-300.

Blah blah iphone blah... ugh. Man this is the 1st post I have made in over 3 weeks since the iphone has come out. All I ever see on ever post is something about the iphne. Even the jokes and alternate posts are about the damn iphone.

Hell I may buy one in 6 months... who knows. But talk is cheap. Stop comparing everything to something else.

It great for the lady with a decent size purse or the commuter with a backpack. It's not too bulky and you aren't stuck with a damn commitment with a service provider with that price. We are all forgetting that part. People obviously purchased the 770 or they wouldn't have made the 800 and made it nicer. Or are the marketing gods wrong again?

Let's try... for just a single day. To have posts that don't refer to an apple product. Can we? Doubt it.

Just saying, this thing is overpriced. If the headline didn't read "Great For The Price" I wouldn't have said anything. I'm definitely not buying an iPhone, I was just comparing how people were screaming about how overpriced it was (which it is) yet this is a great deal? I don't get it.

"...so you're stuck carrying it in a bag. If you have a bag, why not get a laptop?"

You're kidding right? Because a laptop is much heavier and won't fit in a small bag or winter coat pocket, which is why I drag my pda around with me much more than my laptop.

or u could just get a smartphone with a touchscreen and wifi for cheapper. (even if u do have to sell your soul...)

Hmm ... It's closer to a PDA than a phone, but with the high-resolution 800x480 touchscreen, WiFi, bluetooth, dual SD card slots, and performance point it blows away any PDA on the market. It just doesn't do a good PDA job in managing your phone book. (p.s. that's what your cell phone is for.)

$400 for a super-high-end PDA-like device? Sure!

While I haven't played with the 800, I have played with the 770. The difference between that and a laptop in terms of weight and portability is huge-but there's a pretty respectable browser and relatively large screen, so you can use it more intensively than a phone-based browser.

If I travelled more, I'd own one of these. Perfect for webmail, checking train schedules, that sort of thing. There's nothing else filling the niche of "full-scale web terminal in ultracompact package"

I've been looking around at reviews, i can't seem to get a straight answer on what video formats it supports/plays back smoothly.

Can it support divx/xvid videos? are they considered 'standard mpeg-4'? nothing fancy, just the standard .avi's I get via 'illegally' converting a dvd that I legally own? I don't want to re-convert all my stuff. And if it supports them, does it play them smoothly? If it does, i'm buying one.

Portable internet tablet/email/rss + widescreen video player = -$400 on my credit card.

i am trying to figure out how useful this thing would be to take notes on? ...I am a college student and I'd love to be able to take notes with this thing without having the size or (lack of) battery life of a full blown tablet pc.

Anyone who owns one of these have any comments?

sam_i_am:
3gp, avi, h.263, mpeg-1, mpeg-4 and RealVideo. Want more detail? I have it.

Thanks, thoughtfix.

So MPEG-4 means it will play xvid and divx yeah? I love the idea of a device that i can watch video's on a plane with (i do heaps of flying), and then flick to wi-fi mode when i hit the airport and grab all my email. and 2 sd card slots? thats genius.

I just bought one of these, actually, and so far I love it. It's running a Debian port and there is a fairly substantial developer base for the devices. I'm in school majoring in computational linguistics, something that depends heavily on linux based software. I can install a fair bit of it onto the device right off the bat, and with a bit of time, compile even more of them. Even if that proves too complicated, I put X terminal on there, paired it with a bluetooth keyboard, and was off and running when I SSH'd into my research server.

The support Nokia gives to the developers is pretty amazing, some of the hacks and apps written for earlier editions of the 770 are now included in the newer version of the OS.

Something I'm really impressed with is that Nokia is selling 500 units of this at 99 Euro to selected developers.

Someone wisely pointed out that the only reason people are asking why this doesn't have a phone radio is that Nokia makes it. If Panasonic was the manufacturer, no one would be complaining about the lack of a phone radio.

Overall, I'd say this is a brilliant device, if you know what you want from it. If you want a closed source music playing cell phone, go for the iphone. If you want an extremely flexible open source based device with a beautiful screen and a home-grown base of developers supported by the manufacturer, get this.

Also, the nokia BPL-5 battery is extremely common, I'm seeing them on ebay for ~$10 shipped. With a few spares, setting you back $30, say, you can have ~12 hours of continuous use.

To be fair, I am a recent convert. As little as a month ago, I saw little use for such a device, but now I do. It's the perfect middle ground between a smart phone with a tiny screen, and a laptop with relativly long boot times, etc. I describe it to people as a cross between a UMPC and a PDA.

Er - make that the BP-5L.
\\How could I confuse the two?

Will it run:
Firefox
Winamp
VLC Player
ITunes
Games Emulators(Lite ones)

Does It have:
3.5 Headphone Jack
Video Output...of some kind
USB ports (so I could use a wireless mouse and keyboard even a remote)

If so...It beats a PSP,IFone,PS3,Wii,and 360 all at once to me!

The biggest problem of the device if the lack of charging via USB connection.

It's a big problem to require bulky AC chargers to be carried. And proprietary batteries doesn't help either.

If the device supported charging via USB connection I could charge it just with the USB cable that I always carry around and, sometimes, my AC to USB converter. It's what I use to charge ALL my other portable devices when I'm on the go, and I shouldn't need anything else... so much for "portable"...

Besides that BIG problem, it's a great device!

I needed a text editor that would reliably work with standard text files (something that is painful to do on the Palm) and a portable keyboard in a very small form factor. It works. Everything else it does is a bonus. There are things that could be better. Number one on my list would be support for standard headphone and microphone jacks so that I can plug in my noise suppression gear. Number two would be an ability to charge the device via USB. Overall, however, I'm very happy. This is a great Linux portable.

Will it run:
Firefox -- yes, a mini version of it
Winamp -- no this is linux, not windows. there are a million other media players that do the same thing so don't worry you'll be covered
VLC Player -- what is this?
ITunes -- no but you won't need it...
Games Emulators(Lite ones) - yes, ported games to linux as well as small NES type games

Does It have:
3.5 Headphone Jack -- it has regular 8th inch stereo headphone
Video Output...of some kind -- no, but you could install vnc server / viewer to get output onto a regular computer screen
USB ports (so I could use a wireless mouse and keyboard even a remote) -- yes, but requires some "hacking" to get it to work (normally it only works in client mode, not host mode, you need host mode to get it to host flash drives or hard drives. no word on wether this has been done on the 800, but it has been done on the 770)

I have the 770. I use mine every day, every other hour or so. Checks my email constantly, i surf the web, i ssh to servers and do web maintanance, etc etc. I watch video on it when i'm bored, I have lost of music on it, and i listen to web radio all the time (in the shower, on my headphones, plug it in my stereo etc etc).

I would die to get my hands on an 800, but i'm a poor college kid and already have the 770. I could rattle off the great things about these devices, but you can read them elsewhere. I will tell you this: the ease and comfort of using this device is much greater than any phone (iphone or not). the linux distro, while lite, is great because there is an application manager on it which you can use to download tons of other software. For instance, the 770, you can download audio recorders, tuners for instruments, star maps, google map api app, tons of games, ebook reader, ssh client and server, vnc server and client, etc etc etc. There's so much to do with these, I find myself leaving my laptop off unless I have something specific to do. You'd be surprised at how much you can do with less than a 1ghz proccessor. I was skeptical at first, but found that it worked great.

I can't wait to get this new one. woot!!

Im looking forward to buy this.. i cant wait to get it.. shit this looks so cool....