My New Toy, or N810 Unboxing

Now that The Heartless Siren is out of the hospital and recovering I have things to post about on this blog that I haven't already posted in my personal blog. Since I spent 2 of the last 5 weeks with The Heartless Siren in the hospital I didn't have much to say about anything, and the week before that was spent taking care of her at home, and the past 2 weeks have been spent being sick with Mono and taking care of her at home again.

During those 2 weeks I found a really good deal on a new toy that I decided I needed. The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet (4 different links there). I was able to get it shipped for $210.

Here are some of the highlights about why I wanted it:
- 800x480 resolution screen with automatic brightness adjust according to ambient light
- Full web browser with Javascript and Flash 9 support (based on Mozilla)
- Open Source architecture with lots of completely free applications available and active development community
- Built off of Debian Linux = rock solid stable performance
- Includes a Xterm with download of OpenSSH (Now I can login to my servers and fix problem from almost anywhere!)
- Wireless G Network, GPS, Mic, Camera, Expandable Memory, VOIP
- This one I don't use yet, but probably when I get a new phone and plan: Bluetooth phone tethering for internet access via phone from anywhere
- Small: the device is the size of an index card and about a centimeter thick


Now, like any good nerd I documented the unboxing:







After some theme customizing, let's find The Board:





I got the N810 on Thursday and so far have very few (and very minor) complaints:

1. The main thing is that some of the built-in functionality (chat, email) I've replaced with community applications which are better designed with better options, and (thus far) I haven't found a good way of either removing the built-in apps or remapping their quick-link buttons to the 3rd party apps.
2. The bundled GPS software (Wayfinder) wants you to buy a subscription with them in order to get on-the-fly Routing and turn-by-turn navigation: 1-month: ~$14, 12-month: ~$110, 36-month: ~$120. Now, if you get the 3-year then it's like $3.33 a month, not too bad for updates on maps and lots of types of points-of-interest, but still. No navigation out-of-the-box (you do get a 7-day trial)? Sadly the really nice free app Maemo-mapper does not currently support on-the-fly routing (you can download routes into it, but can't calculate new ones on-the-fly, w/o internet connection, the above mentioned Bluetooth phone link could make this a non-issue).
3. The included car cradle is not ready-to-go, you still need to buy a mount either for your dashboard, cupholder, or windshield.

Other than those 3 minor annoyance I absolutely love it. Now I just need to go drive around and play with the GPS sometime. The bundled Wayfinder's most serious flaw, in my opinion, is address entering: In order to look up the address say: 551 N 200 W, Provo, UT You have to enter the Street field as: N 200 W, then the House Number field as 551, and then the city as Provo, and state Utah. Why can't I just type "551 N 200 W, Provo, UT"?! Maemo-mapper allows me to enter addresses in this manner. And it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to get addresses in Utah to work properly because of that silliness. But that gripe is squarely directed at Wayfinder.