On Sun, 27 Jan 2008, Elmo P. Shagnasty posted:
> Thanks for clarifying that. The N800 and its ilk is for people who like
> to geek around for the sake of geeking around, as opposed to people who
> just want the information so they can go on with their lives.

That's a bit of an exaggeration.

The N800 is certainly rougher around the edges than an iToy; but that does
not equate to being "for people who like to geek around for the sake of
geeking around."

As far as "wanting the information" -- what about wanting to be able to
open and manage IMAP mailboxes with 50,000+ messages? The iToy's mail
tool won't do that. In fact, neither will the N800's mail tool supplied
by Nokia. However, you can do it on the N800 because you're not stuck
with Nokia's mail tool; and you can install Linux mail tools that are
capable of handling large mailboxes.

The N800 is a completely open Linux platform. You can fix what Nokia
breaks or fails to provide. The SDK is free, and most Linux software
builds on it with little or no modification.

Your only choice on the iToy is either tolerate what Apple inflicts, or
jailbreak it and then get screwed on every update. After my experience
with setting up a new, virgin iToy, I wouldn't think of jailbreaking an
iToy.

In terms of the other tools on both N800 and iToy:

The contact manager on both N800 and iToy is nothing to write home about.
iToy's contact manager is a little bit more functional (N800's is mostly
aimed at working with Google Talk and Jabber) but only allows loading
through iTunes and whatever iTunes will synchronize with. If your
contacts are on a PC running Outlook but your media is on a Mac, you have
to break synchronization with one to load from the other. N800 allows
import of CSV files without requiring synchronizaton. iToy's contact
manager doesn't handle name display well at all. Bottom line is that iToy
and N800 both have annoying defects in the contact manager.

N800 doesn't have a Nokia-supplied calendar, so iToy wins with that.

Neither one have a task manager.

The bottom line here is that neither iToy nor N800 are likely to dethrone
Blackberry. Both have significant limitations in their vendor supplied
tools. If iToy had an equivalent screen resolution to N800 and mylo, it
would be a much stronger player. It is doubtful that iToy would ever be
as open a platform as N800 even after the SDK is released (nor, for that
matter, is Sony likely to open up mylo).

mylo is more of a competitor for the N810; it's clearly aimed to be a
cheaper alternative to the N810 but has considerable limitations.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.