Don’t get me wrong – I love my N810, and I use it on a daily basis. However, I think that the platform itself is in serious need of some attention, and from where I’m sitting, it’s not getting any. The internet browser, in my opinion, is a joke, and nowhere near what I would expect to get from an ‘Internet Tablet.’ It’s slow to load pages, clunky in scrolling through them, and a pain to use with your fingers – despite the generously sized display. Coming from OS2007 to OS2008, and onto Diablo, I’ve not seen much improvement in this arena.

When compared to my S60 phones from Nokia, such as the E71 or N82, there just isn’t much that sets the N810 apart, other than size. The browsers are roughly equal, and the S60 platform simply has more support, both from Nokia and through 3rd party developers.  There really isn’t much that I can’t do with my phone that my Tablet is up to, and with the resources that the N810 has, that shouldn’t be the case.

In addition, I have other projects which are consuming more and more time, and I simply am not passionate about the Maemo platform in its current state. I will certainly be keeping a pulse on it (I still own one, afterall), but simply can’t really see enough to maintain an active blog about.

Thanks so much to our few readers, and hopefully I can revisit the Maemo scene in 6 months or a year and there will be alot more compelling things to do with these fantastic little machines.

The new version also allows you to double-click to open a thread, in addition to the touch-drag that was previously introduced. Flite support is also still there, so you can have the application read your updates out to you, and this version seems to be more stable, as well.

You can download Mauku below, and head on over to JaikuInvites.com if you need to get signed up for Jaiku.

1. Now I need 2 active SIM cards - with a built-in SIM card slot, I’m going to want a 2nd active SIM, likely with unlimited data. I can pick one up from AT&T on prepaid for $20 a month, which is cheap, but it’s yet another monthly bill that I really don’t need.

2. It reverts the Internet Tablets to the cellphone-esque carrier barrier. If Nokia puts a SIM card slot in the N810, they lock me out of using EV-DO for high-speed data. It also opens the door for the Internet Tablets to be sold with a carrier subsidy, which historically means carrier branding, which is always a bad thing.

The current method of 3G data on the Internet Tablets – via Bluetooth – works tremendously well, can be used over HSDPA or EV-DO, and only requires one unlimited data plan (that of your mobile phone). It’s pretty simple thanks to the setup wizard on the Internet Tablets, as well.

Now, I realize that Nokia adding a SIM card slot wouldn’t involve the removal of the ability to tether over Bluetooth (or rather, wouldn’t require the removal), but it would surely require quite a bit of R&D resources to design a SIM slot for the Tablet, fit it into the casing, and work with the OS to support that feature. Personally, I’d *MUCH* rather see those resources be utilized for other features that need to be added to the Nokia Internet Tablets.

Stay tuned for a followup on the features that I believe those resources should be allocated towards.

If you’re one who, like me, thinks finger-friendly is the way to go, then I want to let you knoow something you can implement right nows that will make your entire tablet experience much more finger friendly. It’s a theme called EchoWB. This theme is visually identical to the Echo system theme save for one important detail – all the scrollbars throughout the whole tablet are wide enough to be finger friendly.

Such a small change, and yet I think you’ll find that it makes the entire user experience just a little bit better, being able to navigate better without trying to use your fingernail or pop the stylus out all the time.

You can download the EchoWB theme using the button below.

So, basically, Arrington (and 137 commenters, at the time of this post) are very obviously INTERESTED in the Nokia Internet Tablets. What’s the problem? They don’t know it yet. Nokia hasn’t successfully marketed the Tablets as the solution to this problem. Fascinating.

Dear Nokia: Offer Arrington and his commenters the N810 for $200. It’s worth the marketing.

While the real practicality of this is obviously limited, I think it’s fascinating that we now have Android, Debian, Windows, and other operating systems running on the Nokia Internet Tablets. There’s even talk of Nokia sponsoring a project to get Ubuntu Mobile running on the Tablets, as well. What do you think? Do you think it’s a completely useless activity, or do you think it has deeper rewards that we may start to see later on down the road?

*Note* I’ve not installed Windows 3.1 on my Tablet, and I don’t plan to. Please do not leave comments asking for help here. The Internet Tablet Talk thread link is in the post (and here) so that you can immediately join in the conversation and community already working on this. Enjoy.

This price drop could signal the pending arrival of the new WiMax version, the price of which is still unknown officially. Personally, I think Nokia should launch it at the same price as the existing N810, or with a maximum $50 premium. Of course, with online retailers like Amazon taking control of their own pricing (Nokia still lists the N810 at over $400), who knows what the WiMax Edition will be priced at.

A few months ago, I got in on the closed beta, but the install process was about 15 steps, consisting of 6-7 packages that you had to install in a specific order, so one firmware update and the install was hosed. However, imagine my surprise today when I refreshed my Application Installer to see AbiWord there on the top of the list!

That’s right, AbiWord, which is a word processor application, is now available in an open beta through the Extras-Dev repository. The Extras-Dev repository is somewhat of a testing ground for applications that are not yet suitable for the official ‘Extras’ repository. You’re welcome to try them out, but beware that they stand a chance of messing your tablet up a bit.

Here’s the ITT thread covering AbiWord, and it’s a great place to get some help, though you should obviously register any bugs on the official bug reports area. It installed fine on my N810 running Diablo, which is great.

Click To Play

To note, you’ll need about 1.3GB of free memory on either the internal memory or a removable memory card.  After the installation, you’ll still have 1GB free, but you need to have it all free for the installation process. You’ll also need to have the MyTube application installed, so that you can get Python2.5 and Python 2.5-gtk2 installed on your tablet. You can use this link

You’ll then need to follow the directions at http://tinyurl.com/debiantablet to install. I’ve also put together this video walkthrough showing the full installation process, as well as a peek at OpenOffice and Gran Paradiso (Firefox) running on the N810 under Debian.

This is dead simple for a user to do, as it does not require any command line usage to get things up and running, and it allows you to simply run Debian as an application, rather than needing to reboot your Tablet to switch between it and OS2008.

However, proceed with caution, and be sure to backup any important data/files you may have stored on your Tablet before proceeding.

Since we’ve already gotten a handful of other OS to boot up on the Nokia Internet Tablets, a few folks decided that it would be cool to have Android, as well, and so, well, they did. There’s a detailed set of instructions available here, for the brave (or those who have a spare Internet Tablet laying around).

Jonathan Greene of MaemoApps.com just performed the installation this evening, posting updates on this Jaiku thread. It seems to work fine, though he’s unable to type some characters, requiring a bluetooth keyboard for certain character inputs.

I’ll be giving this a go on either the N800 or N810 soon, and will report back as quickly as possible.