Having been around 27 RROD'd beyond repair 360's (including 2 of my own), I find the "cool" statement a little hard to digest.

How about the Alien Space ship noise that is the cd-rom? Did they manage to add some "cool" to that as well??

@The Great Powerful Oz Thats contrary to every story I've read around but its great that the device is shipping in the UK as well.

*Gulp!* @ the price though! (Thats what $900 us?)

Hope you find it worth it! :P.

@The Great Powerful Oz: So ure in Aus or the UK?

I know the UK (and some EU countries) have had it delayed to to the FM transmitter and legal reasons) so I'm guessing ure down-under?

How much did you pay for it?

@Thomas Ricker: You are absolutely in your right to say it how you see it. The reviewer represents the customer and as I said earlier, If someone spends his/her hard earned cash on a device and it turns out to be crippled, frustrating to use or does not live up to their expectations then they have every right to feel aggrieved and vent their frustrations. However the reviewer also has a responsibility to keep things into perspective. Given Nokia's history of firmware updates which address the bugs and issues is it not irresponsible to call the device a failure out-right for things that can and HAVE been fixed via firmware? You will notice that around the web people have updated their reviews in lieu of firmware 2.0 and some have increased their scores. I do not expect you to do the same but what is the point in linking to the initial review and specifically pointing out issues which may not exist?? (I still think the n97 deserves criticism for the severe lack of ram among other things that cannot be fixed via software).

s60v5 is not where it should be - in the eyes of power users, reviewers and most importantly Nokia! But look at the number of devices out there running the os. The 5800xm was not given the best of review's by Chris (you just need to overview the comments to see what the readers thought of it), yet its sold over 12M devices to the point that its cannibalized the release of nokia's other touchscreen devices.
If you read sites like gdgt or forums where actual buyers are discussing the devices, the vast majority are either happy with their purchase or do not have the same issue as you guys had.

Every device on earth has weak and negative points and an honest review should point them out. However highlighting the few (in case of 5800xm) negatives while not even discussing the positives/advantages over the competition or value to the consumer is not very objective now is it?

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" What I find fascinating is how forgiving some people are of the device because of its *potential*".

I do not think i used that word :).
I do suggest you go to talk.maemo.org and see for yourself as to why people might associate it with the N900.
The device is not even out the door and there are over 300 app's in the repository with many more being worked on. The developers, coders and compilers are most excited about the device not because it has a X-terminal on board, but because even with initial use they have been able to make rich and complicated applications that they were not able to achieve on other platforms.
The hardware on the device is as good as the other popular devices on the market and nokia has already said that users will be able to upgrade to Maemo 6 next year when the device is out.

No one who knows anything about the device expects it to be the the "one device to rule them all". You said it yourself that its not ready for prime-time (aka average joe consumer) and these sentiments are shared by most others reviewing it. Even Nokia has not promoted it to the masses and is still positioning it as a tablet which is step 4/5 in their plan for maemo!

I look forward to a honest review from Engadget as always. Just hope there is some objectivity and you guys do not take paragraphs detailing why the device fails because it has a resistive touchscreen!

PS: Why do the readers not have the ability to rank an author/editor's comments anymore?

@The Great Powerful Oz: Haha. Yeah, I've been wondering where "word"/"ieye""Paul a Chappel" et all has gone too. Maybe he hasnt been able to get around the redesign! or maybe he changed his name yet again.......hmmm....who's been trolling here!?

Btw, where exactly did u get your device from? Retail via nokia? or online preorder?
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@Malkmus:, As I replied to your earlier posts, the guy has interesting points but none of his experiences have been shared by the dozens of people around the web/globe who have been using and writing about the device for the past 2 months.

@skyblaze sorry to burst ur bubbly blaze but if you ordered it today you're not getting it this year. Period!.
I know people who ordered last week from Amz/Newegg & Dell once the $480 deal came back and all have gotten dates of 25Dec or later. People who've ordered in this week are getting Feb 09 dates so best of luck with that!

The flagships in NY/Chi town have them in stores but are only selling it to those who's names are high on the preorder lists (for a $200 premium of course!)

@Malkmus: Thanks for the link. It's an interesting read. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and venting their frustrations especially when they have spent their hard earned money on a product (ala n97 and the ram debacle!).

However most of his issues do not make sense, The built in ovi maps client is gen 1 whilst the actual product is v3.x. Everyone following the device has known this from day one and that nokia are working on porting it in the first firmware that will hopefully be released by December.

As for all the other issues, idk what the guys envoirnment was but check out the links to reviews on gdgt or use google and show me another review where they do not praise the mail esp exchange setup and ease of use!

Keyboard is a personal thing and impressions vary from person-person while battery life depends on your usage. People who have been using the n900 for more than a month have been reporting anywhere from .5-1.5 days of use on a single charge and the battery life has dramatically improved with every firmware upgrade. This again depends on the person and usage patters. Although sometimes my ipod touch g2 lasts a little over a day before charge but most of the time it barely lasts 3 hours before i need to find outlets. The iphones have only been worse for me and at least this thing has removable batteries!

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I've been visiting Engadget since the early days and when Ryan came on. Even before Thomas came on!, and have mostly found his sarcastic take on posts ammusing especially the quality of stories he's found over the years has been right up there with the best.

However I do not think all the flak he gets for his nokia is not 100% undeserved. Just look at his post history over the past year objectively and look at the facts or how others have taken them. Most of the time either his writings have facts conveniently missing or the post is written in a "smart-ass" way that given his history is seen as derogaratory. All you need to do is watch the vids in his n97 review.

That phone deserves a lot of abuse but none for the issues he picks on. He does not even try to answer the call and then starts throwing the device, in what i can only assume is "comic relief". Check the comments or Youtube which has dozens of reviews. How many people /reviewers other than him do you think have had the problems?

@christexaport: Agreed. Those who ordered as soon as as it was possible have already got their devices in hand. Check gdgt, nokiaexperts, various twitter posts etc!

Demand for the device is very high across the globe and as it always is initially supply low. A friend in the UAE told me that around 300 were released into the markets and are already going upwards of $1500usd!

Be patient and thankful thats US is one of the first markets and getting it at a obscenely cheap price!.

@Unbiased: Your points are valid if the bleeding edge represented the mass market. It does not.

Most American blogs do not bother to research that S60 is a UI layer on top of Symbian. NOT the OS.

Symbian knows this and have had a road map in place since Nokia turned into an open source foundation last year.
You'll see a complete UI/UX change in Symbian^3 in early 2011.

In terms of features, functions and value for money the vast majority of people still continue to choose Symbian and Nokia phones. Is it THE BEST? Absolutely not but then again nothing is perfect.
Symbian has lost market share over the last year but its still more than the next 3 OS's combined! + look at the #'s closely. Nokia has sold more devices every quarter than the last year. They have lost market share because the market has actually grown and component shortages which they predicted mid-2008.

Also note that every quarter the ONLY manufacturer thats consistently grown market share over the last year is RIM/Blackberry who have continually climbed at 17% whilst Apple/Iphone has been stagnant at 10% (Android has only recently seen gains and as more devices come out it will surely strip away).

What do the numbers tell you? Its not about the flash for the global majority, its about the functions and despite global recessions Nokia/Blackberry have continued to sell more smartphones (and dumbphones for nokia) than ever before.

@poematik14:........what a terrible terrible loss for them.