Scripting News: Nokia N800 update

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Nokia N800 update

Amazon is usually pretty good at getting stuff delivered quickly, but this time they've really dropped the ball.

Last Wednesday I purchased a Nokia N800 from them, six days ago, and spent $3.99 to have it delivered overnight. It shipped that night. But instead of expediting it, they sent it UPS Ground from Dallas, with an estimated delivery date of October 1. Ouch.

So I started emailing with people at Amazon, and they wouldn't give me a straight answer to a direct question as to when I could really expect the product to arrive. There were three back and forths before I gave up. (They refunded the $3.99, which wasn't what I wanted, didn't ask them to.)

Luckily, it didn't take very long for the unit to travel from Dallas to San Pablo, which is a 20 minute drive from Berkeley, where it arrived on Sunday morning. I assume because it's marked as a low priority package in some way, it spent the whole day yesterday in the warehouse. According to the UPS tracking site, it isn't "on the truck for delivery" today, so I assume it will spend another day in San Pablo.

Now of course this isn't a world-shaking issue like war or famine, or the way the US media is trashing the president of Iran, but I did promise to let y'all know what I think of the Nokia product, so this is what I think -- anticipation is wearing off, I'm getting busy doing other things, and the impulse purchase feeling is gone. The sweaty palms I had last week are pretty dry now. :-(

Postscript: Engadget has a few clues about the follow-up to the N800. So while my palms dry out and coool down, I'm beginning to feel like returning the device and then asking Nokia to put me on the press list. It's ridiculous to pay for what amounts to a review unit. Is Nokia listening??

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:38 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

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"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

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Aug Oct