(updated with more notes on the 770)

It's small, the screen is pretty good (amazing resolution, but not very good with color reproduction), and generally it feels like it could be very useful. Web browsing is much nicer than on any other device its size I've yet to see, I could read my home email with it (but not the work address, for some strange reason that has probably more to do with the firewall at work), etc. I haven't tried making VoIP calls yet, must activate a Google Talk account for that. However, at least with the default software, it's basically worthless as a PDA. I mean, no calendar? Sheesh.

I did find a couple of add-on applications for that purpose, Maemo Dates and GPE Calendar, the latter of which looks identical to the other apps and feels like it could be very useful. Still have to figure out how to integrate it to a desktop calendar or at least how to synchronise to something on the web.

It's by far the best small web browser I've ever used. For example, it beats the PSP's built-in browser on most respects hands-down, but in particular because the pen interface makes browsing very easy.

I still haven't had a chance to try the most visible new OS 2006 feature, Google Talk (VoIP) support, despite that being the final impetus for the purchase. That's because no one I know actually uses Google Talk.

The email program is rudimentary but workable - certainly better than phone email apps, but not by much. It supports image and PDF attachments, too. I haven't tried the word processing and spreadsheet apps I know are available, because I don't see myself needing them.

The handwriting recognition needs some practise. Years ago I got pretty used to Palm's original Graffiti, so I'm thinking of tuning it to recognise those letters, as they're faster to use than making constant corrections to my regular (horrible) handwriting. It's far from the level at which I'd like to take notes with it - perhaps if I find an app that dispenses with trying to make sense of my handwriting and just stores the notes as images for later deciphering, that would work better. A couple of times I've made the system get really confused by writing 3-4 letters too fast for it to keep up, with the result that it'd always recognise one letter behind what I'm writing. Strange. Could only fix that with a reboot, too.