Saturday, May 10th, 2008 - 5:53 PM

Nokia N800 and Verizon Wireless

I recently bought a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. It was $220 from TigerDirect through Amazon. It runs a Debian-based Linux, and works remarkably well as both a web browser and pocket-sized mp3 player. I have paired it with my Verizon phone (LG Model VX8900) using Bluetooth, which is handy for browsing the web when I don’t have access to WiFi.

When I searched the web for information about using the N800 to browse the web through my Verizon phone, I found people spreading a rumor that Verizon would discontinue service or charge incredibly high rates if you did that. I contacted Verizon and explained exactly what I wanted to do, and they assured me that it was not a violation of my contract. Of course, my contract includes a $5/month per-minute data plan, and if I were to exceed my minutes, I’m sure Verizon would charge for overage. If I transferred massive amounts of data, they might also have an issue… but for simple on-demand web access anywhere (within Verizon’s coverage areas), I finally have a solution.