Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

I purchased my Nokia N800 two weeks ago, and I'm excited by its possibilities. As a die-hard Debian GNU/Linux user, I'm glad that the N800 uses a Debian-based OS (Internet Tablet OS 2008). It's made for a smoother overall experience. It's been instructive to work with a non-i386/x64 system and to learn more about how flash memory works. I found it remarkably easy to attach a USB keyboard, and I love how easy it's been to listen to streaming media.

A few caveats: it's been difficult to get the system to boot from an internal SD card (I installed an 8GB card so I'd have plenty of room for applications). Booting works fine for about a week, then I have to revert back to the internal flash memory to boot.

Mouse support doesn't work out of the box. I haven't gotten a USB mouse working, even though my USB keyboard worked the first time I plugged it in.

Handwriting recognition is less than stellar. I've had bad luck getting the device to distinguish between a dash, an underscore, and a backspace, and also between a slash, a quotation mark, and a carriage return. Let's not start with colons or semicolons. Having used a Palm III for several years, I've gotten used to Palm's Graffiti gestures. While it's not fabulous, Graffiti's use of 'modes' (lower case, upper case, 'dot punctuation', 'slash punctuation', and numbers) means that the system isn't required to distinguish an O from a zero or a carriage return from a slash. Underscores and dashes work, as do colons and semicolons. In short, I can code using my Palm's stylus, but it's a whole lot more difficult with the N800. Of course, I'd have a hard time listening to music on a Palm....

In short, I'm happy with the N800 for basic tasks, like surfing a web page or two, or checking my e-mail (could check my e-mail from bed while sick), but it's not yet a PDA. With better handwriting recognition and some better PIM software, the N800 could go from good to great.