My New Nokia N800 – comparison with the Asus EEE

Today I finally received my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. It is a cool PDA-like device that runs Linux — I can’t wait to get to hacking around on it! Here are some pictures I took during the “unboxing process”; click to enlarge as usual.

Originally I thought I would wait for the upcoming Asus EEE notebook. The main differences that I see between the EEE and N800 are the screen size and lack of keyboard.

It is sort of like comparing Apples to Oranges, because as stated above the N800 has the feature of being “pocketable” while the EEE is designed to be a “ultraportable notebook”. The keyboard is what discerns the two in this case, however unlike the EEE the N800 has Bluetooth and supports external keyboards.

The EEE and N800 both have 800×480 resolution screens, however the N800 screen is much smaller, sharper, and harder to read small text on. The EEE will have a larger per-pixel area, but it displeases me that it will still be limited by the PDA-perfect 800×480 resolution.

Originally I was trying to decide if I should purchase an Asus EEE 701 (when they arrive) or a Nokia N800 (at that moment) and I decided on the N800. Price was not really a deciding factor for me, since for $360+tax I could have purchased a used laptop instead of an EEE or N800; but I already have a 15.4″ MacBook Pro.

The Asus EEE 701 as it is appears to be a great ultraportable notebook, but what really mattered in this case was the size — and the Nokia N800 really hits the sweet spot there.

Update: Here are some helpful N800-related resources that I have found.

• Link to the official N800 website
• Link to a great N770/N800 forum
• ThoughtFix’s TabletBlog