When comparing the Nokia N800 against the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, you have to understand what each of these devices are.
The iPhone is an media player that is a (rather ordinary) locked quad-band GSM phone and Internet access device too. The iPod Touch is an iPhone with the phone and some applications removed.
The Nokia N800 is an Internet access device that is a media player too.
What this all means is product focus. If your first and foremost concern is to have media player, you're probably better off with an iPod. If your first and foremost concern is Internet access, then the Nokia N800 is a much better choice. I don't mention phone here, because the Nokia N800 isn't a phone (although it does has Skype).
One important benefit for Internet access is screen resolution. The Nokia N800 has twice the screen resolution of iPhone and iPod Touch, meaning that you can access a web page without the necessity on iPhone of zooming in to read the text, then zooming out to see the overall layout of the web page.
The Nokia N800 is open-source, and has a complete development SDK. Since it is Linux-based, it is very easy to port existing Linux applications. For example, the effort to port Alpine (the successor to UW's popular Pine email program) was trivial; and now on my little N800 I have no trouble in opening IMAP mailboxes with 55,000+ messages in a matter of a few seconds! [Try doing that on iPhone or iPod Touch!]
The included media player is rather limited; but fortunately it is easy to install the standard Linux mplayer program which is quite a bit more powerful.
Other favorite applications include Maemo Mapper, FBReader, Python, etc. Once again, since it is Linux-based and there is a free SDK, you can port almost anything from the Linux community to the Nokia N800.
The Nokia N800 user community is quite active and quite helpful to new users. Even better, they are quite honest about the Nokia N800's limitations; you don't have the wide-eyed fanboys that infest the Apple user community. The user community does a great job in filling in where Nokia doesn't. For example, the Nokia N800 only supports European languages; but the user community has developed support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Another great feature about the Nokia N800 is the two SD card slots. It supports SDHC cards, so you can use 4GB and 8GB cards. You can also connect the Nokia N800 as a USB disk to your computer, and download files that way.
The Nokia N800 has Bluetooth, and will happily talk to any Bluetooth enabled cell phone, keyboard, GPS, etc. So, if you are not in Wi-Fi range, you can still access the Internet via your Bluetooth cell phone (just as on iPhone); but it's even better than iPhone since is can use a 3G cell phone on any network (including Verizon's EV-DO network) instead of the S-L-O-W AT&T EDGE network.
With all this said, the Nokia N800 isn't for everybody. It's not a particularly impressive media player. iPhone is superior as a fashion accessory, or if you want an all-in-one device that does phone, media player, and Internet access (and don't care that it's only mediocre in all of these). iPhone is a better media player; but if you really want a media player you ought to get a 160GB iPod for less money and 20 times the storage capacity.
The Nokia N800's strength is as a great Internet access mobile device and pocketable Linux platform. If that's what you are looking for it is currently the best in breed.
Also consider the Nokia N810. The Nokia N810 adds some features (chiklet keyboard, built-in GPS) but sacrifices others. Although higher-priced and newer, it is a companion model to the Nokia N800 rather than a successor or replacement. Both models are still in production; and Nokia offers the N810's operating system for the N800.
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Web to Go!
I just got this device over the weekend and have some things to say about it:Pros-Fast, instant on connection to the web, e-mail, internet radio, news feeds-Beautiful, crisp widescreen display-It's based on the open source Linux platform, which means many people are rapidly developing many different types of programs for it while at the same time hiding all the scary command line stuff behind a nice elegant user interface-Webcam-You DON'T have to sign up for any phone company for the device to work..either go out into the city and use street hotspots or use your already existing internet connection at home (if you have a wireless router)-Excellent alternative to a second/third computer at home without having to buy something like MSNtv/Webtv (which charges subscription fees even if you already have internet service) for quick web browsing-Store/play/view your pdf files, videos, mp3s and imagesCons-Doesn't come pre-installed with AIM/Yahoo/MSN IM client, though it is separately installable and it comes with Jabber/Google Talk software by default-Consequently, those two IM services are the only ones you can use the webcam with (as far as I know right now)-The video quality is good (an .avi file plays beautifully), but stay away from Youtube or flash video sites, because they're choppy-No java support (at least not out of the box as far as I know)-Screen can scratch easily from wear and tear of frequent use (only noticeable when the device is powered off), so invest in a screen protector and try to be gentle with the stylus-Included protective pouch is not as good as the protective cover the previous model the Nokia 770 had.Overall, aside from the cosmetic qualms I'm having, I love the device since it provides a lazy access point to the Web when I otherwise don't feel like booting up my computer to say, look up something on Wikipedia.I tell people it's like a video ipod except it can surf the web and check your e-mail.Which it is. Except not the same.
