Nokia's N800 is an awesome geek toy. With the right software, though, it could become the next generation of PDA, combining a fully Internet-enabled, handheld communicator with an OS that makes it easy for developers to port over existing desktop applications. The N800 is more or less an upgrade to Nokia's 770, a Linux-based "Internet tablet" that was essentially a proof-of-concept product to get Linux geeks excited about programming for handheld devices.

The N800 features a fast 320 MHz TI CPU, two SD slots, 128 MB RAM, 256 MB flash storage, 4.1" 800x480 touch screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphones jack and mini-USB port. On the top of the device you will find the zoom buttons, the full screen on/off button and the microphone while on the front of the device there is a 5-way joy pad and 3 additional buttons: close application/window, application's menu and task-switch. On the left side there is a retractable VGA video-call camera. Below the device you will find a very practical kickstand, which is very nice if you are using your N800 to watch movies.

The N800 features Opera 8 with Flash 7 for browsing the Internet, a Jabber-based instant messaging client with support for VoIP and video chat, an improved e-mail client; an RSS feed reader, a media player, and an Internet radio player. The N800 includes a robust file manager application, an application installer, PDF reader, sketching application, image viewer, notepad-type application, and a calculator. Since the N800 runs Linux, there are also several ports of open-source applications. Using the browser and included Media Player application, you can stream audio and video from the Web, including a decent array of Web radio formats. The Media Player also plays audio and video and displays digital images stored in internal flash memory or on an SD card. You can load files on an SD card and stick it in the N800, or load files from a PC over the included USB cable. The N800 will also supposedly play files stored on a UPnP (Universal Plug ‘n’ Play) media server on the same network. It supports a range of audio formats: AAC, AMR, MP2, MP3, RA (Real Audio), WAV, WMA. Web radio playlist formats: M3U, PLS (also MP3 stations such as ShoutCast). Video formats: 3GP, AVI, H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, RV (Real Video). Image: BMP, GIF, ICO, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, SVG-tiny.

Display 800x480 touch screen, 16-bit color , CPU 330MHz TI OMAP 2420 CPU , Memory 128MB SDRAM, 256MB Flash , Operating system Internet Tablet OS 2007 Edition , Connectivity 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 , USB, memory card expansion (SD, MicroSD, MiniSD, MMC, and RS-MMC), audio out, AC power adapter, Size 5.67" x 2.95" x 0.51" , Battery 3.5 hours of browsing time, 12 days of standby time , Supported file formats ,Audio: AAC, AMR, MP2, MP3, RA, WAV, WMA, M3U and PLS for Internet radio playlists, Video: 3GP, AVI, H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, RV, Images: BMP, GIF, ICO, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, SVG-Tiny

For a Linux hacker, the N800 sure is a dreamy device. It's a small, affordable, flexible, stylish, fun mini-Linux PC that works well with a Bluetooth keyboard. But for everyone else, it's a bit of a puzzler, merely a next-generation PDA waiting for the software to make it sing. It’s a nicely designed, very sleek and handsome device. But the Internet experience, largely because of screen size, is not quite good enough. Or, perhaps more to the point, it’s not sufficiently better than what you’d get with a PDA phone to warrant buying a device like this and a phone. The Nokia N800 is a fun toy that could possibly be the future of mobile telephony.