You can NEVER have enough toys... never.

Ummm so, I have a new toy. I bought a Nokia N800 a couple weeks ago. It is, in my opinion, one of the Ultimate Geek Toys. It is officially what is known as an Internet Tablet. OK, ummm.. what does that mean. Well... it's basically a palmtop computer. It is almost a full replacement for lugging a laptop around when I travel. I say almost because I cannot run OpenOffice.org on it (although ABIWord works just fine), and I cannot connect it to a projector and give presentations from it. Otherwise... it is everything I need for a travel computer. I can read my email, browse the web, play games, work on spreadsheets, write documents, make Skype or other VoIP calls, do IM chatting and IRC chatting, connect a Bluetooth GPS unit and have live mapping with directions (or download the maps beforehand and use the mapping in offline mode), VNC to my home computer.... the list goes on and on.

To make it even more geeky, the OS, called Maemo, is a Debian derivative. It's 100% Linux. This means there is an ever growing library of Linux applications available, and if you are so inclined, you can adapt and recompile your favorite Linux application to be installed on the N800.

Nokia has done an amazing job putting a whole lot of functionality into a very small package. The screen is crisp and clear at a resolution of 800x 480 on a 10.5cm screen. Websites render very very well on this display. Internet connectivity is WiFi or Bluetooth (via a mobile phone) so it's main use is generally limited to being somewhere you have WiFi internet access. Offline, you can still use it as a full blown palmtop PC.

If you haven't seen one of these nifty little computers yet... well... find someone who has one and who will lend it to you for 10 minutes, and you'll probably find yourself ordering one too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N800