I just recently picked up a Nokia N800, and like everyone else who's gotten one of these amazing little devices, I feel compelled to blog about it. So here we go...

Why the N800

I've always been a proponent of smartphones, and maybe deep down I knew this day would come, but the fact is that our connectivity options have evolved to a point where smartphones just are not practical anymore. Case in point, look at the following 2 examples of S60 design:

Nokia 6600/20 -- Probably one of the biggest selling S60 devices back during their time. Absolutely gorgeous screens, the 6620 had oodles of RAM, and both of them had keypads that were amazingly unsuited for doing anything other than dialing numbers.

Nokia E50 -- A gorgeous QVGA screen and a decent keypad. Unfortunately the keypad was so big that they had to squish that gorgeous screen into what was left of the case. As a result, you needed to carry around an electron microscope to see the screen.

The point I'm trying to make is that with a smartphone you have a very limited amount of space to put your keypad and screen, and it's a difficult balance to get just right.

That is, until Apple came along. Any smartphone user who denies drooling at the first shots of the iPhone is a liar. Getting rid of the keypad and making the entire device a big screen was a stroke of genius, and obviously (in hindsight) the next step in phone evolution. And then Apple went and released the details of their 'SDK', and someone from the crowd shouted, 'Move along, nothing to see here,' and we all went back to poking at our tiny keypads or looking at our microscopes to see who was calling us.

Note to Apple fanboys. Before you email me blaming the locked iPhone on AT&T, make sure you take the following two factoids into consideration. AT&T sells other smartphones that aren't application locked in the slightest and the iPod touch is very, very locked.

Enter the N800

I can't say I was unaware of the fact that the N800 was out there. I'd seen pictures of the N770, but just didn't see a point. I was happy with my smartphone world, at least until my smartphone started getting long in the tooth, and I realized that there were no replacements.

When I say there were no replacements, I'm not being literal of course. Nokia continues to churn out lots of S60 smartphones which they dump into the marketplace and then drop all support for 6 months later. They've also started wasting money on things like the Nokia Music Store (internal Nokia codename: Operation Wasted Resources). I just couldn't see anything compelling. And the N800 was starting to look mighty good as a smartdevice. So armed with a 30 day return period, I decided to try one out.

And before you even have to ask, there's no way in hell it's going back.

What the N800 does well

First of all, the N800 is portable, but not pocketable. There's a difference. It's a great device to throw into a bag and go, but it's not something that you can clip to your belt. That said, the slightly larger than a smartphone form factor gives the device amazing utility.

Like Apple, Nokia dropped the keypad/board from the N800. The resulting space has been used to house a absolutely gorgeous 800x480 display. There really isn't any way to convey how gorgeous pictures look on this thing without shoving one into someone's hands and letting them see.

Web browsing is phenomenal. Worried that the screen is too small? Don't be. You can zoom in and out all you like. This is easily better than the safari browser on the iPhone/Touch and makes the uber browser on the new S60 devices look like the waste of resources it was. Once you browse on a N800, you will *not* go back to smartphone browsing if you can avoid it. And, oh yeah, it does Flash 9. Real Flash. Right in the browser.

Chatting is fantastic. The thumbboard is infinitely superior to T9 input. Anyone who is fast on T9 will likely be faster still with the thumbboard. You need Pidgin for real AIM/Yahoo chatting, and Gizmo for video chatting, but the fact that you can install 3rd party applications is pretty damn cool (Hiya apple).

Setting it up is easy. I was on my home network within 2 minutes. No joke. It just works.

Installing applications is dead easy. Installing applications is sometimes as simple as surfing to an application's website, and... you can figure it out. Hint: Click the install link.

Multimedia rocks. Yeah, I was one of those... people.. who would put video clips and TV shows on my smartphone to watch on the road. Needless to say, bigger screen == better viewing experience. Streaming audio and video is also something to behold on the device.

The battery... it's just really good. 5 hours of medium surfing + chatting is easily doable.

The UI is pretty damn slick. It can sense the difference between a finger and a stylus and will resize (some) widgets accordingly. More importantly, Nokia learned their lessons with S60 task switching, and made task switching on the N800 easy and intuitive, rather than a pain in the ass.

What the N800 isn't

It's not a laptop, and it's definitely not meant to replace a PC. There's no good solution to view Word documents (although PDF and Excel are covered).

And even though the N800 is a Nokia, it's not a phone. You can use Skype or Gizmo to make device to landline calls, but there's no cellular radio. You're dependant on WiFi or a good 3G connection to do so.

The smartphone is dead, Jim.

Having used a N800, it's an easy conclusion to come to. The smartphone as we know it is going away. Not today, but certainly soon. Apple and Nokia have come up with similar, yet different ideas as to where the market is heading. Apple has released the ultimate feature phone, while Nokia has released the ultimate feature phone companion.

Pair the N800 with a cheap (50 with contract) 3G smartphone, and you've got yourself something that blows the iPhone away. Want to make a VOIP call, the N800 has you covered. Want to make a voice call, use the phone that's tucked away in your bag. Want to surf the web, use the N800, and wonder how and why you ever surfed on a smartphone.

Anyone wanna buy my old smartphones?