Nokia N800 vs Asus EEE 8G

[Cyker]

What do you guys think?

I was originally gunning for an Eee 8G, but the price keeps creeping up and it looks like it'll retail here on average for just over £300; This is high enough that I could spend another 70-odd and get a much more powerful laptop with a bigger screen that's still a 7" form factor. (Albeit with probably worse battery life, but the Eee's battery life is a bit crap anyway at only 3.5hrs... (Unless that is 3.5 hours at full burn as opposed to idle!))

OTOH, the Nokia N800 has 2 SDHC slots over the Eee's one, the same resolution screen (Albeit physically smaller) and is cheaper too, and comes with Opera instead of FF (Opera pwns FF for small screen rendering. And everything else IMHO :D).
There's also the PalmOS emulator, which is nifty.

Most of the Eee's advantages for me are in terms of mobility and OS openness, while having a decent keyboard. The Nokia doesn't have a keyboard, but since it's Linux and has BT I'm sure I could hack in support for my BT Stowaway (Eee doesn't have BT, 'tho I've seen a HW mod hack for it.). This makes it a bit less useful, since then its just treading on the toes of my TH55. Battery life is supposedly okay - Similar to Palm PDAs: I've been quoted 3 hours at full burn and days on conservative use which is what I got with my TH55.

So the N800 feels like it fits in somewhere between my TH55/Zodiac, and the Eee...

So now I'm wavering... both will be on general release here about mid December, and while I'd love to get both I can't really afford it.

Oh to be a reviewer with access to both!

Primary intended uses will involve:
WiFi site survey
Web surfing
Mobile VNC and RDP terminal
Drafting documents
Media playback
Network info and authentication database
Fast-fetch PIM stuff
Short/Casual games

I currently do ALL of those things on my TH55, and am very happy, except for the WiFi site surveying, VNC (no RDP) terminal and web surfing.
The document drafting I do in Wordsmith with my Stowaway BT keyboard.

[choisum]

I considered the Asus and decided to wait for the Nokia n810 because of the form factor. The other half is hogging the laptop. It's really going to be used for Skype, IM, mail and Internet.

If it's good, I'll replace the TX which is used for mail and document reading. If you have some investment in Palm software the Palm compatibility software for the Nokia tablets may be useful.

You can Google around for Maemo to get an idea what Linux apps are available on the Nokia.

[sgosnell]

I have both the EEE and the N800, and find I use the EEE most of the time. The N800 fits in my pocket, and I carry it around for using pretty much like a Palm, but the EEE gets the most use by far. Skype for Linux now has video, and with the built-in camera and speakers on the EEE it's really quick and easy to do Skype. A bluetooth keyboard would help with the N800, but it's another piece to carry around, and the EEE is so portable it's not worth it to me to pay the extra money and carry the extra gear. Everyone's needs and preferences are different, though.

[Cyker]

I think I will resist the N800 then (N770 is too slow and N810 only has 1SD slot), and wait for the Eee 8G to go down in price...

The N800 can do most of the stuff the Eee can, but I already have my TH55 and the battery life of the N800 means it can't compete as a portable device.

But it's annoying - I was hoping the 8G would be £250, but it's >£300, while the N800 was £294 but can now be had for £150 from play.com!! :mad:
(If it drops to £100 'tho I think I'll get it regardless ;))

Also the N800 doesn't have iSilo, and almost all my *$&£%(# e-books are in iSilo format (And I lost the HTML/Text originals of a lot of them! Waa!).

I just *wish* the Eee did differently:
Make the screen FILL the laptop panel and have a vertical of at least 800 rather than 480 (Then it would be 10" in the same form factor, not like the real 10" Eee which is almost the same size as a normal laptop!)
Use CF cards, 1.8" or 2.5" SATA slots for the Flash drive instead of soldered chips (I hope they disabled swapfiles and logging in Xandros or they're gonna be dead within 3 years!)

[sgosnell]

Filling the screen vertically wouldn't get you to 800. It's only about an inch total, top and bottom included. That would also require removing the microphone and camera, because they're at the top of the screen. 480 is plenty for me, but having the screen a little wider would be nice. I can live with what I have, though.

Doesn't iSilo have the capability to take the Palm docs back to text?

The N800 has plenty of battery life, if you're willing to turn off wifi and bluetooth, and dim the screen a little. It's at least as good as my T3 and Lifedrive. What is keeping me from going to it as a PDA are the lack of decent PIMs and a password manager, mainly the latter. I need a manager that I can sync with my Eee or Windows box, preferably the Eee, because I intend to use that as my primary computer.