I realize that the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet has been on the market for quite a while now, and that there are a TON of reviews, but hopefully I’ll cover something that no one else has yet. When I first got the Nokia N800, Ollywompus told me “prepare to be excited and frustrated, constantly.” And thus far, he has been right on the money.

There is so much that this miniscule little package can do it’s ridiculous, and would be crazy for me to attempt to do a full-on review. So this will be somewhat random, but cover things that I love and things that I hate. So click through for the full read. (There will probably be several more posts about the N800. I’m putting them under the “Phone Reviews” category cause I think that’s where they belong.)

We’ll start with the negatives, for a change.

1. The handwriting recognition is unusable. Simple and plain. I have yet to talk to a single user who can get it to work consistently. I even sat through and “trained” it for ~15 minutes today. The problem here is that it’s limited to this small section, similar to the writing tablets you might have used as a small kid in school just learning to write. It should be able to read my writing across the whole screen. It also lets you edit handwritten stuff. This is hard to describe, and my N73 won’t focus enough in the video to show you, so here’s a screenshot:

2. Connection defaults to your mobile phone. When you first boot up the N800, it asks if you want to setup a phone to tether with, for internet connection. Setting this up is incredibly simple, but once you’ve set one up, it will default to that connection every time you boot the device up, even if one of your saved WiFi connections is in range. I find this annoying as half the time I forget and end up wondering why my internet is slow. Luckily, I have an unlimited data plan, or else I could get some scary surprise bills, as well. There should be an option somewhere to first search for a saved WiFi connection, and THEN connect to the phone, as a backup.

3. The touch-thumbpad. This is a big one, and quite possibly deserves its own post. There is ZERO available typing assistance with the touch thumbpad. By assistance I mean some sort of predictive text that can detect that you hit the key surrounding the one you intended to hit. For instance, typing the word “leyter” instead of “letter.” Oftentimes, if you are really into what you’re doing, you’ll have an entire sentence typed out that looks like you were three sheets to the wind when you typed it. This is far from professional or acceptable, in my opinion. It should be able to see me type “leyter” and realize that’s not a real word, but that there is a “t” touching the “y” key, and that “letter” IS indeed a real word.

That’s enough negatives for now. Let’s hit some positives:

1. Ease of use - this is a point of contention, I think. Within 5 minutes of pulling it out of the box, I was able to pair my phone for tethering and internet usage, get some internet radio playing (it even had a station pre-loaded), and login to Gtalk. Easy as pie. The internet is a nice big button, with all the appropriate Google links (other than Reader, but that’s definitely another post) pre-loaded. My mom could pull this thing out and use it.

2. Internet Calls - I’ve done 3 (well, 2.5, eh Darla?) One was actually an attempt to do it over EDGE on my N73, while I was uploading a file on the N73. Needless to say the quality was lacking. The other was over WiFi and was enjoyable. Though personally I don’t see the need for Video Calls (more on that later, too), it was really neat and INCREDIBLY easy to do.

3. Rhapsody. That’s it. I’ve NEVER had even the slightest interest in any of the subscription-music services. I have over 4,800 MP3s on my PC, and would rather just stream those. However, Rhapsody is COOL. And only $15 a month. They have pre-made playlists that you can load up with 2 clicks and be jamming out to totally new music. I love it. Seriously. I’d make a video of it, but Jonathan Greene already did, so go watch his.

That’s really it for now. I realize that the negatives seem more in-depth than the positives, but that’s cause they’re nit-picky. The positives are all-around good things, which is why I just love this thing. It’s simply fun to use, there’s not much else to say.

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