Hi,

I own an n800. Although I don't like apple at all (they never had a product that cought my attention and I can't stand their marketing campaigns), I feel that with the iPod Touch thay finally came out with a good product. So I did buy the touch even if I don't listen to music. So I can give you my thoughts:

Interface: The Touch's interface is amazing for what it is. Very good for browsing music, not good at all for any serious work.

Browser: The safari implementation is wicked and it does work well with the small screen and multitouch, but it's no match for the n800.

Applications: Here I face one of the problems that make me hate apple.
- You can't run 3rd party apps (unless you jailbreak it as I did, but then you'll loose everything if you upgrade and you don't know when apple will stop jailbreaking).
- Everything must be done through iTunes and that sucks. If it freezes (as it does) you have to restore the touch and loose everything. Apple controls what you do because it always goes thru their program (unless you ssh).
- Apps are very simple compared to the n800.

Portability: The main plus. It's really small and easy to carry if all you need is a music/video player and a browser. The fact that it doesn't support 802.1x limits it a lot as you cannot use it in university networks in Europe (eduroam) and several companies.

Linux/Apple: Linux=almost everithing free. Apple=everything has a huge cost, including upgrades (mail/weather, etc), tv-out (not backwards compatible, must by apple cables), etc. Plus, everything apple is expensive.

Having said this, I don't think the iPod touch and the n800 are competitors. The n800 (and n810) is a working machine in which you can play, while de iPod touch is a toy and nothing more, although it is a great toy.

As always, if you want beautiful toys with lots of eye candy, go with apple. If you want to get the work done, go with something else.

I quite like having both.