They're both great. I have an N800. My girlfriend had an N800 but we sold it and got her a Touch. (Since seeing Tear, she's said she would have kept the N800; I didn't know that the slow browsing was her issue. In fact, she said she'd have kept it once she saw a tweaked MicroB, which sped it up quite a bit.)

I'm surprised to hear you can get the Touch for as little as the N800.

If you have much music/videos, you're better off with the N800 because of the expandable memory.

The "feel" of using the Touch is better, i.e., smoother and more intuitive, and just plain fun.

But I prefer the N800. I like the bigger format and the higher pixel density. I love it for reading in FBReader. For me the Touch is a bit too small for reading and I miss the larger format on the web. But even with Tear, I think it's somehow easier to get around on the Touch Safari. OTOH, it seems that you can't get Safari to display a larger font and still fit to the screen width -- something that matters more as one's eyesight deteriorates.

If portability matters, the Touch sure is a lot smaller. As for battery, I'd say it's not a big advantage of the Tablet since either can be augmented with an external power pack.

I concur about the quality of the speakers -- my N800's speakers are much better than my Thinkpad's.

I think the Touch doesn't do attachments, at least not something like a Word doc, so if that's important you want the N800.

I'm happy dicking around to improve the N800 experience, even though I don't use Linux on the desktop. If you really prefer not putting in the energy, the Touch may be a better choice.

I like my N800 more than any other electronic device I've ever had. I don't know why but I just love the thing.

I don't see how you go wrong with either.