They both have their positive and negative sides.

There are a lot of things you can (easily) do with the iPod touch, and some things are pretty hard to set up. The out of box experience is quite good if you ask me; ie. you can immediately use the browser, e-mail, music, and so on.

On the tablet you'd have to install something like Tear.

My preference for mobile browsers is, for now: S60browser (build-in RSS reader and quick, easily to do some simple browsing), MobileSafari (complete control over experience). The NIT browsers all require stylus or are buggy (Fennec).

Which brings me to another point. The way you use the devices is different. For example, one device is meant to be used only by fingers while the other device is used by hardware keyboard and stylus.

If I read the first post by topic starter I conclude that he/she likes stylus (does not prefer finger), likes to fiddle around with the hardware and software, and doesn't mind to modify a lot, so the out of box experience is less important while ability to modify the device is important. Software wise, after jailbreak a lot is possible on the iPod touch, but hardware wise far less compared to tablet. Still, they both have their issues: lack of BlueTooth (iPod touch), lack of hardware 2D/3D rendering (tablet), and so on, and so on. If you can get a good deal right now it might be good choice to buy either one of these. Or wait till new revisions of both hardware are coming out this summer and autumn. The old devices will be cheaper then.