Well, crap. I forgot about the lack of speakers on the Touch. Sigh. Maybe I'll just wait... some more...

But there is a simple speaker for sound effects, etc. in the Touch, right?

" constant headaches "

I have yet to have a temporary headache with my Nokia N800, let alone a constant one.

I think you may have read a little bit too deep into this forum. Just like if you were to visit the Apple discussions area and see how every mac is defective, or all of their programs have serious shortcomings and bugs. The reality of a forum is that it is visited by people looking for troubleshooting help (small part of the market) and advanced people (also small market %) pushing the limits of what the thing can do.

I have yet to have my N800 crash on me, have yet to reflash my OS and I have yet to use any kind of linux code.

A browser crash can happen when it doesn't understand whatever it doesn't understand, but that is the only thing I've experienced.

Installing an app, is easily done through the application manager on the device and through the secure click to install this app button on the web at maemo garage. Nothing technical whatsoever.

Bugs & features? Approach the development team. I've written a few people and what do you know. A few weeks later there is a new version.

The iTouch does what it does out of the box. It is a glorified iPod with browsing capability, but nothing more until Apple decides so. It could be soon, it could be ways down the road. Most people wait years for the Apple feature or product they want, if they get it.

As for the N800 shelf life. I think it will handle another major OS revision. Maybe two. The N810 has the same hardware. Most likely the newer models will run faster components but share the OS, and the older models will be compatible for a few years with that OS.

We don't know yet what Apple will do now with iPod firmware & software updates. The iPod Touch is a new animal. I hope Apple will slow down the "buy one iPod a year curve to be up to date" and will allow users to get firmware and software updates past the current 6m 1y thing ... which it has been (we have 3 iPods)

I think that little speaker is just for clicking sounds like other iPods have and the alarm clock.

Speaking of speakers. On the N800 they're pretty good for audio, video, IM and VOIP. I don't really use headphones with the N800 nor do I need speakers really.

(for my iPods I have two dock-able external speaker sets, power bricks etc)

PS: Macworld Expo is coming up. Doesn't hurt to wait till mid january. You never know SJ might announce some updates or tell us all the iPod Touch will be updated with xyz software capabilities.

Eric - I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. Linux newbie who doesn't particularly want to learn, computer savvy. I want a lot of the same functions you want - simple note taking, a little spreadsheet, PIM functions, etc....

I was looking for a replacement PDA and considered the Touch, but had a few problems with it - 1) I hated the keyboard, could not get the hang of it; 2) the browser mashed up my Google Calendar and did some other funky butt things; 3) the calendar feature was simply a reader - I couldn't ENTER events.

Now, I have heavily Web 2.0'ed myself. I use GMail, GCal, some Google Docs and a task manager program called Nozbe. The web experience using the N800 is excellent. I also wanted a backup in case I was not near a hotspot - and for that GPE Calendar works pretty good, especially combined with a program called Erminig - which syncs to GCal. Sync works well. And there is a companion program - GPESummary - which will display a summary of events on the main screen. There are a variety of other GPE programs - a To Do list, Contacts, a Timesheet, etc.

I use Maemopad+ which is a rather nice note program - either keyed in text notes or sketch notes. I recently upgraded to the new OS2008 - which other than the long download time because the server was slammed - was a breeze to "reflash" from my Windows XP machine. I've downloaded some new stuff I haven't been able to try out yet - Wordpy, which is supposed to be a blogging client for WordPress accounts. I don't have WordPress (Blogger following the Google theme), but I'm thinking it's more advanced editing features might work nicely without having to upload to WordPress. Dunno though, I need to try it.

I'm on here today seeing if there is a new port for Gnumeric - which is a really nice spreadsheet program. Used Gnumeric on the old OS, but haven't been able to get it working on OS2008. It looks like there is a new port, so I'm going to have to try that this evening. But again, I won't have to do a bit of Linux to get it working; I didn't for the old OS and it looks like the guy just put the installer package up in the last day or so.

Canola2 for a media player looks really slick. I don't have a lot of media on the device, but it looks like a similar sort of interface for photos, music, and movies as "coverflow" on the Touch.

There are a couple of good email programs - I use Claws but there is another one about to be released. I use gmail for my main account, but I have a couple of accounts that I want to monitor every once in awhile, and this works great.

So, I really like my N800 with OS2008. I'm not learning Linux for it, and it was a little frustrating right after the new OS came out and repositories were crammed and things not working quite right. But I installed prolly about 8-9 programs the other night in 30 minutes (including download times) - and the experience was on par with installing anything on my old Dell Axim PDA.

The difference is in culture surrounding the device. The N800 uses the Linux open source ethos to create its software base - so some things download and work really well - basically the basic stuff you really want. Some of it isn't as polished as a commercial product might be - but it's free and it does what it's supposed to do. And chances are, if you have a problem or gripe, you can contact the person who made it.

Also, couple of other points....

The N800 software thumb board - while it takes up the whole screen - is actually a joy to use - MUCH better than the Touch's software keyboard. I have fun using it; rather than the complete frustration I experienced with the Touch's board.

The OS2008 also added some features to make the whole interface more thumb friendly.

But there are a variety of additional inputs. Stylus keyboard works pretty well, but there is also a handwriting option that is said not to work very well. I don't use it much, but the couple of times I did it worked ok, about on par with my Axim's.

But I can also hook up a Bluetooth keyboard for heavy editing. As memory serves, the Touch does not have Bluetooth, and the iPhone's does not include the keyboard profile....

There is an FM radio widget which works pretty nicely. And there's an Internet radio program I'd like to try out.

I just opened the native notes program, and it looks like a little word processor - font type and size, bold, italic, underline, color, bullet. Assuming that saves as an RTF file. So that may become my main notes program....

Not a problem, I don't get any commission regardless of your choice.

As for "any/every" application the answer would be no. However, for popular/common/widespread applications the answer is yes.

Anyone who creates or ports an application for the NITs can make a simple one click installer and repository for it *if they want*. However for some of the more technical or beta applications being ported, they may not go through the trouble. (As it's safe to assume anyone using them can do a simple install from a package) I still think this is the exception not the rule though. Out of everything I have on my tablet, only subversion, rsync and some unix commands were installed directly from some package that I can remember.

It's important to remember that in forums you'll find a unique cross section of users also. Many are new and come to post questions and problems, as that's what the forums are good for. You certainly won't find yourself continually reflashing or with constant headaches though.

I agree. I only have 1 Linux desktop the others are all Windows Vista. Servers I manage are another story, all Linux. However, on a portable mobile device I think things are different. My mother certainly couldn't tell she was using a Linux handheld when trying my tablet this xmas. A desktop would be a different story.

Well, there is an alarm clock built into OS2008 so your covered there. There are calendar options also including Web ones like Google Calendar or applications like GPE Calendar, etc, but I don't use any of them so I'm not much help there.

As for playing music and video I think you'd be fine with either. The tradeoff is just a little less UI/sync polish on the NITs vs. less file options/smaller lower rez screen on the Apple gear.

I'm certainly not saying the Touch is a stupid piece of gear, it just didn't do enough for me to deserve its pricing or a place in my pocket. Browsing is much better on the Nokia IMO and that's something I use all the time. It also has a lot more communcation options (IM, VOIP, Skype, etc) I like the glossy simplicity of the Touch, but in the end that comes with the cost of less features and expandibility. For example I still don't think it's possible to delete a photo on the Touch itself. At least I couldn't see how to do it. It seems like everything goes through the iTunes software for managment. Except the wifi Apple iTunes store of course. Ok that was a dig.

A couple last random thoughts that came up as we had both units here. When I first unboxed the touch I was surprised at how thin/small it was. Nice for the pocket for sure. But when you look at it, it really isn't "that" much smaller then the N810 which packs in a slide out keyboard, GPS, speakers, stand, card slot, USB, larger higher rez screen ,etc. In some ways it left me more amazed at what Nokia was able to pack into the N810.

The other thought is the speakers. I never even gave them a thought when I bought my N800. Now I can see I couldn't go without them. We put some clips on the Touch of my daughter for my mother. They play well, but passing headphones for people to check it out is not the way to share clips with friends. Sure she can get some small aftermarket speakers, but those aren't going in her purse. I guess the iPhone wouldn't have this problem though.

I especially appreciate the builtin fm radio. Due to flight delay, I had to wait three hours at the boarding area this morning. Not willing to pay $$ for wireless internet access, I was able to listen to local fm stations and avoid boredom.