First up, if you haven’t bookmarked them then what are you waiting for, Mobile Burn:

You navigate around the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N800’s user interface with a stylus or the tip of a finger, though the stylus packaged with the N800 is a huge back step from the comfortable one found with the 770. For some reason, the designers have given the N800 a triangular cross section stylus with rather sharp edges. No matter how you hold it, one of your fingers will get sore after a short period of use. Thankfully, the N800’s UI is far friendlier toward the fingertip.

To make a video call, you must first send an invitation through email or a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Talk instant message to the other party. This invitation contains a link for the other party to download a dedicated application to either a PC or another N800. After this, you will be able to see each other’s presence information and initiate video calls whenever you are both online. It is a shame that video calling works over this proprietary system, instead of an existing messaging system.

Wireless performance on the N800 is slightly worst than my laptop and desktop computers, but better than the Nokia 770.

I still cannot see an Internet Tablet gaining mass-market adoption at this point in time, as I don’t know whether the functionality it provides justifies the cost, but I do love having the N800 around, and have become quite attached to it. If you have the money to spare, the Nokia N800 is great.

Phone Arena is next in line:

Unlike its ‘predecessor’, the N800 does not have a solid metal sheet for its corpus and screen in the form of a removable lid. It us protected only by a soft case that would not prevent damage at dropping but is nevertheless very stylish and a good safeguard against scratching in one’s pockets or handbag.

The image quality has drastically increased in comparison with 770 and the former offers a high-quality picture whereas the previous model’s high resolution was more suitable for text reading. The display of the N800 has more saturated colors and clearer image, while the colors of the 770 are "colder" and an unpleasent thing are some red dot, similar to noise, appearing all over the display.

The advertisements had stated providing the N800 with it, but this has not become a reality in the several months since the official market promotion of the device. [It's been less than 2 months since it was released at CES!]

Poor microphone performance (oversensitivity)
A more powerful battery would be desirable

8/10

XYZ Computing did a nice 4 page write up. They didn’t complain too much:

The issue of input is one of the most important one’s concerning the N800’s, or any small devices, adoption by consumers. Without a keyboard, something that looks very appealing on a device like this, the two options are handwriting recognition and the on-screen keyboard. While both work well, I have notoriously sloppy handwriting and had better luck with the keyboard. The handwriting recognition can be trained to learn how you write, but I was quick enough with the keyboard that I never felt compelled to invest much time in this. The N800 can also work with a Bluetooth keyboard, an option that could be extremely useful for productivity seekers, but it’s still an extra piece of equipment to carry.

Most of the problems I encountered with the N800 are those that should be solved over time. My main annoyance was the device not being able to do the things it said it could, like set up a video conference or communicate with some of my (admittedly non-Nokia) Bluetooth products. Some of the setup and customizations options are not as intuitive as they could be, but some tinkering with the menus and options almost always solved the problems. As a fallback plan I always found a number of online resources that had encountered the problem before and had advice to offer. The things that normally bother me with portable devices, like text input, LCD quality, and battery life, were not issues. The only other thing that got to me was poor internet video playback and an occasional internet rendering problem, but they both come with the territory with a device this small.

But I saved the best for last: I recently got an email from Christian Lettenbichler. The same person who let me trial the N93i gave him a N800 to test out. He just posted his review on Mobile Review’s forum:

When I got my trial-N800 and opened the box, I was surprised how slim it is – all the reviews I’ve read previously and the pictures I’ve seen somehow made me think it was thicker.

Overall, the built quality is really good, the only little downside is that the battery cover moves around a tiny bit (0.5mm I’d say), but apart from that there is no creaking or parts moving around, even if you deliberately squeeze it.

The stylus itself has a rounded, triangular shape with a side length of about 8mm and is about 9 cm long and quite convenient – personally, I would have liked to see a slightly longer version though, as I have rather big hands. [Welcome to the huge hands club!]

The downside of the display is that it only supports 65k colors – which you can see best on pictures with almost unicolored motives like blue skies (you can see a few discrete blue color steps instead of a perfect gradient).

WLAN worked without any problems for me. The reception is very good imho – as good as my HP Pavillion dv6000 laptop and much better than my sisters no-name laptop. It even manages to find more networks in my surrounding than my HP, so, not bad at all.

In the current firmware version, SDHC isn’t supported yet, but there are unofficial kernel hacks for that already (be careful with them!), which enables you to use 2 8GB SDHC cards.

[At this point I'm just going to stop cutting and pasting and tell you to read his entire review. It's very detailed. Loads of screen shots.]

Things I personally would like to see in the next version of the Internet Tablet:

• Higher resolution screen
• Built in GPS
• Better quality camera
• 16 Million Color screen
• Full support for Google Reader, Calander, Gmail and Google Docs
• Canola and GAIM should be installed by default
• Bring back the metal shield and the hard edged design of the 770
• Youtube, Google Video, Meta Cafe support
• Hardware keyboard. It’s not a pocketable device so you might as well make it look like the PSION 5 MX
• PC Sync support
• Portrait mode so I can hold it sideways
• Switch to Firefox. Not because it is popular, but because they have extension support

The XML file is up: http://nds.nokia.com/uaprof/N5700r100.xml

It seems that it will have similar specifications to the 6290: S60v3FP1, QVGA display, 2 Megapixel camera.

I’m curious to see what it looks it.

Item of note: This is exactly the same profile for the 6290. In fact the profile still says 6290!

On November 19, 2006 I began Ring Nokia (NYSE: NOK).

Today, 1235 blog posts, 1593 comments and 103 days later, I got to go in.

The culmination of every ounce of passion I’ve poured in to this blog has manifested itself in a 3 hour visit that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

Expect a full write up in a few days time. Until then, enjoy:

Time to set myself a new goal: Visit Nokia Head Quarters in Finland!