Aparently Nokia beat me to it.

Remember my ramblings about how I feel personal portable computing should be done? Big screens, a dedicated phone and separate media device, tactile controls, durrablity, battery life, perminant connectivity?

Well Nokia seems to have most of that covered.

I was saying tha the I-pod touch was pretty cool, but had a few shortcommings. These include a lack of a slide out keyboard, lack of bluetooth, lack of third party programs, all those nifty things that would make it a truely versitle device.

Well meet its better cousin. The Nokia n810. Its got a slide keyboard, a full linux operating system, wifi, bluetooth (with dial up networking connectivity to get onlnie anywhere if your cell phone has a 3g data connection), video and music playback capabilities, and a sweet metal build quality.

Browse the internet, chat, enjoy media, whatever, it does what a full computer can do, except that it is truely portable, has instant on, and is cheap at around 400 bucks direct from Nokia. Oh, it has gps too, so you dont need another gps system in your life. It has a little sister called the n800, that you can get for around 200 bucks, but it is more plasticy, has no gps, and no slide out keyboard. Not a bad tradeoff.

Oh and it does video chat on skype... and with skype in and skype out, you can make cheap phonecalls to any normal landline. Give me one of these with wimax, and I would ditch a cell phone completely.

What shortcommings does it have? Well, it just has a few things that I wish it would do... better. With the advent of multitouch in consumer devices and its implementation in high profile gadgets such as the iphone and ipod touch, I think that Nokia has no excuse but to add it to its next verison, and implement more touch based features like intertial scrolling in its next OS version.

So why am I talking about this? Because I miss my pocket pc. In the US I had wikipedia access at all times, mobile computing power, and a feeling of saftey from being able to get answers to most questions at all times with the power of google. In Japan I have just a basic cell phone, and I feel naked. When the n810 comes down to 200 to the bucks or so of its little sister, then I might just pick one up. Heck I would buy one now, if I had the cash :).