Asus Eee PC vs. Nokia N810

Boy, was I wrong. Just last week I was gushing over the ASUS Eee PC and now this week I’ve seen the error in my ways. Forget that $400 UMPC, there’s a new and better kid on the block. Meet Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. For just a scant forty bucks more, you get a whole lot more. Check it out:

• 4.3-inch WVGA LCD (with the same resolution as the Eee PC)
• 128Mb DDR RAM
• 256Mb Flash RAM
• 2Gb storage; up to 8Gb SDHC removable storage
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• USB
• VGA web cam
• QWERTY Keyboard
• Maemo Linux-based application development platform; featuring Web, media, communications, mapping, e-mail, imaging, games, and more apps

But wait, there’s more. Here’s the reason that the N810 moved to the head of the class. Its pocket-sized form factor may have you wishing you could run all of your Palm OS apps on the N810. Thank a company called Access for giving you a wonderful Thanksgiving Day present: The Garnet OS virtual machine (VM) enables Nokia N770, N800, and N810 platforms to run lots and lots of Garnet OS (aka Palm OS apps). Running a virtual machine of an entirely different operating system may seem like a tough job for a low-power hand-held tablet , but the svelte Garnet OS VM takes only 3.5Mb of RAM and 1-32Mb of user configurable storage space.

—Dave Prochnow

(Image: NokiaUSA)