My second attempt to use what I have as an iPod replacement is my Nokia N800. On the surface it kind of looks like an iPod touch, so it should work, no? Well, yes and no. Compared to my N80 and the PSP the N800 requires the least amount of investment. It came with 4GB worth of SD memory, and I had 2GB from my now defunct HTC Blue Angel, so I have a total of 6GB to play with. It has been a bumpy road, but I am working with it.

So what are the tools of the trade? I use the built-in media player to play back my music and podcasts, I use gpodder to subscribe and download podcasts and the USB cable to connect the N800 to my PowerBook whenever I want to load more music on it. Just like most things, it's got its good, its bad and its ugly.

The good: I can play my MP3s, I can listen to my podcasts. The volume is acceptable - it compares equally to my 4.5 year old iPod but when I am on the train I sometimes have trouble hearing. I like that I can download podcasts directly to my N800, so if I run out of podcasts during the day, I can hop on to a hotspot and download a few more for my commute home.

The bad: gppodder lags a bit. There are times that the application is simply non-responsive and you need to just let it do its thing. This can be *very* frustrating. Another frustrating thing is that you can't do a partial keylock. You can either lock the touchscreen and all keys, or you can leave it unlocked. This is frustrating because there are times that I simply want to increase or decrease the volume and I have to remove the unit from my bad, unlock all keys, adjust the volume, re-lock, and put it back in my bag. The device is not very media friendly in this way.

The ugly: Well, there aren't many ugly things about it. The one thing that I would shoehorn in this category is the lack of adequate video support. I was looking forward to downloading video podcasts again and viewing them during my commute. Unfortunately the video lags A LOT, it's badly out of sync when it does start working and it's choppy. So much for video podcasts...

Now I know that it is an Internet Tablet, and not a media player, but the N800 is a great device! I really wish that Nokia had pumped up the video processing on this unit device and that they had created a media profile where the screen locks automatically after X time, the wifi/BT are turned off automatically and certain keys are mapped for media functions (next song/previous song/volume up/volume down)

All things considered, the N800 is a great media player IF you don't watch video podcasts AND you don't have the urge to keep skipping to the next track.