Toteable Tablet: Tempting Pricetag

For the past few months, I’ve been evaluating a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. I hope to publish an indepth writeup soon; for now I’ll summarize by saying that it’s got some compelling capabilities (notably, a gorgeous screen) along with a few baffling shortcomings and omissions. For the moment, however, I thought I’d give you the heads-up that its predecessor, the first-generation Nokia 770, is currently on sale for $139.99 (with free budget shipping) at Buy.com.

The 770 was $10 cheaper earlier this week at Woot (yeah, I couldn’t resist, I bought one….coming soon to Prying Eyes?), but only for one day….regardless, either price is compelling when stacked up against the unit’s initial $360-$400 price tag. The 770 and 800 aren’t just attractive to tech early adopters; they’re open-source Linux-based, and an enthusiastic developer community (among other things, skillfully working around the 770’s somewhat anemic allocation of both memory and CPU muscle) has sprung up around them….which is why I thought y’all would be particularly interested. Your fellow readers and I welcome your hands-on impressions of the 770 and N800.

Followup: Now $130.19 after a 7%-off coupon.