I think it works great as a multimedia device... but I guess my opinion differs from others here. I have put several of my dvd's onto my device so I can watch movies anywhere I go.. plus I have around 50 songs on that I can play... and since it has flash you can even build online playlists at things like playlist.com and listen to those through the browser.

I also like the speakers on this thing.. it can get pretty loud..

But then.. I'm a tinkerer... almost nothing I use is "out of the box".. I don't think the NIT will work great for someone not wanting to spend any time getting what they to work exactly the way they want it.. It most certainly doesn't come pre-installed with what you want.

Well, if Nokia designs a new tablet with all the features asked for in the N900 thread it'll be... fascinating. I'm planning on doing workouts in preparation because it would be very, very heavy..

well, thanks for your feedback guys. it sounds like the things i want his gizmo for just arent quite developed enough yet. at least not perfected. browsing obviously works great, which is good because i am an internet junkie. obviously. maybe i'll just have to wait for the next generation of PIM's (or PDA's as we call them in my neck of the woods.) But we shall see. i am a giant nerd who likes to have teh toy that no one else has, so it might just happen yet.

thing is simply that pim/pda is mostly integrated in phones these days, and the tablets are designed to go along with phones, not replace them (as some seem to want).

Allrightie then, here's the long version:

Neither video nor music playback are smooth/developed/supported enough to warrant an endorsement, especially not as it is his first requirement. He's probably thinking about Archos 605-levels, while the tablets are at 2004 level (qnd that's being generous!)

PDA functionality is rudimentary/buggy/nonexistent, depending on what he wants. For me personally, decent PDA functionality starts at Psion level and stops -- well, at Psion's level. Nothing at the moment comes even close.

Expansion is possible, but if you look at some of the examples in this forum, you'd almost need a wheelbarrow to lug some of them around. And frankly, most of those expansions/customisations are because of some of Nokia's stupid design or engineering decisions.

Happy now? (and did you notice how I didn't even mention the Panodra, let alone the Newton in my original answer?)

You mean I can access my phone's PIM from my tablet and edit/expand entries?

Really?

you just love putting words in other peoples mouths, dont you?

so let me restate then. how about the tablets being there to do what phones do poorly?

or for that matter, that the tablets are a nokia experiment in using open source code and community?

bah, i wonder why i even bother...

The usability of these GPE parts leaves much to be desired. It isn't hildonized either. Its still half-baked.

But Karel had a valid point. It's been argued from Nokia's (or more correctly, Nokia employee's) side that you don't need PIM in the NIT as there's PIM in the phone. And that's why there shouldn't be a decent calendar or contacts in the NIT. But firstly, PIM in phones mostly isn't even near PDA PIM, and secondly, it's useless as far as the NIT is concerned - whatever is in the phone isn't integrated with NIT applications. Which all boils down to that having PIM in the phone isn't an answer to the missing/poor PIM in the NITs.

Fortunately people (3party) are working on this, but it's a long way to go still.

Also, from what I've heard (please correct me on this, I never actually tried it myself), it doesn't integrate at all with the EDS-based rest of the core applications. PIM to me also means that any contact-data I have will be available in modest, telepathy-based chat and voip-clients etc. ... a stand-alone thing that duplicates data is little more than a feasibility demo. (this is what makes Gizmo such a bad experience, even though it technically works very well as a voip-client.)