Getting ready to upgrade the firmware for my n800 which I just got today, through nokia's application. Does this also update maemo, or is this a seperate install? If so, I don't know how to update maemo, and I tried searching.

You are updating the tablet OS completely not just some underlying firmware, so there is no separate install. The update is simple, I recommend manually downloading the updated image and then pointing the wizard when prompted to the local copy instead of waiting for the wizard to download the new image leaving your tablet open to bricking if the internet connection fails.

great, thanks for that, just what I wanted to know. Does the tablet really need to be completely charged before hand?

I doubt it does, but truthfully whenever you are dealing with updating devices like this or mobile phones its best not to leave anything up to chance, I have bricked a phone before doing firmware updates. If you are not going to charge the N800 fully I recommend DEFINITELY downloading the new image to local. This way there will be minimal downtime as the update will only take about a minute or two.

Thanks for your help. I did download it, and it actually charged in time. About to start the update, once again, thanks for the help.