N800 vs ipod touch

I’ve now had an ipod touch for a couple of weeks. Here is my comparision of the ipod touch with the N800. Rather than compare the two feature for feature, I have attempted to compare their capabilities for some common usage patterns.

Music Player: The ipod touch is so far ahead that there is no comparision here. The ability to organize music on a PC through itunes and sync automatically has no parallel on the N800, where you need to manually manage your music. Most of my listening involved podcasts and there is no better solution than the ipod for podcast management. Period. Verdict: ipod touch

Video Player: Viewing video on a portable player is a much more involved exercise due to the plethora of formats and limited horsepower of these devices. The first thing is to get videos onto the device. The ipod has more capable hardware and can handle higher resolution/bitrate/framerate videos than the N800. However, its support for video codecs is limited with only H.264 and mp4 support. This means that most videos need to be transcoded, just like on the N800. The N800 has an extremely slick free transcoding solution provided by Nokia (Internet tablet video converter), I’ve found that to be a better solution than the various third party solutions for the touch (I use a program called Videora). Once the files are on the device, I find the experience to be comparable with the N800 having a slight edge due to the larger screen and built in speaker. I also like the fact that it has a stand, this makes for a more pleasurable experience. Verdict: Nokia N800

Browsing: The ipod touch has a Safari browser while the N800 has a Firefox based browser. Both are full fledged browsers and can display web pages just like on a desktop rather than the modified mobile phone version. In terms of performance, the touch Safari browser feels snappier and more responsive than the Firefox browser on the N800. However, I’ve not found a huge difference in the overall time taken to render the pages. The N800 can play flash content which the touch lacks. On the other hand, a lot of websites have iphone/touch optimized versions which makes the overall experience better for those sites. On the whole, I think the experience is comparable and I’d rate both devices equal for browsing. Verdict: tie

Youtube: The ipod touch has a dedicated youtube player, while the N800 can play youtube videos through the web interface. Youtube videos on the N800 were jerky and took much longer to load. I found the performance of the touch youtube player to be far superior and the experience to be much better. It is without doubt, an ideal youtube player. Verdict: ipod touch

Email: The ipod touch client offers support for Gmail, Yahoo and a number of other email services. In addition, with the 2.0 firmware, it offers support for Exchange. The N800 on the other hand, has a plain IMAP/POP3 email client. I’ve never bothered to use this, but I’m hooked to email on the ipod touch. Verdict: ipod touch

Applications: The App Store is one of the most important developments for the iphone/ipod touch family of devices. The store opened just 3 days back and the number of apps already greatly outnumbers the N800. With the number of iphones sold approaching 10 million and probably an equally large number of ipod touches, the gap is only going to get wider. Nokia has a good platform and an extremely competent device, but it has never moved beyond niche status, hence the apps available for it will continue to be limited. On the other hand, due to the open nature of the device, there are applications available on the N800 that will never make it to the touch (e.g. VOIP, GPS apps like Maemo mapper). Still, this doesn't affect the healthy lead that the touch has Verdict: ipod touch.

So, ipod touch wins the comparision 4.5 to 1.5. The margin is unfair to the N800, which is a very comptetent device in its own right. If I had to make a decision on which of the two to buy today, the choice would be clear, it is the ipod touch. But, since I already own both these devices, I will continue to be a happy user of both the platforms.