OK , I have tried it, sort-of.

The device already runs full Debian armel, which is what Ubuntu is based on. It's really really cool what you can do with it (pretty much everything :) but at the same time really really annoyingly slow, even after leaving at the CPU at max overclock(400mhz).

Usable? Day to day stuff, NO. For an emergency, YES, it can read and edit word docs, docx and spreadsheets fine through open-office, it also runs full firefox with all the addons, and it does whatever else you can do with linux.

The good news is that the next version of the Nokia Tablets is going to use OMAP3 chips instead of OMAP2, this should do wonders for usability.

Either way, one thing is for sure, it can run full linux, and ARM cpus have wonderful battery life that blows Intel Atom right out of the water.

I wouldnt consider the NokiaN800 exactly a phone, sure you can use skype or SIP service, but how many phones do you know that run a full Linux Debian distro with firefox3, OpenOffice, GIMP, hydrogen (beat making), VLC etc...

This is just virtualization on an ARM cpu which has been done almost a year ago by Xen.

Nontheless, it's still pretty cool. Now would VMware please hurry up and make this available for free on http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/.

Ummm... Is it just me, or is this device lacking an Ethernet port. Please HP let it have an RJ-45, I absolutely love the way this netbook looks, the drop in screen space is a bit of a bummer but I'm willing to let that go because this netbook looks like a $3000+ SONY VAIO Z.
Anyways, if HP thinks it's Apple and it can get away with missing an arm or a leg then I'm not buying this. No RJ-45, no buy.

For those of you who are under 15 don't get what he means:

The monitor is total crap when playing games and watching video.

You could also get the same functionality from a 700$ Cisco access point. /irony

The thing is that most problems that people think the router is causing are just DNS problems from your ISP.
What i would recommend is that don't use your ISP's DNS server at all. Instead either use OpenDNS or use the 4.2.2.1 to 4.2.2.6 dns servers. They are the most reliable.

In fact I use 4.2.2.1 as my primary DNS, and OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 ) as secondary. Surprisingly I never had ANY problems with my cheap old 20$ netgear afterwards.

When you buy a game, you tend to value and enjoy it more. When you just pirate games, you don't usually get to appreciate the work that goes in them.

What most people do not appreciate about ARM is that it is at least 10 times more power efficient than Intel ATOM. This however does come at the expense that it is not x86 compatible.
Linux is completely fine though and besides Debian provides a full ARM port. I have a Nokia n800 with an older omap2 cpu and a debian-based OS and it keeps getting better with time. There are nifty apps that keep getting ported to it, like all sorts of emulators, word processor(you can read/edit .doc files), media players/organisers, Pidgin messenger, hacking tools etc etc etc etc etc... And the device can stay ON for a whole week with it's tiny cellphone battery. Thats how efficient ARM is.

I look forward to a netbook that I only need to recharge once a week and that can run linux.