Do you mean reactions when people see my N800 or when they see me staring at it in some sort of trance saying "my precioussss" aloud?

Classmate: What is that? Is that a phone?
Me: It's my touchscreen dictionary; see, I can look up words
CM: I just saw you browsing the internet on it
Me: Why would I do that on a touchscreen dictionary?

I've found it's easier this way than explaining what it really is and it evokes a no-questions-asked smirk from those who have seen me convince my teachers that my DS was a touchscreen dictionary / TI-83 (which I genuinely used it for 90% of the time in class)

I've had maybe a handful of people recognize the N810 for what it is.

Many people wonder if it is a phone.

Most people I tell it is a PDA and that seems to be simple enough to satisfy them.

The last person (a kid) asked me if it was an iphone. I told him no. He then asked if I could show him some games, whether it had the internet, because he knew some good clips in youtube he could point me to.

Actually, to tell the truth, I think with Blackberry's and smart phones in the hands of the masses now, and iphones and ipod touches rampant, I don't think people give the N810 much thought, as they look up briefly and go back to checking their emails or what ever it is they do on these other devices.

My physics teacher let me use a Nintendo DS as a TI-83, before I had an N810. It was lighter, faster, cheaper and generally just smarter.

Joke's on him, though: I was actually running a TI-85 emulator :P

Would it be like this?

Q: What's that?
A: a computer.
Q (jokingly): Atari, Apple, PC, or IBM mainframe?
A: All of them, and add a VAX there too!

Yeah, with iPhones and G1s rampant, people don't really take a second look at the N810. They do get blown away at the Ti-83 emu and the large screen (in High School at least).

However, my friend who's dad worked at Nokia, had a 770 when they came out. People were like OMG OMG OMG when they saw that. Back then most of the WiFi in school was unlocked, so he had internet in his pocket. Then they locked it, but we got the passwords for most of the APs. Finally in the end of this year, they partnered with a company to roll out school wide WiFi, as we cracked the password easily with guess and check. Then people started to love my N810 because tear is so much better than iPhone...

[Person] "What's that? An iPhone?"
[Me] "No. It's an Nokia Internet Tablet... it's basically a Linux powered pocket computer."
[Person] "Oh. If it's not an iPhone, then it sucks."
[Me] *Pulls out iPhone3G* "There's a reason I was using the Nokia instead of my iPhone."
[Person] "Oh? Erm... um... so tell me more about why you would use that instead of your iPhone."
[Me] "Simple. It has Flash whereas the iPhone doesn't. It has a better screen and resolution, no more resizing or unnecessary scrolling. And it can multi-task, do more than one thing at a time."
[Person] "You must work for Nokia or something."
[Me] "Nope. Just like what I like..."

[person] what is that?
[me] a small linux computer, I use it to surf the web, do email, take notes at seminars, take mug shots of students that forget their ID at exams, read and annotate pdfs, show movies to the kids, and listen to the bbc.
[person, if a grad student] wow! that must cost a fortune!
[person, if a professor] really?! let me see? ... oh, that's too small for my eyes. [usually fumbling to put away reading glasses]

Barely.
...
..
.

"I bought one (or N800) and took it back because it was too hard to set up." -typical