We’ve heard a lot of promises from Sprint and Clearwire regarding their U.S. WiMAX network, not the least of which is WiMAX access for 100 million Americans by the end of 2008. One thing we haven’t heard very much about, however, is specific WiMAX devices–that is, until now. Nokia’s head of Open Source Ops, Dr. Ari Jaaksi, has come out to confirm Nokia’s N800 tablet as one of the first handsets that will land on the Sprint/Clearwire WiMAX network. As you may have heard, this little guy is already pretty popular over in Europe, where enterprising hackers have already coaxed it into doing all sorts of unseemly things (including mimicking an iPhone). According to Jaaksi, the device will “most probably” retain its WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities when shipped stateside. No word yet on when we’ll be seeing this thing, though Sprint’s initial WiMAX markets (Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington D.C.) could be getting it early next year.

For more on the N800:
– see this article from LinuxDevices.com