Nokia N810 internet tablet • The Register

The stereo speakers set into each side of the N810 make for a reasonable listening experience without headphones, and happily Nokia has decided to give the N810 a 3.5mm phone jack with matching hands-free rig rather than a proprietary one.

Coming with a built in GPS receiver and maps of the UK and Eire, the N810 should make getting lost a thing of the past while the speed indicator means you can run up and down the street and see how fast you are going in MPH, 12 being our Bannister-esque best. Nokia's Wayfinder upgrade is yours for an extra €99, turning the N810 into a fully fledged satnav.

The N810 comes with built-in GPS receiver and UK mappage

Connectivity was impressive throughout our test. The N810 effortlessly picking up available WLAN signals and staying locked on. Away from hotspots we accessed the net using a Sony Ericsson K850i over Bluetooth, which gave us reliable, stable and speedy access in 3G areas.

Software for the N810 shouldn't be an issue as the maemo.org site currently lists 145 applications for OS2008, including a surprisingly playable version of Doom. The excellent chess game that comes pre-loaded deserves a mention in dispatches too.

Downsides? We're sure Nokia has its reasons for fitting the N810 with a Micro USB port and Mini SD slot rather the more common Mini USB and plain SDHC slot, but were stuffed if we can think what they are. Oh, and the on/off button is in a strange place - try to use it one-handed and the unit slides open which gets to be annoying after a while. When the metal stand is folded away you can't access the USB port or the memory card slot. The device also lacks a re-set button, so any serious mishaps mean whipping the battery out.

Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything

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Highly Rated

Posted Tuesday 11th March 2008 14:11 GMT

MaXimaN

More Grunt == Less Battrey Life

Garry Byrne: The OQO 01+, although a nice device, is nearly twice as thick as the N810 and weighs nerly twice as much. The only thing the OQO has over the N810 is more storage out of the box and more poke in the CPU department - both coming at the cost of greatly decreased battery life. I'd only recommend a Windows UMPC is you *really* must run Windows apps.

Posted Wednesday 5th March 2008 23:31 GMT

Paul

I have a nokia 800

How many people reading the article didn't pick up on the fact that Nokia didn't intend this to be a phone? Why? Maybe it's because S60 (uck!) is too entrenched? Maybe because it avoids having to do many regional variants? Maybe because they want you to buy a phone with bluetooth to act as mobile data gateway?

I've never found a smartphone to be any good, TBH, either too big and bulky, or if usefully compact then is too small to have an adequate display - the N800's 800x480 display makes my Zaurus's 3.5" vga display seem a bit, well, stingy!

I also have zaurus 3100, & palm t3. I use the Zaurus for experimenting with Android and hacking TomTom to run on it!

The Palm is still in use as a PIM - *nothing* beats datebook5 (well, datebook6 does).

The N800 gets the most use

- the bright clear hi-res screen makes it fabulous for mobile web surfing, reading eBooks etc.

- the built in webcam works nicely with googletalk, I can video chat (when I want to be a sad geek) with my brother in california

- with USB host or bluetooth I can connect a nano keyboard if I wanted to enter lots of text

- with bluetooth (PAN) or wifi I can connect via any phone or any hotspot

- stereo speakers make it useful as a media player, built-in radio is a bonus; SDHC card can carry a hell of a lot of files!

- can play radio and TV streams - BBC News 24 live works well (but don't tell TV Licensing!)

paris - because she needs people to RTFA for her too.

Posted Wednesday 5th March 2008 16:29 GMT

Chris Burns

and more...

I have an n800 - had it for a year or so now, and it has come on in leaps and bounds with each new firmware release. I mainly use it for portable IM (there's a version of pidgin that runs well on it - the full-screen virtual keyboard is excellent once you get used to it) - and ebook reading - using FBReader and Evince (FBReader used to be all I needed, but they seem to have reduced pdf compatibility - though there is a pdf reader in the standard build, I prefer a 3rd party app). If you can afford the n810, I would definitely go for that, mainly due to the hardware keyboard, but now that it has been superseded, the n800 should be coming down in price. For an inquisitive geek, there's no better gadget.