Nokia launches laptop
A first for the phone giant
Following months of speculation, Nokia has officially launched its first laptop - Booklet 3G.
Nokia's Booklet 3G: 10in display, 3G and an HDMI port - all within an aluminium chassis
Described by Nokia’s Executive Vice President as a “natural evolution” for the formerly phone-only firm, today’s surprise announcement sees the Finnish phone firm unveil a machine with a 10.1in HD-ready display.
Booklet 3G’s body measures less than 2cm thick, Nokia promised, and the machine weighs in at 1200 grams.
Sadly Nokia is keeping mum on the machine’s full specifications for now, but it has confirmed that Booklet 3G will be based around an Intel Atom processor and feature an impressive 12 hour battery.
All this will be contained within an “ultra-portable aluminium chassis”, Nokia promised.
Integrated into the chassis will be a suite of connectivity options, Nokia added, which will include 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Booklet 3G will even connect into Nokia’s Ovi service – which includes a mapping function that can pinpoint your location using the laptop’s integrated Assisted GPS chip.
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Nokia’s also promised buyers an SD memory card reader and HDMI port on the machine, while video calls will be possible thanks to Booklet 3G’s integrated user-facing webcam. Booklet 3G will run Windows, Nokia added.
The firm plans to release more detailed specifications, pricing and availability options at its annual conference – Nokia World – on 2 September. ®
COMMENTS
"Nokia plotting Symbian laptops", apparently
So what about that story from just a few months ago?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/nokia_laptops/
Netbook sales?
This looks pretty good, but does anyone have any netbook sales numbers by country? Netbooks are quite popular here in the U.S., but I can't see how they will sell very many high end devices here in a new market when they are only known for selling cheap or free prepaid phones.
@Torben Mogensen
"But why did they have to use an Atom processor, which isn't capable of playing videos at this resolution?"
Sorry, that simply isn't true, and is a claim of many people who haven't tried recent netbooks (and this includes Steve Jobs who believes such cheap netbooks are not possible to be decent).
My Samsung NC10 has an Atom processor and I'm watching 720p HD movies full screen smooth as anything. More than that I have them upscaled to 1080p via the VGA port to my 40" HD TV and still perfectly smooth.
I've been watching movies, both SD and HD full screen on the Sammy whilst on a plane with it in 'silent' mode (i.e. throttle back the CPU, low power mode etc to conserve battery), and still flawlessly smooth.
It does require the CoreAVC codec though as Microsoft's codecs just aren't up to it. The one restriction here is CoreAVC can't deal with DRM video, so BBC's HD iPlayer won't run through it (though their SD iPlayer works fine with the standard codecs).
@ Big Bear
Err.. Play Station, possibly the biggest selling console ever now being extinguished by X Box and err Symbian the OS which Nokia has based its future mobile strategy, currently being targeted by Windows Mobile (and other smaller or less enterprise friendly players). Call me a little behind the times but in my book, that's competition.
I'll say it again, this is a big win for Microsoft, getting the likes of Nokia to promote their software shouldn't be underestimated. I may even start buying MS shares again.
