Nokia N800 Internet Tablet
Available
now 9th January 2007
The Nokia N800 is the follow-up to the
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, building on the Maemo Linux
platform developed by Nokia. The N800 uses the third
incarnation of Maemo, called the Internet Tablet OS
2007 edition which adds a few new features to the 2006
edition (which in itself was a huge improvement over
the original platform).
It's
roughly the same size as its predecessor - the Nokia
N800 measures 75x144x13mm and weighs 206 grams. The
770 was 230 grams in its protective case, and 185 grams
without it. The N800 shares the same excelled 800x480
pixel display of its predecessor.. this is a very high
resolution display that puts the competition to shame.
The N800 adds a webcam plus improvements to the tablet's
WiFi and Bluetooth implementation. One key weakness
of the old 770 was a lack of internal memory, and this
has been increased in the N800. The N800 also accepts
a wide variety of memory cards, including RS-MMS, miniSD,
microSD and MMCmobile units, which gives a great deal
of flexibility. One nice touch is that the N800 has
an integrated stand, one of the first things that got
lost on the older 770.
It's important to note that the Nokia
N800 isn't a phone, although it will support Skype in
the future. Connectivity is either through the N800's
WLAN adapter, or via a Bluetooth phone. The 770 wasn't
limited to Nokia phones either, so you should be able
to use just about any Bluetooth handset with the N800,
including 3G, EV-DO and HSDPA phones.
The
range of software available now and in the future for
the Nokia N800 demostrates clearly that this is an ultra-compact
computer. There's a version of the Opera web browser,
an email client, RSS newsreader, multimedia player,
games plus a range of utilities and other applications.
It will also be possible to use the N800 with a GPS
receiver as a satellite navigation system.
The Nokia N800 has different looks too
- the 770 was a bit "retro futuristic", the
N800 is more polished and contemporary. Either way,
both Nokia internet tablets have plenty of "wow"
factor.. especially when people see the quality of the
display.
You could regard the Nokia N800 as "version
2.0" of the Nokia Internet Tablet. The original
version of the 770 had plenty of rough edges (call it
"version 1.0") which were largely fixed by
the 2006 OS (call it "version 1.1"). Perhaps
the N800 will be polished enough to make it a proper
consumer product, whereas the old 770 was really for
enthusiasts.
The Nokia N800 is available now in the
US and soon in certain European markets at around €400
/ $400.
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Nokia
N800 at a glance
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Available:
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Q1
2007
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Network:
|
None
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Data:
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WiFi
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Screen:
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800x480
pixels, 65k colours
|
Camera:
|
0.3
megapixels
|
Size:
|
PDA-style
device 75x144x13mm /
206 grams
|
Bluetooth:
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Yes
|
Memory
card:
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microSD,
miniSD, RS-MMC, MMCmobile
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
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Yes
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Battery
life:
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3
hours in use / 10 days standby
|
OS:
|
Maemo
3.0
|
|
|