Review: The Linux Powered Nokia N810 Internet Tablet (Page 1 of 1)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Jun 04, 2008 at 01:25pm
Section:
Mobile Computing
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For many years people have been looking for a simple and efficient way to take the internet with them. First there was laptops, but those were too big. Then came phones and PDA's, but those were too small, and too feature lean. But now that is all history thanks to Nokia's new N810 Internet Tablet! But what are some of the things that make this device so special? Actually, quite a lot. So let's go have a look and see what it has to offer you.
Features and SpecsThe Nokia N810 is a feature rich multimedia internet device that really packs a lot into a small package while managing to keep it as simple as possible. The unit sports 128mb of DDR memory, a 256mb main drive (flash), a 2gb secondary drive, a TI OMAP 2420 processor running at a blazing 400Mhz (hey, for something this size, 400mhz is fast!), and a 4.13" WVGA screen capable of doing 65,000 colors at 800x480 pixels of resolution. That's not bad honestly given its compact size.
For additional storage it has one external slot that is capable of taking a miniSD or a microSD (with adapter) card up to 8gb. Now why they didn't just put a standard SD card into the unit is beyond me, but if you can look past that little shortfall, you're in for quite a few exciting surprises. The case is made of stamped aluminum that seems pretty hardy for its relatively light weight. The back cover over the battery could use to be a bit sturdier, but if that's the worst it's got going for it, then I can live with that.
And speaking of the battery, you won't be making many trips to the recharging station with this unit. The battery is spec'ed at 4 hours of runtime under the most extreme and full powered usage. IE, you're watching a video with the speaker blasting at maximum with WiFi running and the processor pegged to the wall. So if that's the most extreme example, the more common life expectancy for the battery in this unit is about 8-10 hours under normal use. It can theoretically idle with the screen off for up to 14 days on one charge, so if you don't feel like shutting it off each night, you're welcome to leave it on since the system draws almost zero power in idle mode.
Another striking feature of the N810 that sets it apart from other internet tablets, and it's near cousin, the N800, is the built in Querty keyboard. When you pop it out to start typing out your message, it'll almost make you feel like you're Neo in the Matrix or some spy trying to send a secret message. Ok, so maybe it won't spark alter ego fascinations with you, but to the general group of people I've shown it to so far, the pop out keyboard has drawn a lot of facinated inquiries. I haven't seen anyone so far who "doesn't" like the pop out keyboard.
The unit also has a built in GPS receiver, a tiny little set of stereo speakers that do a pretty decent job of putting out some reasonable quality sound. But once you go to the headphones, you find that the sound quality improves a lot. Another neat feature is a built in desk stand. No more propping up your little internet tablet against something. Just kick out the stand and away you go.
The built in Wireless lan is a standard 802.11b/g nic. It's also got a bluetooth 2.0 nic that will allow you to sinc with your Nokia phone should you have one with bluetooth capabilities. This will allow you at any time to piggyback onto your phone for accessing the internet. The unit also sports a high speed USB 2.0 microUSB connection. It's rather small by most standards, but works well with the case. And if you ever get in the urge to do some internet voice or video chat, the unit comes with its own built in video camera and microphone.
There's also a wide variety of languages supported, including English, German, French, Italian and more. The unit even comes with an instructional video and user guides in 20 some languages. And to top all of this off, the unit is powered by a Linux distro known as Maemo. It's a special micro Linux distribution designed for phones and PDA's (and in this case an internet tablet) that use the ARM processor, which the N810 does. As such the entire OS (the N810 uses the OS2008 version, aka Maemo 4.0) and most of the applications that are available for it, from either Nokia or the developer community, are completely free and open source. There are a few proprietary apps that are included, but those are few and far between.
The unit ships in a simple box that includes the following items:
- Nokia N810 Internet Tablet
- A battery
- A Stereo Headset
- A Travel Charger
- A Car Holder (so you can use your Nokia on the road)
- A soft side pouch
- A Connectivity Cable
- Getting started guide
- And a Safety, warranty and product information booklet
Here's an unboxing photo to show you what you get.
There's also two things that are in that box that you don't see in this picture, or aren't directly obvious. The first is a spare stylus. It's a pain when you loose it, so they include a spare right off the bat for you. The second is a soft, plush cloth for wiping and cleaning your screen. Now, let's get a look at some of what the OS and tablet offer you and what you can expect to see when you get your own. And I really do recommend you getting your own. It's one of those rare "can't live without" devices that you'll never forgive yourself for passing up..
The Unit, the OS and the AppsOut of all the Linux powered hardware I've tested, I would have to say that this is the first time I've found myself so enamored with a device that it felt almost like an addition. In fact, it's such an addictive little unit that I've nicknamed it the "Nokia crack" because just like some people call the BlackBerry the "CrackBerry" because of it's addictive nature, the N810 has almost a similar effect on people, drawing them to start playing with it and never want to stop.
Now before anyone says that learning such a small tablet is hard, think again. The learning curve for the N810 is about five minutes tops. Once you get the hang of the stylus, and what each section does, the rest is easy and it quickly becomes a fun adventure to explore every nook and cranny of the OS, finding hundreds of amazing things along your way.
Now as for the hardware, for a unit with a 400mhz processor and only 128mb of ram, the system flies. Sure, it lags in a few places, but those are minor hiccups that are easy to look past. Now since this is an internet tablet, the first thing to look at is of course the included web browser.
The N810 uses a Mozilla based browser known as MicroB, which is built especially for PDA's and mobile devices. The above two pictures show the browser in full screen and windowed modes. Now since the browser is built on the Mozilla browser engine, the N810 browser fully supports Ajax, Flash, and many of the features found in the full grown Mozilla browsers. So you can safely and easily visit all of your favorite websites, such as Digg, Slashdot, Youtube, Facebook and more.
In fact, the developers even included links to Wikipedia and Facebook, as well as several of the major Google apps, in the included bookmarks. When you first load the browser you're greeted by a simple, generic Google homepage with links to the Maemo software site, as well as Nokia's. You can also download ready to use software for the N810 right from either one of them. Overall the browser is pretty good, but it struggles in some areas and crashed on a few pages I was testing it on that normal Firefox has no issues handling. So the browser needs to do a bit more growing before I can say it's perfect. But since it's open source, that won't be a problem.
Now as for getting online, that's pretty easy. Just point and click the wireless icon in the upper icon bar, select the connection of choice and hit connect. It's really that quick and easy. So long as you're within range of a normal wifi hotspot, you should connect immediately.
Now as for included applications, there's a lot of them. Here's just a short list of what's available on the tablet.
- Built in media players (there's actually several of them to choose from)
- Rhapsody Music Service
- An open source (Maemo Mapper) and a proprietary map service (WayFinder)
- A simple image viewer.
- A file manager. (this thing is pretty handy, even if it is really simple)
- Skype, plus the Gizmo communications suite
- RSS reader
- Several IM and chat programs.
- Direct access to shared media over Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
- A large number of supported audio and video formats, as well as playlists.
- Internet video chat
- SIP support
- Browser access to familiar webmail services
- E-mail application for personal e-mail usage with IMAP, STMP, and POP3 support
- File manager
- PDF reader
- Clock
- A simple drawing program
- Games chess, blocks, mahjong and marbles, etc
- Backup and restore
- Handwriting Recognition
And tons more! That's only a small sample of what's in the applications menu. And if those aren't enough, there are several ways to add new software. If you want to learn more about OS2008 or the applications available for it, you can
Click here for the Nokia site, or here for the Maemo OSS developer and community site. And just as a side note, for those of you who love Quake or Doom, yes, there are Maemo versions of both games, as well as Solitaire, Mahjong and Sudoku. They even have a copy of the very addictive game Super Tux! Installing applications is a breeze too. Just find them either through the application manager (first picture on the left column above) or via the Maemo or Nokia sites.
Now, since this is Linux, who could actually consider going about using their N810 without its own terminal! Yes, the N810 actually has its own Xterminal. But instead of using one of the big powerhouse shells like Bash or Sh, it uses busybox, which combines a lot of big powerhouse features into a small pda capable application for embedded devices. While this might seem to limit what you can do, surprisingly enough, you find yourself in the shell almost never. But should you happen to need to get in there, it'll allow you to do a pretty decent amount of things. You can also add SSH access via the openSSH package available through the Maemo community site.
The unit also comes with a powerful and option rich control panel. In here you can directly control everything from the internal GPS to the the way the system handles memory. It really works quite well and gives you everything you'll need to configure and control your system.
Now lastly is the one area I think is just as important as the rest, even if it doesn't seem that way. And that's the home space. By default it comes with the google search bar applet, an internet radio applet, a clock, and a link to Nokia's extension of the Maemo developer site. As you can see in the picture above, it's very easy to customize the home space and add or remove included or 3rd party applications easily. I installed the OMWeather applet during my testing and added it to the desktop as you see in the picture. You can also position each of your applets anywhere you want to on the site.
Now back to the interface. As seen in this picture above, the N810 doesn't have a taskbar persay. The closest thing it has is the icon bar to the left. It acts as a quick launch and a taskbar all in one. As you an see from the picture, and the previous examples, you have one set of 3 shortcut icons on the left. Below that is a space for three more icons for various applications that are running. You might find that you end up running four or five at a time, at which point the applications spill off the screen. But that's easily resolvable by simply clicking the window list button at the bottom of the column as shown in the right image above. So switching between windows or tasks in OS2008 is very easy.
And lastly, up at the top is your icon bar. Essentially that little black rectangle could be considered your system tray of sorts as it has your battery meter,
ConclusionNow while there's a lot to like about the N810, there are a few downsides. But most of those are based on personal preferences, or are moot given that most of those issues will either get sorted out by Nokia or the community soon enough. And since the Maemo Linux for Embedded Devices distro is also open source, I expect to see a lot of improvements over the coming months and years that'll really add a lot of great things to the device. Since its launch last fall, it's already seen some 220+ applications written or ported for it.
The N810 is also surprisingly customizable, so you're not stuck with what someone else thinks your internet tablet should be. You can make it whatever you want it to be. Now while the N810 sells for a bit more than I would like ($450 last I checked) it's well worth every penny. And another thing about it that fascinates me is that even though I've spent a lot of time exploring it, there's still so much there that I'm still discovering new stuff all the time. And don't get hooked on the idea that the N810 is a super PDA, because it's so much more.
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