Nokia N800 Review

So far, nearly all my posts about the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet were intended for my existing audience of Nokia 770 Internet Tablet owners or interested parties. I spent too much time comparing it to it's predecessor and have yet to take the N800 as a device all by itself and review it. This is a mistake I will remedy now: This article is meant as a companion to my First Look article. All screenshots are clickable for full clarity.

The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is not a PDA, ultra-mobile PC, smartphone, or eBook reader. It is an Internet Tablet. In my interview with Dr. Ari Jaaksi of Nokia, he emphasized that the device was built from the ground up to focus on Internet functionality. How well is this accomplished?

The Home Screen with default applets.

Design and Interface
The N800 fits in your hands like a PSP is designed mostly for two-handed operation. The left hand holds it, controls menu, application, and directional keys on the front and zoom and maximize keys on the top. The right hand can be used for the stylus. In most applications, dragging the stylus over an inactive screen area (an area without a button or hyperlink) will grab and scroll the screen for you. This is quite conducive to widescreen web browsing, but an actual "scroll wheel" would have been a welcome addition. The 800x480, 4.1" widescreen display is bright and sharp, if a bit tiny for some eyes.
The Home Screen is full of applets that can be removed, changed, replaced, or resized. The icons on the top left are similar to Windows' system tray, offering both status and shortcuts. The left buttons are Bookmarks, Contacts, and Applications. The beauty of the Applications button is that it knows if you tapped it with your fat finger or the sharp stylus and gives you either large or small icons accordingly.

Finding Local Hotspots

Connectivity
The most important aspect of the Internet experience is, of course, the connection. Without bandwidth, there can be no Internet experience. The Nokia N800 is not a phone, but does offer two options for Internet connectivity: WiFi and Bluetooth. The 802.11g radio allows the user to attach to any WiFi hot spot with encryption. The range, while not scientifically measured, is comparable to my laptop.

The Phone Control Panel Applet

Bluetooth is often a mess of confusion to users, but the N800 has a simple wizard that allows users to discover and pair their phone, then choose their wireless carrier from a list and have it pre-configured for data service. Be aware that this requires a data plan that allows "tethering" - a fancy word for allowing a device other than your phone to use your mobile Internet service. Check with your wireless carrier and ask specifically for EV-DO or HSDPA (or the latest technology) mobile broadband and a phone that offers Bluetooth tethering.

So what about the Internet experience?
Watching market trends, I see that the Internet is most often used for Email, instant messages and chat, news reading, entertainment, and finding information. Let's look at each function.

Email
The bundled Email reader is about as bare bones as can be and still be called an Email reader. Since most users have the option of web based Email services such as Gmail or Hotmail, that's probably a better choice. Reading Email is a breeze, but long replies are best paired with a Bluetooth keyboard or done at home.

Web Browsing/Internet Entertainment
According to Alexa, the most popular sites are search engines Yahoo, MSN, Windows Live and Google, social networking sites YouTube, MySpace, and Orkut, and at number 12 the famous WikiPedia.

Google's simple interface: Perfect for the N800

Google Maps:Works Well

Google and Windows Live Search worked wonderfully at the native resolution of the device, but Google Local worked better than Windows Live maps because the latter required horizontal scrolling that prevented me from seeing both the listing and the map at the same time. I attribute this to the fixed width of the advertising boxes above the listing. Google simply made the map smaller.

Yahoo: Horizontal Scrolling Required

Yahoo and MSN's search engines required some horizontal scrolling when the browser was not in "full screen" mode. Both are more content-heavy front pages and not likely the first choice for mobile users.

Typical MySpace page: Bad in any browser, but still readable on the N800

MySpace's default settings required the browser to be full screen to avoid horizontal scrolling, but it's worth noting that MANY MySpace users "pimp" their profiles so heavily as to cause browser lag or crash on ANY device. The same holds true on the Nokia N800. While I did not find any profiles that crashed my browser outright, I experienced some significant delays in loading profiles with heavy image and layout customization.

Wikipedia, of course, is wonderful to browse on the N800. With a broadband connection, the N800 is as close as possible to Douglas Adams' dream of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

YouTube: Almost, but not quite.

YouTube and Google Video are a different story. While the videos load and play, the frame rate is about 2-3 frames per second in the best case. Sound is more stable, but still cuts out from time to time. I do not know if this is a result of firmware or CPU power, but it is certainly not something you'd want to do at length with this device. Finally, while watching Flash videos, the screen saver doesn't know the user is watching and dims the screen automatically. When the screen goes entirely into "sleep" mode, the video and audio just stop. This is not the case with the integrated media player application, discussed briefly below.

For web browsing, the Nokia N800 offers nearly the best browsing experience of any pocketable device I've seen. The Opera 8 browser with Flash 7 support blows away PDAs and smartphones with their "mobile browsers." The only other pocketable device I have seen that offers anywhere near the richness in browsing is the OQO model 02, but the OQO is a pocket computer starting at $1,499. The N800 is an Internet Tablet retailing for $399.

Google Talk client using the on-screen keyboard

Chat and Internet Calling
The N800 Internet Tablet includes a Google Talk client, including a new Webcam ability. There is even a home screen applet for "Speed Contacts," but it only shows specific names the user chooses and not "online contacts" as it perhaps should. As a Google Talk client, it's not bad. The problem here, of course, is that all my friends are on AIM, Yahoo, or MSN. The Nokia 770 had GAIM (a multi-protocol chat client including MSN, AIM, Yahoo and more) ported to it and we can expect a similar port for the N800 any day now. (*EDIT: GAIM is availble, though not officially a "bora" package) GAIM does not offer some of the functionality of the desktop counterparts. Typing messages with the on-screen keyboard is tedious and the thumbboard hides the incoming chat window, so heavy chatters would do well to invest in Bluetooth keyboard (which is easily paired with the N800 through a control panel applet.)

Internet Calling is much better. With the top mounted microphone, sufficiently loud stereo speakers, webcam, and even the included mic-equipped stereo headset, this N800 scores. Google Talk and Gizmo Project are available now and Skype is coming later this year. *edit* fellow blogger John Tokash and I just spent 10 minutes talking on the webcam, discussing FPS, and lighting. The lights on both sides looked slightly washed yellow and the overall quality was about what is expected from a "cameraphone" quality sensor, but the experience of webcam+voice chatting in a pocket sized device was quite cool! Now if we could only get more users to adopt Internet Calling....

Google Reader

News Reading
As a blogger, it greatly pleases me that RSS news feeds have become one of the major functions of the Internet. In addition to web-based RSS readers (Yes, Google Reader works fine) the N800 comes with an RSS reader of it's own.

The integrated news reader in action

The advantage of using the integrated RSS reader is that it comes with a home screen applet showing the most recent news articles right in the front. Combine that with the 800x480 screen, it blows away PDAs and smartphones for this function. As a news reader, the N800 is a great choice.

Beyond the Internet
The base Internet functions have been covered:

• Email: Best done through a web interface. Reading is easy, writing takes time.
• Web Browsing: Great, except for sites that need a lot of horizontal scrolling
• Chat and Internet Calling: Calling = great. Chat = Better with a keyboard.
• News Feed Reading: Wonderful

What else can this do? Well, in addition to the "connected" functionality shown above, the Nokia N800 Internet tablet can stream Internet radio, play music or movies from the TWO integrated SD card slots, (I have four feature length films on a 2GB SD card,) play games (Chess, Blocks (a Tetris-like game,) Mahjong, and Marbles are included) or run many available applications available for download. The Nokia 770, less than two years old, has dozens of well-developed applications available for it. It won't take long for most (if not all and more) of these to be available on the N800. There is a running list of packages tested on the N800 and it grows every day. Linux under the hood encourages not only a lot of development, but a lot of open-source (read: free for the consumer) applications.

Conclusion
The Nokia N800 delivers the best Internet experience available in a pocketable form without breaking the bank. While not a PC replacement, it will cover the most popular Internet functions quite well. Available at many CompUSA stores or direct from Nokia at US$399, it's something every "heavy Internet user" should consider.

I invite users to comment, but for extensive discussion of this article join in on this thread in InternetTabletTalk Forums.
*edit Jan 22, 2007: Don't just take my word for it. I am compiling a list of additional reviews as well!