N800 Internet Tablet- anyone else curious about this thing at all?

[pseudofinn]

The N800 is quite an oddity to me. I'm not sure what market it's designed for. Technically dubbed an "Internet Tablet", the Nokia 770 successor has the distinction of belonging to the Nseries line of multimedia devices- though I'm not sure why. It doesn't have a powerful camera, it doesn't run the Symbian OS- and it doesn't seem to play the videos I've converted to MP4 for my N95. It doesn't have a TV-out and it doesn't even connect to a bluetooth headset out of the box. (Since it does run linux, you can make it work with a BT headset, but at a quick glance- the instructions for doing so seemed to be beyond anything I'll be doing...). It doesn't even make phone calls. Well... VOIP, but it's not a cellular device.

That being said, the Internet renders beautifully on the screen of the device. It's very quick when connected to WiFi as you might imagine, but last night I found out that navigation is really quite do-able and reasonably quick when connected to the EGPRS connection on my N95. There's even a Safari-based web browser coming out soon I hear...

Still- it's a large device, though I don't find it too large to comfortably carry in my pants pockets, or a jacket pocket. It's certainly nice to have with me when I'm going to be some place where I want to do a lot of browsing the Internet, while still retaining the option to just take my N95 if I want to "travel light". I would think with a bluetooth keyboard, many smaller tasks usually requiring a laptop can be accomplished quite easily.

Linux means there are many applications that run on the device, such as VNC for remote access to your pc, or Maemo Mapper, for GPS navigation (no internal GPS- but BT works fine) and many other programs. I've been enjoying a 30 day trial to Rhapsody on the device. There's a GMail notifier and a few other programs that quickly caught my interest.

I haven't really tested the media playback functions, as the only decent pair of headphones I have are bluetooth- a feature that the N800 is lacking. At this point, I can only say that it does in fact play MP3s.

Video does look really good on it, based upon the N800 experience video that comes preloaded on the device. Apart from that, I haven't taken a minute to find out what video format the thing supports. Videos formatted via WinAVI Mp4 converter that work on the N95 do not play on the N800.


It does have a small camera that supports video calling via Google Talk... something I'll have to check out here soon. I'd love to get a video chat going between the N95 and the N800. Hmmmm...

So those are my first initial and brief impressions of the N800 Internet Tablet. I do like the device- I'm just kind of confused by it's relevance. I haven't yet decided if it's the perfect compliment to my N95, or unnecessary for an N95 user. It's quite possible I just haven't used it enough yet to realize it's full potential. I have the device on loan from the wonderful people at WOM World for two weeks- so if anyone is interested in the device, wants to ask me a few questions- I'd be more than happy to answer them, try anything you'd like me to try with the device... anything that isn't going to make WOM World angry that is. Whatever you guys want to know- ask away!

[Sp00k]

How about a pic with an N95 at the side of it? Perhaps including your iPhone too, if its been delivered yet?

Or is the N95 the only decent camera you have?

I'm interested in the size comparison. Oh... And how does the speaker output compare to the N95?

[gadgetman]

Not sure myself.

Although I've heard rumblings that Nokia are looking to get in on the PDA market and XDA/Vario market too.

I think this is the market it's aimed at, but why it's a n-series only Nokia know!

[pseudofinn]

sp00k- I'll rustle up another camera for you tonight and take that shot.

[The Patrician]

Nah, it's a bit of a waste of time.

[Sp00k]

Originally Posted by The Patrician

Nah, it's a bit of a waste of time.

OK, fair enough, it's a waste of time in as much as I wouldn't buy one as I've no use for it and I can't really see what use it would be to anyone else either but it arouses my curiousity as it's Nokia and it's an 'N' series device... Though why it comes into that category is anybodys guess!

So far we've established that basically it's a 'Net-connected (via WiFi) display screen without a keyboard... Nothing exciting or innovative there... So what are we missing? ... Massive storage capability? Astounding battery-life? Highly sensitive Wi-Fi? Superb display? What?

What does it retail at btw?

[pseudofinn]

Massive storage capacity? It has two SD slots... nothing radical. There's no 16gig drive in it or anything. Battery life? Hmmm... about 8 hours of wifi browsing, 7 days standby...? WiFi is pretty exceptional. I think the display is only QVGA as well... not positive about that.

So... no- nothing really that innovative here so far.

Just as with S60, the Maemo OS's third party support really offers a different perspective. I'm just starting to look into that a bit for this. One really cool app I'm looking at is a wireless OBDII (onboard diagnostics for autos) rig. If I owned this thing, I'd be looking into it. The bluetooth adapter for the auto is about 200 bucks though. It sure is slick though. I was very impressed that this program is available for the N800.

But I'm still not sure why it's an "N"800...

[youngteam]

It's actually a fairly impressive device (I have one). It supports SDHC, so can (at the moment) have 16GB of storage, the screen resolution is 800x480 which makes all the difference when viewing web pages. In fact the web browsing totally blows the N95 out of the water.

It's also nice if you're into Linux as you can load up terminal apps, etc. and get down to some true nerdiness :)

I've connected via both Wifi, which seems pretty sensitive to me, and also using 3G via bluetooth (through both my N80 and N95) which is also flawless and pretty much one click.

[pseudofinn]

Thanks, youngteam- I didn't realize it was SDHC compliant. With two sd slots- 32 GB is pretty nice. Those 32 gig cards can't be too far off. It definitely makes the device more attractive. Tell me- do you play much video on your N800? I'm curious to find out what formats are shared between the N800 and the N95.

[youngteam]

I've not played a great deal, but the video I have played hasn't been all that great performance wise. I guess if I transcoded stuff before putting it on their it would be OK though as the demo movie looks pretty impressive.

Mplayer has been ported to it so it should support a fair few codecs, but it still seems videos need to be converted for decent performance.

Canola is also worth a look as a media player, it's pretty cool.