Palm Discovery would like to extend a BIG THANKS to Donna for providing a trial product for this review.

As with many of my device reviews, this review will be broken down into several parts to make it easier to read.

In Part 1, I will be going over the basics and specs of the device

In Part 2, I will be providing the video reviews that go over the platform and software

In Part 3, I will provide my observations and final thoughts.

This is Part 3 where I will be providing some of my observations which cover both what I like and dislike about the device and my final thoughts.

Here are my observations:

My Likes:

Large Storage

Coming from a Treo 650 and 750, I was in heaven when I found out that the N810 had 2GB of Internal storage and 256MB of Flash memory. It was so nice to be able to install programs without worrying about running out of space.

Screen

First, I’ll be discussing what I personally like about this device. I am very impressed with the quality and size of the screen. Coming from a square screen candybar style devices, it is definitely eye opening to view everything on a larger screen. I fell in love with the screen immediately.

Audio Jack

Again, coming from smartphones like the Treo 650 and 750 where I have to purchase special stereo headphones with the 2.5mm jack, it’s quite nice to be able to plug in a regular 3.5mm jack headphone into the device. I was actually strange to be able to do so since I was so used to the 2.5mm jack.

Widgets

The Home view which is like a Today screen in Windows Mobile supports Widgets which are a great addition to the main page. I like how the widgets can be easily moved simply by dragging it around the screen. Especially with the RSS feed widget, which I truly love, it’s very nice to have it automatically update at set intervals so that I have update news items appearing on the screen. Unfortunately, there are not more widgets available. Unlike the Today screen where I can add shortcuts to frequently used applications, I can’t seem to find a way to set and add shortcuts to the Home Screen. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment on this.

Copy and Paste

Although the copy and paste feature is available, it is normally accessed either from the “File” menu near the top left corner of the application (somewhat similar to Palm OS) or via the Menu button near the bottom left corner of the slide out keyboard. This may be a bit cumbersome or hindrance to have to slide out the keyboard first for that feature. In this respect, Windows Mobile is nice with its tap and hold pop up menu where you can select the Copy and Paste. To each OS there are strengths and weaknesses.

Desk Stand

The desk stand can really make the N810 stand out (pardon the pun) on your desk. It can really change how you look at the Internet Tablet device as it really shows it off in a beautiful way. But, unfortunately, the stand can get in the way when I need to have access to the microUSB port.

Always connected Wi-Fi

This is one of the main features I truly love about this device. The Wi-Fi is always connected, even if I leave the device around for over an hour. Unlike smartphones where it will time out, the internet is always on, thus, the Internet Tablet name. Along the same note, it’s also very nice to have the Power light flash when the device is still running, to indicate that it isn’t off even when the screen is blanked. This is another great feature.

Also, once I’m connected, it seems that the N810 was able to access the other computers on my network, which is kind of scary in my view since I didn’t make any changes on my network to allow shares to the N810.

GPS

Without a doubt, having built-in GPS is definitely a huge feature. You don’t need to be lost to understand the usefulness of a GPS device. The N810 comes with the USA maps installed and you can quickly zoom in on an area down to individual street level and find businesses nearby. Unfortunately, since I’m located in Canada, I was not able to utilize it but I’m sure had I purchased a Canadian map that I would have experienced similar features.

microUSB to USB cable

Another huge feature of the N810 in my view is the direct access to the device via the microUSB to USB cable. Unlike other devices where I have to install and purchase a third party software to access the files on the device, I simply connect the cable to the N810 and the computer and I have access.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, there are a few things I want to explain. To move a file that is stored in the internal memory let’s say a picture to the computer, I first have to move or copy the file over to the Internal Memory. Then, I plug in the cables and access those files in the Removable Drive

Yes, it’s a multistep process but it works and it doesn’t cost me a thing.

(added Oct 30): I also forgot to mention that the N810 is also a host device, meaning that peripherals connected the microUSB can be controlled by the Internet Tablet! So, if you can plug in a device to the N810, you can use and control it like it’s a computer, very different from Palm and other PDA devices which are “slave” devices. Thanks to zehjotkah for mentioning this!

My Dislikes

That is pretty much most of the features I like about the N810. Here are some things that cover the areas and features I do not like about the N810.

Camera

The camera on the N810 was surprisingly disappointing. First, I was disappointed to discover that the N810 camera couldn’t capture video. (Edited Oct 30th): Thanks to zehjotkah in the comments, it looks like the camera can capture video and also that the camera can be accessed via the XTerm application. But, the camera’s quality is an issue regardless of its capabilities.

I was also disappointed when I found out that the camera captured in VGA (640×480) resolution which was the same as my Treo 650 (640×480) but the quality was worse than my Treo’s. Not only were the colors not terribly warm, the camera did not perform very well in less than bright environments, even so far to show specks or even blocks of color in the image.

To add to the camera quality, I was frustrated to find that the camera was fixed at the front instead of the back, which most other PDAs and smartphones have and it was placed off to the top far left corner of the device. Having a front facing camera may be nice to take self portraits but if I wanted to take a picture of something, it is excruciatingly difficult to position the camera to snap the photo since I need to see how the picture will turn out by peeking at the screen, but doing so could add me in the picture or even have the picture turn out imbalanced. To give you an idea of what I mean, please refer back to a video I’ve made showing how difficult it is to snap a picture with the frontal camera of the N810 found in Part 2.

(Edited Oct 30th): Looks like the camera is meant more for video chat and calls rather than capturing pictures and video that I was expecting. So, there is obviously a good reason for having the camera facing you.

So, as you can see, having a frontal camera is definitely a HUGE mistake. Plus the camera quality isn’t very good. For me, someone who enjoys taking pictures with my smartphone or PDA device, a lackluster camera is a big minus and unfortunately, the N810 is scoring some negative points in this category. Aside from the camera, another disappointing feature of the N810 is the keyboard, which is another important aspect of a device for me personally.

Keyboard

Although the virtual keyboard is quite good with word completion suggestions like many other virtual keyboard softwares out there, my personal experience with many different virtual keyboards is that they are not as accurate as physical keys and I find that it can be frustrating to waste time correcting the mistakes.

After saying that, unfortunately, the physical slide out keyboard isn’t that much better. I admit that I can be very picky about keyboards so please keep that in mind. Even with the physical keyboard on this Nokia N810, I still experienced a lot of mistakes when inputting text or data into the device. I was quite surprised since I was expecting the opposite. Here are some of what I personally found that decreased my satisfaction of this particular keyboard.

First, the navigation buttons along with the menu button underneath it were placed off to the left side, thus pushing the QWERTY keys over to the right. Being someone who was quite familiar with thumb keyboard inputs on candy bar style devices like the Treo 650 and 750, where I’d hold the device and wrap around it with both hands on each side, being forced to shift the hands to compensate for the shifted keys did not make it easy. Had the navigation and menu buttons been placed in the center and thus balancing the keys on both sides, it could have made it easier.

Second, for whatever reason that I personally can not understand, it seems that many slide out keyboards (although a great idea) are not laid out similar to the desktop keyboards. Instead, many of them (most likely due to space restrictions) are laid out in a rectangular fashion with the A and Z keys directly lined up in a straight line underneath the Q. Being someone who is familiar with the desktop keyboard layout, it also makes it a bit difficult to get used to. I know that with the Treo keys that they are also lined up directly in a line underneath, but they are laid out in an arc which makes it easier to correctly press on the keys and lessen the chance of pressing an adjacent key.

Third, on a similar note, the keys are not very evenly spaced out, which could also decrease typing mistakes due to the same reasons I’ve mentioned previously. Had it been similar to desktop keyboard keys where only part of the keys are normally touched or felt, it could have improved on the typing experience.

Fourth, again on a similar note, the individual keys are not very easy to press. Unlike the Treo keys which are normally raised so that the fingers can easily feel the individual keys and press on it directly, the keys on the N810 and many other slide out keyboards are not very easy to feel. Most times, I require a very conscious effort to press down to input a character. This does not make it comfortable or easy to use. To add to the dissatisfaction, having to correct the mistakes also adds to the frustration and as someone who prefers to use the keyboard to input text, this breaks it for me personally.

Finally, the Function (Fn) key on the lower left corner should have been switched with the left Shift keys since I find that I use the left Shift key much more often than the Fn key. Personally, I was having difficulty remembering that I was pressing the Fn key instead of the Shift key when typing.

Software and Platform

Besides the keyboard, there are other notes I want to touch on. Although the N810 came with the camera, I was surprised that I needed to download and install the camera software to use it as I expected it to have come with the software. As well, to access internet radio streams, I needed to download and install Streamtuner as the default media player did not support playback of the streams.

This also brings me to another point that I consider quite important. I am aware that the N810 is somewhat relatively new and with a different OS platform with the Maemo OS2008. And with that, it’s obvious that the number of applications available will be much smaller than the more established platforms like Windows Mobile, Palm OS, etc. Checking out the Maemo OS2008 downloads website gives me a total of 265 applications available. Although that is not a terribly small number, I was quite surprised that there were not many PIM applications for calendar or Office applications for word processing and spreadsheets. Perhaps, could it be that the Linux platform, being open source is not enticing developers to come up with software since there is not much of an incentive to develop them as opposed to other platforms where he can charge for his efforts? I’m not sure.

I certainly would not hesitate to purchase third party software if they are available and they suit my needs. In many ways, I hope that the platform can expand with more software choices available as I believe that a software platform’s success is largely based on the community of third party software developers.

Again, on a related note, after browsing through the applications for this platform, I was quite disappointed that there were a lack of PIM applications and office applications like spreadsheet, word processing, etc. I personally consider that of utmost importance and again, with few choices, it also puts another notch in the minus column for me.

miniSD slot

The miniSD card slot can be somewhat difficult to access since I first need to open up the desk stand to access it. Second, I need to use my fingernails to pry the door open. The main hindrance is the door as I am limited to a minimal amount of space to insert the miniSD card into the slot and push it in similar to other card slots until I feel the spring push in. Again, when removing the card, I need to press on the card to have it spring out before being able to remove it. I find it quite an annoyance.

Other items of note include the Power button which requires a precise press of the fingernail to turn on or off, lack of a reset button, no “hard/factory reset” feature available. Again, being a newbie with respect to the Maemo OS2008 platform and the N810, it’s likely I am not aware that there are ways to do a hard reset. I simply ended up draining the battery and leaving it out for a while in hope that it will “hard reset”. Perhaps again, if someone more knowledgeable may be able to shed some light on this, please leave a comment below.

Overall, my personal view of this device is that as an Internet Tablet, which is used for accessing the web and multimedia playback (especially for movies, videos), with built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, this is a very good device. Unfortunately, I was expecting more and came up a bit disappointed, which I believe is really my own fault. I was expecting this device to be a smartphone, similar to what’s on my Treo 750 or even Treo 650 with built-in office applications, PIM apps and was surprised that I needed to download and install from the limited choices of programs available.

The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet could have been the ultimate device which offered practically everything in a relatively portable size had it offered more smartphone features. Instead it came up short with limited built-in applications especially PIM and office apps and lack of a built-in phone. The keyboard had it been better laid out with more spacing between the keys and raised keys to make it easier for effortless pressing, this could have been an amazing all-in-one device that could rival everything out there.

Review Summary

Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet is quite an amazing device that could have easily been an ultimate all-in-one smartphone device had it offered just a few more features. The N810 lacked a built-in phone, office and PIM applications that could enhance its smartphone like feel with the strength of the slide out keyboard. Without those, the device falls short of going beyond a decent screen sized PDA with built-in Wi-Fi and GPS. It is very unfortunate as I personally like this device even my numerous observations and critiques. As mentioned, the problem may be a combination of the lack of available Linux Maemo OS2008 applications, the lack of built-in and downloadable office and PIM applications, with my dislike of the keyboard which prevents me from considering this device as an upgrade for my Treo 750. This certainly is a very interesting and promising device and I look forward to more like it in this space, from Nokia and other manufacturers.

Sigh. My search for the ultimate portable all-in-one smartphone device continues. Hopefully, as I do more reviews of Nokia smartphones that I may find something that will fit what I want. It is certainly a breath of fresh air to be able to experience a different device and platform from what I’m used to. This is something I really enjoy and I hope that I can review more different devices with different platforms in the future. I am always ready and willing to try out any device from any platform if provided with the chance. So, Apple, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, LG, BenQ, and everyone else out there, contact me if you wish me to help you promote your device to the world! Er, okay, at least to the Palm Discovery viewers community, anyway.

Please check out the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet over at the Nokia USA website here, or the Nokia Europe website here for more information!

Enjoyed this review? Check out the many other Palm Discovery pda and smartphone reviews here.

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: archives categories hardware-review nokia nokia-n810 n810 internet-tablet internettablet wifi wi-fi maemo linux os2008 maemo-os2008 reviews