Nokia N810 Portable Internet Tablet

• Web 2.0 internet experience with Mozilla based browser, also works with Google Talk, and Gizmo
• 4.1-inch LCD wide touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard
• Stream and store MP3s and videos with high quality stereo sound
• 2 GB onboard memory, which expands via miniSD, and microSD cards (with a minSD extender) (but NOT with regular Secure Digital cards)
• Integrated GPS receiver

I bought the N810 (had been considering the N800 a long time) and this really is a great internet tablet.

I think Nokia has it right in no tmaking it a phone too (and locked down). Firstly the wifi is super on this and detects wifi better than my laptop.

The OS is very fast and spiffy and the software feels like its running on a desktop fast.

You can connect to 3G thru the phone over bluetooth (provided you have a data plan) and that gives me always connected and on status. I call my parents in India now ofrom any place using Gizmo, or Google talk . Its a great tablet for VoIP. Just have to wait some more for Skype to also work on this soon.

As a music player and Video player its superb. Great album art also included in some apps like Kagu and UKMP. Though the music quality is a wee bit lacking in comparison to a good mp3 player (like my iRiver).

It's not a PDA, so many of regular PDA apps are missing but again thanks to open source community (and to Nokia for making it an open device) you can install some basic PIM apps too.

Best of all is internet browsing for people who need access to the web a lot while being mobile THSI IS THE DEVICE. Support flash very well (and hence Youtube too).

And lastly the screen is fabulous. Very sharp and crisp and bright all web sites on the browser is very easy to read even on this small a device thanks to the screen resolution.

And lastly the GPS is good does not replace a full featured dedicated GPS device but good for a handy GPS navigation.

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I upgraded from the N770 to the N810 and am very impressed. For the average user, it provides a Firefox-based web browser with Flash 9, capable of displaying all modern web sites, unheard of for a mobile device. It can display, GMail, Google Docs, YouTube, Mint.com and more. It supports Google Talk, Gizmo and Skype for making voice calls over the web. The media player can display high quality full screen video. The built-in stereo speakers mean you won't be hunting for your earbuds every time you want to hear some music. Software updates can be performed on the device, without help from a computer. Internet access is available through wifi or a Bluetooth connection to a web-enabled phone. I've read many reviewers that don't like the keyboard. It is a bit short and butts up against the screen, but you easily get used to it after a few hours. In any case, it beats the iPhone's virtual keyboard and the Blackberry's tiny keypad any day. Having actual backlit keys that you can actually touch and actually press down without your thumbs smurging onto other keys by accident is rewarding. The GPS is not slow, but the receiver is quite weak. You must have a very clear view of the sky to use it.

Those who want more from the N810 can enable the "maemo Extras" repository in the application manager. That gives you access to great software, including Maemo Mapper, a free GPS mapping program, Pidgin multi client IM app, Canola media center, Video Center video podcast client, plenty of games and more. Try to get FBReader too. It's a wonderful ebook reader.

I love this device and use it daily. In fact, I wrote this review on it ;-)

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I bought a N770 a couple years ago, and it had a dead pixel (but I didn't return it). I ordered N810 2 weeks ago, and it also had a dead pixel. This time, I returned the N810 not only because of the dead pixel, but also because of many usability problems.

The two primary reasons I bought the N810 were the slide-out keyboard and the built-in GPS. The slide-out keyboard is good for finger typing (rather than using a stylus tapping on the touch screen as in N770), but it creates several problems. First, since the four-way rocker key is on the keyboard, I don't like the fact that I cannot use the four way rocker to scroll the screen up and down unless I also expose the keyboard (The menu button is also on the keyboard; but you can use the tiny on-screen menu key as a substitute). Second, the "up" key of the rocker key is so close to the edge of the screen, making it very difficult to press it (even though I have small hand). Sometimes I pressed the center "select" button inadvertently as a result. Third, the zoom buttons and the full screen button are all located on the upper edge of the keyboard, not of the screen. If the keyboard is slided out, it is difficult to access the zoom buttons and the full-screen button.

The GPS is VERY slow to detect the satellites. I understand that GPS needs to take more time to detect the satellites for the first time. But I never thought it would take THAT long. I have owned two generations of bluetooth GPS over the last four years, the GPS performance of the N810 is either comparable or worse than my older version.

The video (playing youtube) is acceptable. However, I downloaded a 720 x 320 pixel MP4 video, and N810 said it doesn't accept this resolution.

If you agree that the keyboard problems are relevant to your usage habit, and the GPS is not acceptable if it is too slow, then you should consider buying the N800 which does everything like N810 (N800 does not have keyboard and GPS). N800 also allows you to put more internal memory than N810. I just ordered one and it is about $200 cheaper.

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I have now had my N810 for a week and still love it.

It does come with several applications that will get you running from the time you get it out of the box. But there are many-many more available, some replacements, but many add functionality.

I connected to my home Wi-Fi within minutes, and have tried it out in many hot spots without any trouble. The GPS locks on in the same amount of time as my hand held GPS.

I am still working on getting podcasts to feed automatically, but see that the installed video player will do that.

Kudos:

Small form factor (Why I bought this over the Asus EEE-Pc.)

Great battery life (4-6 hours use, 6 days standby with minor tweaking.)

Good keyboard; in the open mode, full screen and half screen.

Handwriting recognition takes practice but works well. (It messes up in the xterm program however.)

Built in stand also serves as hand loop.

Perceived Faults:

Volume is too low in playback mode with anything other than the built in video player.

It would be good to have a tether point for an optional wrist-strap.

Camera is not very high resolution.

Recommended add-ons:

Better case (Nintendo DS-Lite cases work very well.)

Auto charger (Nokia phone charger with the small plug.)

Mini SD card for multi-media content.

Screen protector sheet.

Bluetooth Headset. (I use the Jabra-BT8010.)

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Update: (A few weeks later.)

I have found that the video center program will work well with podcasts. (I combine it with Yahoo Pipes to consolidate about 10 feeds into 2.) Battery life is very dependent upon your use. If you turn off WiFi, you will get a lot more time in use and standby. Offline mode works very well to do this when you don't need bluetooth and wifi (Listening with headphones, reading e-books.) otherwise you can set it to only look for wifi when you need to and leave the bluetooth on.

There is more software out there than you should ever need, as this is linux based, nearly everything is possible. I still haven't tried Skype, but have no need for it at this time. One of the greatest uses I have put this to is portable network access, I just SSH to a server and run whatever I need it to.

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Update: 6 Months later.

Still in love, I hardly use my laptop anymore. While the GPS does take a while to get it's fix if you are moving it works very well for GeoCaching. Plenty of battery life for 2 hours of movie watching on a flight plus reading e-text books for several hours. I have now used it for skype and am happy with the way it works. While I do have trouble listening to Pandora.com with it (Bandwidth issues at home,) I do use it to listen to my Ampache server flawlessly over wifi at my home.

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Update: a few years later...

I have since retired this device and moved to an Android tablet. More software and support for Android.

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I bought the Nokia N810 as a PDA replacement, which, strictly speaking, is not what Nokia sells it to do. Out of the box, it has a solid feel, and the keyboard slider does not feel like it's going to fall apart unlike some other products with similar features.

The focus of this device is Internet access, and Nokia integrated 802.11b/g support, which works very well. Internet access via cellular telephones is a different story. For some reason, Nokia chose to implement Bluetooth DUN, rather than Bluetooth PAN. BT DUN is an older (most people consider it to be obsolete) protocol that Microsoft recently removed from the default Windows Mobile 6 build. BT PAN is much more widely accepted, and is a far superior choice. Only time will tell if Nokia decides to add the updated protocol. There IS a connectivity option for buyers with non-Nokia phones. A product called PDANet allows newer telephones without BT DUN support to speak to devices that only support BT DUN. This is a commercial product, but is well worth the money if you have a new phone. I have used this product for several weeks, and can confirm that it works as advertised. If you have a phone that does not support BT DUN, I strongly recommend buying PDANet before you recieve the N810. This will allow you to complete the initial configuration wizard on the N810.

As far as other features, the N810 screen is very nice, with a bright backlight. The screen is easily readable, even in sunlight. The built-in speaker is decent, but you will want to use the included headphones to listen to anything that you actually care about hearing. The keyboard is a little tough to use, due to the tension in the keys, but it is okay once you get used to it. The processor is capable, and loading times for applications is reasonable. The GPS functionality works well, but you should be prepared to purchase the upgraded map application if you intend to use the N810 for navigation. One caveat with the GPS for some reason, the unit is EXTREMELY slow to obtain an initial satellite fix if you are moving. Staying still for about 2 minutes or so will allow the device to obtain (and keep) a satellite fix.

Aside from the BT DUN problem, my only gripe about the N810 is the lack of sufficient memory card expansion. The device comes with an internal 2GB memory "card" that cannot be removed/upgraded, along with a single Mini-SD card slot. This means that as of today, this device cannot handle more than 10GB total. That could be much better. In addition, the Mini-SD port is difficult to close. This port was an exceptionally poor design in my opinion.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the Nokia N810. I believe that it will serve my intended purpose very well. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it does work if you put a little effort into setting it up.