Pictures blatantly stolen from Nokia website, too lazy to take pics.
When I first got the Nokia N810 last week for trials, my first impression of the product was that it was a looker. I was impressed with the device for having touch screen with a thumb keyboard that slides own from the device and a built-in GPS receiver.
Though it is smaller than the predecessor N800, it is still not really a pocket fit. That's partly due to the 4.1in screen. I do not previously used an N800, so I can't comment on the difference. So its purely a first time usage review.
I was impressed with the form factor that Nokia has placed the buttons around to make it more user-friendly and more attractive. The directional pad is placed to the left of the keyboard on the sliding panel. The menu button is right below the directional pad. The escape and home buttons are on the front of the device, that flushes along the left side. The round power button is at the top center, with a sliding lock added to the right of the power button. To the left of it are the zoom buttons and the full-screen button. So there are lots of hard buttons around to improve the user experience.
The headphone and power adapter jacks are located on the right side of the device just beneath the stylus. The one thing which is not user friendly is the stand, which blocks the USB port and memory card slot when closed. And this makes removing the battery cover a hassle. The USB port is not the usual miniUSB, so that's another cable to bring along on business trips. I do not understand why they can't just make it universal.
The N810's external memory card slot is designed for MiniSD and MicroSD cards rather than standard SD cards which I was hoping to dump my old unwanted SD card in there to boost the small memory it has onboard. It has a primary Flash storage of 256mb for the maemo Linux-based OS2008, with another insufficient 2Gb of built in secondary flash memory.
With Nokia offering N95 8Gb or N81 8Gb, I would expect at least an 8Gb for the N810 to be able to store at least some music and movies to be able to bring along on business trips. A good point to note is that the 128Mb DDR RAM is good enough to load fully my Facebook profile with all the applications at hand which I cannot perform on the N95. It is even sufficient to do minor photo or picture editing before uploading it on Flickr or my blog. But the embedded webcam resolution is insufficient to take decent pictures, and is more apt for video conferencing.
An impressive note is there is an ambient light sensor which is located above the webcam which supposedly automatically adjusts screen brightness and keyboard backlighting!
I managed a short post about the N810 for my blog before my fingers start getting tired. Notably the keyboard has control key which allows shortcuts, and the layout is QWERTY but without a number row to cut down on the space usage. The keyboard is rather sensitive, and might need a bit of time getting used to, as I keep double typing without the proper feedback I would expect.
I prefer using the software keyboard and handwriting methods of text entry for short notes.
Perhaps the most attractive thing on the N810 appearance would be the notification light that flashes in various colors to indicate certain events.
The use interface looks simple and elegant but with just 2 themes available, it is quite lacking, but we can change the background wallpaper with our own pictures. Hope to find more themes available online if I had more trial time. The status icons in the notification area are minimalist and are mostly white located at the top right which is easy on the eye.
But disappointingly, the trial set does not come with Chinese language support as well as Chinese keyboard support. I guess there should be some Chinese support package available but the trial period is too short for the hassle.
Even downloading the updated OS2008 which is about 120mb and the various programs such as Skype is not available on the trial set.
With WiFi 802.11b/g, I was able to easily access Wireless@SG at many locations. With the integrated microphone we can actually make free Skype calls from the device. But unfortunately, there was a lack of video support in Skype, which makes the webcam virtually useless.
Watching YouTube on N810 is a little laggy, losing frames all the time, not sure if its due to the Wireless connection or the device itself. But still good enough to watch though.
The videos playback on the N810 with the sample videos appear to be smooth with surprisingly good sound via the speakers. I paired my Sony bluetooth headset to listen to the mp3s, it is decent, almost the same quality as my N95.
I was able to send fairly big files and pictures from my mobile to the N810 quickly, but the storage quickly ran out due to the limited storage space.
There are still not much free applications available for the N810 and the limited trial period did not allow me to try out other Linux applications from being installed on the N810.
Lastly would be the GPS and Maps function I would try. With such a big screen, it would be nice to hook it up in the car and navigate around Singapore. The on screen zoom functions are quite handy, and using fingers to control the Maps is easy. Holding a stylus while driving would be quite difficult. However, the application is quite different from the Nokia Maps loaded in N95, and connecting to the GPS takes quite a while.
Conclusions on the N810 would be that as it is not really a mobile phone though we can make Internet/VOIP calls from it, it is sufficient as a web browser, email, media player. But more storage space is preferred, and with many other devices competing in this market, it would be advantageous if more office applications are available to replace PDAs completely with this device. For now the similarly Linux based Asus Eee PC looks rather attractive as well.
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