Nokia N810 internet tablet

Nokia's approach for the N810 is pretty simple: phone screens aretoo small for decent web browsing, so surely a separate portable devicethat has a bigger screen and Wi-Fi connectivity is needed for seriousportable web access.
Nokia hasn't regarded size and weight as such restrictive factors.At 228g the metal-cased N810 certainly isn't light, nor at 128 x 72 x14mm is it small. On the upside, it's very well bolted together and hasa very high quality feel to it. If it was any smaller, the 4.13in, 800x 480, 65,536-colour screen wouldn't fit.

Nokia N810: not a phone, OK?

A quick fiddle with the externals reinforces the impression thatthis is not a budget device. Slide the top of the 810 up and a fullQwerty keyboard is revealed, and quite a keyboard it is, looking andfeeling like the keyboard on a HTC TyTn only twice as big and twice as easy to type on. The fold away metal stand is a nice touch too.
The heart of the N810 is a Linux-derived OS called OS2008. As far asoperating systems go it's nothing too flash but it does the job with aminimum of confusion and ambiguity, and more to the point does itquickly. Basic system navigation is performed using a series of tabsand menus accessed on the touch screen. Two further controls on thefront left of the device are used, respectively, to bring up a list ofcurrently active applications and to move you back through the currentmenu tree. All in all it's pretty intuitive and a piece of cake to use.
Set up is ball-bouncingly straightforward. Within moments of openingthe box we had the N810 talking to the office WLAN and the home screenset to show a BBC World RSS newsfeed, a web link to the Register Hardwarehome page, a Google search window, the time and a link to the RadioParadise web stream. We even found some themes and colours we likedonce we'd installed the latest firmware from Nokia.

Of course, some potential users may also ask why in this age ofrelatively cheap pay-as-you-go cellular net access a SIM card slot wasnot included purely for mobile data access. It'd be a good question too.

Thankfully, the N810 features a 3.5mm headphone jack rather than a proprietary one

Nokia claims the battery will last up to four hours with the WLAN onand the screen alight, ten hours when just playing music, or 14 dayswhen the N810 is on standby. In other words, depending on what you dowith it anything from four hours to two weeks.
We charged ours up, made sure both the Wi-Fi receiver and Bluetoothwas switched on and ran it for just shy of 30 hours before it packed in.

In that time we spent a few hours browsing the web, listened to anhour or two of our favourite internet radio station, Triple R, playedsome chess, did a bit of instant messaging, checked our email andwatched about 30 minutes of Frontline. A balanced usage portfolio if you ask us.
VerdictTaken at face value, Nokia's N810 not a bad box of tricks. Forsurfing the web, email and as an internet communication device it is ahandy little gadget, while the operating system is easy to use, featurerich and robust. The relative abundance of software is another plus.But that lack of a SIM slot does niggle just a bit.