Cool-Stuff Reviews: Nokia Internet Tablet N800

Welcome to a new N-series of Nokia products, the N800. It's designed to stay online so you can enjoy the benefits of the internet, whether you are at home or on the go. Browse your favorite sites. Stay in touch with the people your love with internet calling. Chat with your friends. Check your emails. Relax with your favorite songs and videos.

Hardware
The Nokia N800 feels quite rigid, with enough force you can make it creak slightly. Currently, the Nokia N800 only comes in one color solution, a combination of silver and black.

Speakers - The stereo speakers are located on both sides of the display. Nokia put a lot of love into these speakers, they are ridiculously good. It is pleased to report the Nokia N800 does not have either of these problems, either the volume was too faint or the speaker would crackle at high volume levels, good job Nokia!

Display - With a display size of 4.1-inches at a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, the display is among one of the sharpest in the portable device category. The color range is another story, it only displays 65K colors, which is rather low for today’s standards. The low color range will only become noticeable when viewing photos or movies where there is a gradual change in color, such as an image of a sky, where there is many shades of blue.

Size - The Nokia N800 is significantly smaller than the PSP, especially in thickness. The actual dimensions of the Nokia N800 are 3.95 x 5.67 x 0.51 inches (75 x 144 x 13 mm) and weighs 7.27 ounces (206 g).

Controls - The two forms of user input come from the hardware controls found on the left side and the touch screen. Having all the hardware controls on one side is ideal for 2-handed operation, touch screen operated by the right hand via stylus and hardware controls with the left hand. All keys give good tactile feedback and a light sound of a click when pressed.

The square shaped button acts as a 5-way D-pad used to scroll through the interface. Below the D-pad rest the escape, menu and swap buttons, in order from top to bottom. The escape button denoted by the curved arrow, returns user to previous screen when pressed, if held the current window will be closed and user will be returned to home screen. The menu button displays a context menu, options in menu will change depending on what application you are using. The swap key is used for switching between applications, when held the current application running is minimized and user will return to home screen.

Stylus - The stylus acts a lot like a mouse would. Users can drag and drop items, hold stylus to display to bring up context-sensitive menus, highlight multiple files by dragging stylus over groups of items.

Camera - The camera is used for video calls, capable of 640 x 480 resolution. When the camera is ejected with a press, the video application automatically loads, so there’s no need to fumble through the menus. Don’t expect stellar results from this video camera, the video quality is rather poor, noise is very apparent even in excellent lighting conditions. The camera can also be rotated a full 180 degrees.

Storage - The Nokia N800 has two memory stick slots, the external one is found on the bottom right while the internal is positioned to the left of the battery. Supported memory stick types are as follows; SD, MicroSD, MiniSD, MMC, and RS-MMC. Maximum capacity for a single memory stick is 2GB, so overall memory capacity can reach 4GB. There is a key difference between the external and internal memory, the internal can be used as virtual memory while the external cannot.

Applications

The Nokia N800 runs a modified version of Debian Linux, Maemo 3.0, better known as Internet Tablet OS 2007. I rarely see companies embrace the open source community the way Nokia has. Instead of shunning these “hackers” they gave them the tools to develop applications for Internet Tablet OS 2007.

More details on the N800 can be found on Nokia's web site

Package Contents