Nokia N810 Hands-On

In its Web 2.0 Summit event, Nokia said: “We are competing w/ Apple on all fronts and firing on all cylinders” and “We have very deep philosophical differences with Apple… we’re open” (

Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager

). That is not a surprising message from the cell phone leader to a skillful new challenger – at least things are clear now.

In the full post, you will get details about, the availability and the longer term strategy of Nokia. Please also check our first Nokia N810 article that contains the specs.

Battery life (according to Nokia) 

• 2 days of “normal use” (err… define what is normal use) 
• 4 hours of intense use 
• 5 days in stand-by mode

Browser
Mozilla-based browser

Release Date
Sometime in November for the US ($479) and European (450 Euros) market.

No cellphone capability
Nokia said: “We have created a Clean Internet Device. There is no communication legacy that would introduce compromise”. However Nokia later hinted that it would be quite easy to add a cellphone radio.

This is Step 3 of 5
Interestingly enough, Nokia mentioned that the N810 was the third of a “five-steps” strategy aiming at bringing such connected devices from “super-geeky” to “consumer-friendly”.

User Interface
It is a little disappointing that the user interface design still has icons and elements that are so small that the use of the stylus is required. I personally dislike using one ever since I got my first iPaq PDA and I can only hope that touch-interfaces will become more finger-friendly.

Form Factor
I heard a few people complain that the N810 is much larger than the iPhone and to be honest, it is. While this makes the web browsing experience arguably better, it probably hurts the portability, and by “portability” I mean that it should fit in my (pants) pocket. 

The Nokia N810 will likely have a following, just like previous editions, but it’s unlikely to generate the same fever than the iPhone does.

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Cellphones, Computers, Top Stories