Gadgets and Gizmos

Nokia N810

Nokia N810 Internet Tablet is lineup from the Finnish handset manufacturer. Featuring a large 4.1″ touch screen with 800x480 pixel resolution and based on Maemo, a Linux based user interface, Nokia’s Internet Tablets are slowly progressing from a geek toy to a consumer device. The N810 retains many of the hardware features of the N800, such as a built-in VGA resolution camera for video calling, hardware buttons for zooming in and out on the interface, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The Nokia N810 tablet is being touted as a new phase in portable internet communication. Whether you are near a Wi-Fi hotspot or have your Bluetooth-capable mobile phone, you can take advantage of the N810 to make internet calls. The N810 features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard with touch-screen interface. There’s also a VGA camera for video conferencing. In addition, out of the box it lacks many of the features a lot of you are accustomed to in a handheld. It doesn’t come with a calendar, for example, and the N810’s address book is there to let you send people email or instant messages. You can’t put a street address into it.

The N810 may be about the size of a Palm TX, but it includes something the TX doesn’t: a keyboard. Because of its generous size this is one of the easiest to type on portable keyboards I’ve used. The primary disadvantage of the N810 running Linux is the lack of third-party software. There’s some, but if you’re a Palm OS or Windows Mobile user accustomed to thousands of titles you’re in for an adjustment period.
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The Nokia 770 is billed as an “Internet Tablet” - and in fact, it isn’t a phone at all. However, it can be seen as a logical evolution to widescreen devices such as the Nokia 7710 Smartphone.

This is an interesting device in a number of different ways. Firstly, the hardware: the Nokia 770 features a 800x480 pixel touchscreen in 65,000 colours, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and expandable memory using RS-MMC cards. There’s no GSM, GPRS or 3G connectivity here - it can be seen either as a portable device for the home or office or a rather impressive accessory for an existing Bluetooth phone.

The second interesting thing about the Nokia 770 is software. Breaking with traditions, this is not a Symbian device , although you might have expected the same version of Symbian as on the Nokia 7710, but it isn’t. Instead, the Nokia 770 is a Linux device, running a development platform called Maemo. And although Nokia hold several patents for this platform, they intent to open up access to their intellectual property to aid development.

The Nokia 770 is compatible with handsets that support the Bluetooth 1.2 specification and come with File Transfer (FT) and Dial-up networking (DUN) support. It is fully compatible for FT and DUN connectivity to the latest range of Bluetooth phones, but for older handsets such as the 6310i, 6600 and 8910i and surprisingly the N-Gage and N-Gage QD you can only use the handsets for dial-up networking, rather than file transfer.

WiFi support is for 802.11b and 802.11g wireless ethernet. We don’t know exactly what encryption levels are available though. This makes the Nokia 770 an ideal second computer for a home environment, or a very flexible tool for a variety of business applications.

Nokia has introduced its first device in the new Internet Tablet category, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, at the LinuxWorld Summit in New York.

The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is a dedicated device optimized for Internet browsing and email communications in a pocketsize format. The Internet Tablet features an 800x480 widescreen display with zoom and on-screen keyboard, useful for viewing online content over Wi-Fi. Apart from Wi-Fi, the device can also connect to the Internet utilizing Bluetooth wireless technology via a compatible mobile phone.

The device runs on Linux-based Nokia Internet Tablet 2005 software edition, which includes desktop Linux and Open Source technologies. The maemo development platform will provide Open Source developers and innovation houses with the tools and opportunities to collaborate with Nokia on future devices and OS releases in the Internet Tablet category.

Highlighted applications of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet include an Internet Radio, RSS News reader, Image viewer and Media players for selected types of media. As of now the company has said that the Internet Tablet is slated to start shipping in the third quarter of 2005 in selected countries in the Americas and Europe. There has been no mention of the pricing and its availability in other countries.

“We are very excited to introduce our first Nokia Internet Tablet device to the market. With the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet consumers can access broadband Internet services away from their desktop, for example in the backyard or at a caf within a Wi-Fi hotspot", said Janne Jormalainen, Vice President of Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia.

“Linux is a logical choice for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet as Linux and the Open Source development platform provide us with fast and efficient solutions to build products for this new, Nokia product category. This is the first step in creating an Open Source product for broadband and Internet services. We will be launching regularly updates of the software. The next software release planned for the first half of next year will support more presence based functionalities such as VoIP and Instant Messaging", said Jormalainen