At this week's Consumer Electronics Show, Nokia introduced the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, the successor to the Nokia 770. The N800 is more than a beefed-up 770, as it adds a few features not available on the first device. I had a chance to spend about an hour with Nokia's N800 team and get a feel for how the $399/€399 N800 stacks up against its predecessor yesterday at CES and it looks promising.
First, the hardware: Nokia appears to have gotten that right this time. The CPU is a 330MHz TI OMAP 2420, 80MHz faster than the N770's CPU. RAM has been doubled to 128MBand it's SDRAMwith an additional 256MB of Flash RAM. In contrast to the 770's single RS-MMC slot, the N800 has two internal memory card slots capable of handling SD, MicroSD, MiniSD, MMC, along with holdover RS-MMC. Cards of up the 2GB are supported, giving the N800 much more headroom than the 770. The new tablet also has a built-in stand, a large improvement over the clumsy stand included with the 770.
The N800 has the same beautiful 800x480 display of the 770 and adds a 640x480 video camera for video conferencing via Yahoo Messenger. Connectivity comes via 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, and USB 2.0. Like the 770, the N800 comes with Opera 8 (with Flash 7), an RSS reader, instant messaging, e-mail, media player, RSS feed reader, and VoIP capability. Nokia and Skype also announced a partnership with the VoIP company committing to deliver client for the N800 by mid-year.
Sari Lönnqvist of Nokia's N800 team walked me through the N800's new features while giving me plenty of opportunity to try it out myself. Overall, the unit feels like a big improvement over the 770. When I reviewed the older unit, I found it to be slow and underpowered. In contrast, the N800 feels much more responsive. The faster CPU, doubled RAM, and new OS (Internet Tablet 2007 OS) appear to have made a big difference, especially when it comes to multitasking
The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet
The most impressive new features for the N800 were the video streaming and GPS capabilities. Using a wireless router and a the N800 was able to play video streamed from a PC and act as a remote control to control video played on another device.
GPS functionality comes courtesy of the Nokia Navigation Kit, which has been available in Europe for a few months now. Developed by Navicore, the GPS unit connects to the N800 via Bluetooth with the maps stored on an SD card. The interface was very impressive, comparable with standalone GPS devices like the Garmin Nuvi 660.
In addition to adding Skype functionality, Nokia also will partner with RealNetworks to support the company's Rhapsody music service. If you don't want to roll with Rhapsody, the N800 handles AAC, MP3, and WMA Internet radio streams, just like its predecessor.
When I originally reviewed the 770 in December 2005, I lamented its sluggishness and unrealized potential. Based on the hour I spent with the N800 today, my first impressions are that Nokia has addressed many of the 770's shortcomings. Once I get back from CES, I'm going to dig into the N800 with a full review.
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