The N810 is the most accomplished pocket internet device to date. Yes I am including the iPhone in that assessment too. Having owned both for more than six months I can definitely say that the N810 has much more to recommend it than the iPhone – for internet use anyway.
However the N810 is far from perfect as a device and there are several issues that Nokia must address in the next version to ensure that it stays ahead of the MID and Smartphone crowd with its Internet Tablet range.
Firstly battery life. This just isn’t good enough for this sort of device – about two and a half to three hours of usage. Not nearly enough to manage a whole working day away from power, even with judicious use of the power switch. Usable battery life needs a minimum of a 50% boost before this can be considered an acceptable everyday use device. Four and a half hours as an absolute minimum. Ideally somewhere closer to six.
Still thinking about battery life and usability away from the mains it should be possible to warm-swap the battery for a new one. Now this requires the use of a small cell to power the device whilst the change is made, but this only needs to cover a period of 30-60 seconds depending on how easy it is to swap cells. This makes it feasible to carry multiple batteries for those times that you aren’t going to be able to charge from a wall socket for extended periods of time, but still want access to the functions of the device. An obvious link here would be the provision of a standalone battery charger to allow charging of multiple batteries for just such a purpose.
Finally on the power front the connection socket for the power adapter should be changed to a standard USB connection – micro- or mini-USB – and should handle synchronisation too. This is much more convenient and if you find yourself stranded without power any USB port and readily available USB lead will get you out of a jam.
Another hardware change that Nokia needs to implement is an adjustment to the sliding mechanism which reveals the keyboard. The gap between the top row of keys and the bottom of the screen when open is too small and this makes typing un-necessarily difficult. As the keyboard is one of the big selling points of the N810 that should really have been picked up before it got to manufacturing. Another flaw in the N810’s design is the positioning of the 5 way controller beneath the slide. This would be much more useful if available when the device is closed.
With these hardware issues addressed I believe that Nokia can move the Internet Tablet into a different league of performance than its rivals. Which leaves only the software side of things to sort out – and I’ll discuss that in part 2.
Filed under: Nokia Internet Tablet | Tagged: Hardware, maemo 5, n810, update
