Nokia N810 Internet Tablet review

The individual buttons are fairly large, but there's very little spacing between the keys, which makes it cramped. In addition, the top row is lined closely with the bottom of the front cover, so our thumbs endured a few hits.

The keys are also soft to press and didn't give us the best tactile feedback. To the left of the keyboard, there is the aforementioned navigation toggle and a menu button. The former is cramped, and if you want to press upward, you're going to run into the same problem of hitting the bottom of the screen with your thumb.

We love the addition of a full Qwerty keyboard but found it to be cramped

The top of the unit has a key for minimising/maximising the screen, a zoom in and out/volume rocker, a power button, a lock switch and the stylus. Along the right spine, you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack and power connector, and there are speakers on both sides of the device. On the bottom, there's the miniSD card expansion slot and the battery cover release.

Like the N800, there's a kickstand so you can prop up the N810 on a flat surface, but we found that when we went to put it back, the kickstand would sometimes catch the edge of the expansion slot cover and pull it open.

Features
The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet is about Internet on the go and touts itself as a Web 2.0-friendly device. As with previous models, the N810 relies on Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) technology for connectivity, or you can pair the device with your Bluetooth-enabled phone and use your mobile network.

The included Nokia browser is now based on Mozilla technology with Adobe Flash 9 plug-in and Ajax support, for access to all your favorite Web 2.0 sites like Google Docs, Flickr, Facebook and so forth, plus RSS feeds.

The N810 ships with Nokia's latest Internet Tablet 2008 operating system, based on Linux platform Maemo 4.0, and brings some of the interface improvements mentioned in the Design section. Built-in applications and utilities include a file manager, a PDF reader, a notepad, a clock, a calculator and an X Terminal client.

Unfortunately, we're once again disappointed by the lack of PIM tools, such as a calendar, which would go a long way for making the N810 more versatile and marketable to a broader audience. That said, there are plenty of third-party applications out there, thanks to N810's open platform.

For email, the N810 supports POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP accounts. During initial setup, a wizard walks you through the steps for accessing your account, but we think the process could be easier. There are also advanced settings so that the device automatically retrieves your messages on a regular basis, plays a sound when new messages arrive, removes messages older than a specified number of days and so on. There are instant messaging applications preloaded on the handheld, though they're limited at this point to just Google Talk and Jabber.

Voice communication will have to come by way of VoIP calls since there's no mobile technology built into the handheld. Once again, Google Talk and Jabber are onboard but now you also have access to Skype and Gizmo. We made a couple of calls using our Skype account, and had no problems making or receiving calls and chats. Check out the Performance section for a full report.