Well, my n810 arrived on Wed. I’ve been using it now for 4 days, and I absolutely love it. It’s lightyears ahead of the 770 (and, presumably, the n800, although I’ve never used it outside of the store…)
My first thought, when I opened the package was “Wow, that’s small!” And it is. It’s noticably smaller than the 770. This makes it fit better, and feel better, in your hands. And, of course, it’s very very pretty. It just looks great.
Then, I opened it up, plugged it in, and turned it on. And I love it. (Have I said that before?) The UI looks much better, and is really easy to use with thumbs. The keyboard is exceptional; it’s simple to type, and the completion is great. Don’t listen to Ars, they don’t know what they’re talking about here. And the sunlight visable screen just rocks my world. Battery life is good; I haven’t run out yet, even with bluetooth and wifi in use. I just charge at night while I’m asleep, same as my phone.
All in all, it’s a huge huge improvement. It’s like a whole different device. Between connecting quicker (and autoconnecting when a known AP is in range), and the keyboard, I’ve used it for casual browsing more in the last 4 days than I used the 770 in the last 6 months. I actually use it for IM and IRC.
All is not roses, of course. I have 2 gripes, one of which may be fixed in the future. The biggest is the lock/unlock key. It’s a little slider, and it’s really hard to push. You have to use your thumbnail, and your have to slide it hard to get it to connect. Granted, it’s important that it doesn’t unlock in your pocket, but this is a bit excessive. It’s not necessary to use if you need to use the keyboard, because sliding the keyboard out unlocks; however, one of my primary use cases for the tablet is ebooks, which doesn’t use the keyboard. For this, the unlock key is necessary.
The second issue is GPS sync time. It’s ssllllooooooowwwwww….. It takes upwards of 5 mintues, under good conditions, to get a sync. This makes it useless for position based apps, and almost useless for driving. You don’t bother, unless you’re going somewhere a long ways away. Hopefully, this is a software issue, and can be fixed.
Of course, there’s the stupid map program… Way to go, Nokia. Let’s take your $479 tablet and force your users to buy the GPS software. That’s brilliant. Hopefully, maemo mapper (which I have not yet tried…) will work well enough. If not, I’ll have to try and dig deep enough to find out how much this Wayfinder thing actually costs. (Did I mention it’s not obvious? There’s no actual price on the website…) I can’t even use the trial version of it, because it won’t be available until “December”. Nokia: If you weren’t ready for people to have tablets, why did you start selling them? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy you did; I love it. But come on. Get your retail act together…
Anyway, the few (small) negatives aside, this is a rocking awesome tablet. Go and buy one (assuming you can find one…) You won’t be dissappointed.
Tags: Uncategorized by Daniel
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