02.20.08

The Power of the Nokia Internet Tablet

Posted in Views at 11:35 am by Jonathan Greene

Last week at The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona I had the opportunity to finally see the Intel MID platform in action. I was very excited since there had been so much news around CES and when I saw Intel was at the show I made it a priority to check things out. From what I had read, I had started thinking about what more I might be doing with an ultra mobile device - beyond the Nokia Tablet.

I was very pleasantly surprised to realize just how solid Nokia’s vision for the Internet Tablet truly has been and I am even more committed to the platform now.

The MIDs are considerably larger than the N810 and N800 and is definitely something you can’t slide into your pocket - unless of course you are wearing a winter parka with oversize pockets! While specs of the MIDs seems awesome … Faster processors, more memory etc, there was very little benefit to this in my limited hands on. (My Qik video seems to have vaporized or I’d share it here). I found the overall experience to be pretty slow on both devices I messed with and also found the UI of both to be more difficult to move around than what I’m accustomed to with Maemo.

The N810 fits in my pocket, connects effortlessly to the networks of my choosing and easily offers both access to information and the ability to create it. The gorgeous screen offers a great way to consume my online as well as local content and I’m able to enjoy media via Canola, MPlayer, Rhapsody and the built in media player. While we know it’s not a phone, I’m able to make VOIP calls even including video at times. As I saw cooking with Truphone last week, sms is right around the corner as well for an even more complete communications solution.

The MIDs I saw were running either mobile Ubuntu or Red Flag Linux. The offered options like a full office suite (open office) media playback, slider keyboards etc … Running office seemed like a great option, but running it I noticed it took several minutes (my perception… But at least 1 min of staring at an unchanged screen). I’m not sure whether things just have yet to be optimized or if this is really what to expect when products arrive later in the year.

The MIDS seem actually more like Intel rebranded the UMPC platform and upped things with revised form factors and specs. They are more in line size-wise with the Fujitsu u810 and a bit larger than the HTC Advantage - both of which I also saw for tnhe first time on the trip. The HTC Shift, which I also saw is even larger. Since I’m not really interested in running windows, neither has that much appeal, but the HTC advantage is a really nice piece of (larger than Nokia) hardware.

The Nokia Internet Platform is in it’s third incarnation and the OS and hardware have evolved consistently to better enable more people to become involved with the platform. The size has clearly been designed to make it comfortable carrying a second piece along with your phone and it’s perhaps no wonder that a phone rather than computer maker has nailed this critical aspect of things. Adding horsepower is clearly not the answer to a positive end user experience. The HTC Shift is a beautiful (non-pocketable) machine, but battery life suffers greatly. The MIDs have a lot of potential, but the user experience seems less about mobile and rather about taking the desktop in hand. There’s no windows start bar as you might see on Windows Mobile, but the Office application I saw load, was the same as you’d see in a desktop version of Open Office. Aside from the obvious load time issue, there’s far too much focus on things you won’t need in a small device. Much of this gets in the way rather than helps and feels it came from the because we can view, rather than because we should.

While most people still do not use more than voice and text on their mobile devices, the multi-part strategy in the Nokia Internet Tablet platform is very compelling for those seeking advanced connectivity, entertainment and productivity. My hope is that the platform will only continue to develop, offering more applications and services as we’ve been seeing recently. The ability to carry such a small and powerful device has transformed what I can and choose to do on the go. I’ve got access to essentially anything I could want from the palm of my hand or within reach from within my pocket. As the the Nokia Platform matures I’m hopeful that more people will realize there’s far more they could be doing while on the go. I’ve got some thoughts on making the tablet more consumer friendly, but I’ll leave that for a future post for now…

Technorati Tags: nokia, n-series, maemo, mid, intel, umpc

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