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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 22 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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11 out of 14 people found this review helpful
1.5 stars
"Lovely, but limited"
Pros: Gorgeous design, great screen, fast
Cons: no software!
Summary: Nokia scored a real technologic triumph with the n810. The device is sleek, attractive, powerful, with a gorgeous screen. It's much faster, and theoretically much more powerful than most PDAs. Your heart leaps for joy just holding this device in your hand and turning it on.
Unfortunately, Nokia has hamstrung the n810 by shipping it with the Maemo operating system, a seriously stripped down version of Linux.
There are currently only a few dozen applications available for the n810, primarily from third-party developers. Unfortunately most are for playing media, which is nice if you're 20 years old and have nothing on your mind and can get $450 from your parents, but not sufficient justification for an adult to purchase the n810.
One should be able to open and edit Word documents with the n810 but you can't because no application exists for this purpose. No spreadsheet either, or calendar, or database. If you're a chess fan like I am, forget it. The system comes with a barely functional chess game with no data capabilities. Most of the installable games are ones I've never even heard of.
In short, the functions you expect to see with a computer this powerful are nowhere to be found, and unlikely ever to become available.
The Maemo developer community, bless their souls, are great people, extremely helpful and supportive. But like 99% of programmer-afficionados they have their heads in the clouds and are clueless about the real world. They gush over a new tweak for the Maemo social networking application and happilly debate the pros and cons of various compilers, but when it comes to what ordinary users want and need they might as well be speaking Urdu.
Nokia has sold this product short by leaving serious users out in the cold and catering to the purple-hair nose-ringed crowd. Why do innovative companies like Nokia do such stupid things?
For incremental cost it could have provided a more generic version of Linux and/or invested in basic applications which would have broadened the appeal of this beautiful device ten-fold.
To Nokia: How about a $10,000 prize for the best Maemo word processor, spreadsheet, and contact manager?
Nokia had a PDA-killer in its hand, but instead has delivered a glorified, $450 MP3 player.
If the n810 ran most Linux programs it would easily be worth $700 or $800. At the current price I'd have given it an 11 out of 10 (!), but under the circumstances the Nokia n810 is a very poor value.
- 3 replies to this review
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Apparently you haven't been looking hard. Maemo.org has a TON or apps specifically for word processing, and an ever-increasing number of apps for almost anythning oyu can think of.
I can hardly wait to get one of these myself. -
AbiWord is available to edit documents, but this is an "Internet Tablet" not a PC! Using Google Docs is a no brainer! Also, now you can install Debian on the tablet with KDE, and KOffice, or OpenOffice if you'd like. The limitations are obvious, memory (ram), and screen size.... Spreadsheets, really? You'd want to do spreadsheets on this small of a screen? FYI: 256 apps on maemo.org, but thousands available in added application repositories.
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>>One should be able to open and edit Word documents with the n810 but you can't because no application exists for this purpose. No spreadsheet either, or calendar, or database.<<
Thank you so much for saying that! I just assumed that they would have an application for that. You have saved me that shock feeling you get when your assumptions have been shot down and burned up.
Where to buy
Nokia N810 Internet Tablet:
$484.95
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$484.95 | Yes |
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