This was probably the quickest delivery from @WomWorldNokia to me. It was just evening of June 2nd, 2010, when Katie informed me that they could manage a trial Booklet 3G for me, I sent back the filled trial agreement only by late eve and it was delivered to me by June 5, 2010, first half of the morning straight from London to New Delhi. Dammmn fast!!! Cool.
Yes!!! Nokia Booklet 3G, the cutie pie is in my hands and that too before the weekend, its a joy that’s been hard to digest. Yippppiieee!!!!!
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It was a pleasant weather since morning and like me, whole of the New Delhi was expecting the first rain of this season. It’s been teasing us a lot in last many days.
But I’ve been waiting for something else as well; the Nokia Booklet 3G DHL shipment. The suspense was killing as it was a Saturday and if it would have missed the day, then it was meant to miss a Sunday without this shiny toy. I am sure most of the office going people could understand my eagerness.
The rain got delivered to city by late eve only, but the shipment came before time 🙂 9:30 AM and a colleague of mine Arjun smiled while saying congr8s to me. The shipment was at the gate.
I would have thought that its similar box like other vendors like Dell use to deliver their Laptop, but as I already seen some un-boxing of the same thing, so sure was waiting for the beautiful blue box inside and here it came ….
The beautiful blue box had not many colors or pictures on it like older Nokia boxes would have been in past, but this one follows the same tradition as was with Nokia N900; the easy disposable nature friendly material. But don’t you think that the blue has its own class? For me, its much sober.
Ok. Enough hooking up with beautiful box now, its time to open it up.
No folds and a solid tray like box to hold Nokia Booklet 3G, I wonder why not other Laptop or Netbook vendors follow the same trend? That’s some solid box for real.
One complaint, why Nokia doesn’t include a carry case with Booklet 3G?
Anyway, here is the real thing, presenting you all Nokia Booklet 3G (I kept a CD in side, so that you could get some idea about the size).
I know, even now, just from pictures, its not possible to imagine the exact feeling, but I bet you will start loving the 10” size, once get something like this in hands. I am really wondering that do we really need those 15” Laptops or soon then will be old fashioned?
So, what you find here, speakers on both the sides, two USB Ports on left along with HDMI port (no HDMI cable provided though) and Headphone slot (thing to notice was there is no microphone slot, while its been part of all Laptops, I have seen). Right side has SD Card slot and SIM card slot covered with one flap, then a USB port next to it and finally the power cord slot.
Oh!! Did you thought that I will miss the back and battery details? Here you go …
Probably after the compact size, longer lasting batteries been the most important selling point for Netbooks. Laptops always been blamed for poor battery lives, I mean you can’t even watch two movies back to back on the same, then what’s purpose of thinking it a entertainment device? And if you have to carry such a big device that makes just the same bulk of baggage as your normal cloths one, then what’s mobile in it?
Netbook segment answered the questions with a battery that could serve you for more than 8 hours.
Now, what about other accessories in the package …??
Can you imagine, I was much happy over finding the cleaning cloth inside. A must have for the device coz of its shining surface, but it also make me think that even if its a Aircraft grade material, but seems susceptible to scratches over the front at least.
Rest accessories are AC-200 charger, WH-205 Headset, CA-126 USB Cable (surprisingly special one) and of course a user guide. No DVD for OS or other things neither do any HDMI cable.
Will cover accessories in more details.
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Accessories of Booklet 3G are special in their ways. Look at the AC-200 Charger, what a piece of beauty it is in itself. I liked the same. Though the US plug given me a headache in first look as the same was here in case of E72 I got last time and in India, we don’t find matching plug for the same. But Nokia Booklet 3G do include the Socket matching the country. Even if Booklet 3G is not been released in India yet, but it was pleasant and relaxing to see the socket included in the package.
The next comes the headset, WH-205 …
The stereo headset WH-205 seems similar to those, we seen with packages inside other Smartphones, but the difference was inclusion of three difference sized ear buds means you need not to stuck with standard sized ear buds and actually could have one to suit your ears from three differently sized sets of them.
Are you missing something? The usual data cable shipped with Smartphones, you were used to see in un-boxings? But what’s point of having a data cable with a Netbook? I am not sure, but Nokia decided to include one and more surprising its the best one, I have seen till date.
Nokia Charging Connectivity Cable CA-126, it must be available in some price in stores, but I wonder that why this amazing thing is not being included in Nokia’s Flagship Smartphone models? Not even Nokia N900 or coming Nokia N8 has it. Why so??
It does provide you high speed connectivity over USB to Micro-USB, but also provides you a way to charge your Smartphone with standard 2mm charger point. A must have for people, who like to keep their Smartphone connected to their Desktops or Laptops, specially useful for those, who use their Smartphones as modems to connect internet.
I think its a cool thing to buy even in a price.
Ok.. enough about the package, lets get inside of the thing. The first thing to notice after switching it on was the very familiar Nokia Hands (didn’t got a clear picture of the same though). So, as the BIOS says, processor is Intel (R) Atom (TM) CPU 2530 1.66 GHz with system memory of 640 KB and RAM as 1GB.
First thing to see was the size comparison
Though it looked odd that Nokia didn’t utilized the screen space well. There is plenty of room left below the screen and even on the side of screens. I just felt something like Nokia N97 classic and Nokia N900, where as N97 leaves much space unutilized, N900 seems making use of each mm. Perhaps that we would have loved, if if either it was more compact or if screen size should have increased to at least 11” to fit the bill otherwise from the front, it sure look like some toy rather than an extreme efficient and serious device that it was intended to be.
Am I being overly rude over screen? I guess so, but I wrote what I expected from a 10” device, make full use of space provided. But sure the screen has many positives, colors were sure brightest and though I didn’t included a snap outdoor yet, but taken it outside once to show some of my friend and sure it was very much visible under even sunlight. The resolution of screen was 1200+ that’s sure amazing for a 10” device. I am sure no one would have any visibility issue or text reading difficulties with this.
By the way, which posture of the device will suit you, the one given below or the one after the same? Check out
I liked the later look for reading books or blog over it. Now it really got me thinking that devices like Apple iPad should be feeling awesome. I will still wait for other vendors like Nokia or Dell coming up with their iPad versions, coz greedy Apple is always a No No to me till they don’t change their ways of paid upgrades or such other bullshit kind of things.
Next thing to notice was keypad. As I had my hands on Nokia N900, so I knew that Nokia knows how to make keypads in little space and sure it reached up to my expectations. For me, my benchmark of keyboard was that Dell XPS M1530 and it sure touched that about comfort to type on.
Though there are issue with keypad as well. I guess many of you, who might have their hands on it, will agree that there is something wrong with placing of ‘Enter’ and ‘#’ keys in the right and similar way, left ‘shift’ and ‘\’. At least for me, its been confusing till now.
I guess Caps lock keys (that’s a beauty due to blue light over it for indicating status) could have been a little small give Enter Key little more space on the other side and similar way, right shift could have been little smaller in size to make room for left shift.
The other problem (?) with keypad, there is no backlit keys, which makes typing in dark a trouble for people uncomfortable with blind typing. I don’t know how much that thing costs as I seen backlit keys only in premium devices till now, but I guess the price tag Nokia Booklet 3G holds is a premium one in itself and should have deserved that feature.
I find rest all things perfect at their places, but Nokia please bring one more version to get these minor glitches right.
Even after bringing some of the nicest things on board, there are a few things that will be keeping Nokia Booklet 3G behind the competition. The biggest of them is the price tag. Dell Alien ware M11x has the same price tag of 36k+ and brings you much more value for the money than this and here we find, Nokia stuck with a stupid edition of Windows & Starter. Sure a huge disappointment in itself.
I guess at least MeeGo is a must now, if Nokia really wanted to sell this thing, Windows 7 Starter Edition is just not there in anyway.
Coming back to positive side again, the name Booklet 3G, sure the first thing to do for me was to push my MTNL3G SIM inside it to see if it works. It didn’t. I thought some problem with the 3G band in India, but soon found out the issue, I was to press Fn+F10 to bring the Menu and then choose 3G on.
Can you imagine this? A speed of 2.51 mbps @MTNL3G in New Delhi on a Netbook without hooking it with any Smartphone or ay available Wi-Fi. I just love it and demand it from all the vendor to make it a standard to include Pent band 3G SIM slots in their Netbooks or Laptop.
After reaching to my home from office, I also got to read that someone got it running over EDGE as well. I didn’t had an idea about that and for checking I inserted Aircel SIM inside and whooooaa!! it worked and connected me to internet, I checked Vodafone as well and it was same. Sure a good news to know.
Nokia Booklet 3G works over EDGE as well. see pics below
I don’t know how the battery meter of this calculate the remaining time, but what I seen is sure impressive. Check out yourself.
Will see more of it in action in next day usages.
Ok.. I guess its been kind of really long un-boxing or could say I almost went for a Mini review here. Will try to find more and more time with it and thinking that what I need more to buy … keep tuned and sure take a look over the last three pics that I placed after finding a similar colored Dell Inspiron at a friend’s place. Shiny na!!!
Nitish Kumar
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i.like nokia 3g mini lap.