The New Nokia N810 Review

Although the N810 is the upper model of N800, it is not replacement. The most important addition to the Nokia N810 is a thumb keyboard. It slides down from the device. And there is a noticeably change on the N810. It is smaller than N800. In 810 many buttons have been moved. So it looks more clear and attractive. Escape and home buttons has got same positions. The two devices both use the same size power adapter jack, and the chargers. The speak grills and USB port are smaller than N800. In N810 light sensor, screen brightness and keyboard backlighting are used by software.

The external memory card slot has designed for mini SD. A total of 2GB capacity is available but its’ 1.5GB is being used by maps and GPS programs.

The screen is smaller than previous model but the different is barely noticeable. The N800 display is 4.2 inches, N810 display 4.13 and both run on 800x480 pixels resolution.

The N810 keyboard has improved 42 keys with control, shift and function keys. And also there is a control key that can be used for shortcuts. The keys are so smooth with the surface of the keyboard panel. On the keyboard most of the keys don’t need much press. You can easily write. Another different between N810 and N800 is hardware keyboard. It shows itself when you are using command line or chatting comfortable without obscuring the screen. If you try to use command line without hardware keyboard it will be painful on the N800. Nokia has already changed some features which helps us to control menu. For example, display all menu items in a large size enables to see things larger. Scroll bars, media player are now much wider to adjust to thumb scrolling.

The OS2008 home screen functions are a little different. In OS2007 the screen items were locked and only way to move them is user invoked the editing mode.

Power adapter, a plastic car mount, a mini USB data cable, starting guide and cloth for cleaning the screen are coming with the Nokia N810 box. And there are lots of software comes with Nokia N810. The N800 users have already know some of them. For example file manager, calculator, simple text editor, media player, sketch pad, image viewer. The explorer also has support for Flash 9, N800 only had support for flash 7. It can change the performance when you are surfing on the internet.

The Nokia N810 has the same hardware as the N800. They use TI OMAP 2420 processor. N800s top performance 330Mhz by default, but OS2008 brings up the clock speed to 400 Mhz. This speed can be controlled by the software, so N800 users who upgrade to OS2008 will have same performance.

When you open the map first time, you will see GPS icon like satellite. 1.5GB capacity is being used by maps and GPS programs. It will change to green when you complete GPS connection.
When you are using the map you will realize, it can show you what you want to see on the road. For instance, if you are interested in hotels or restaurants, it will show them to you on the map. There was a navigation kit and an external GPS unit developed by Navicore. Navicore has been bought by WayFarer.

You can see the free version of the WayFarer with N810. But it isn’t running with other navigation features N810 included the OS2008 firmware 1.2007.42-18 version. If you want to use to Skype you have to upgrade it. Because it doesn’t support Skype. Other side you can choose Telepathy framework. The OS2008 home screen functions are a little different. OS2008 only natively supports Jabber for communication.

Nokia always have a rich ecosystem of useful software like Maemo. The OS2008 section of the Maemo software download site has already small book for applications. For example it includes the Pidgin instant messaging client, Kangu media player, FBReader e-book program. Users can expect to see a lot more programs. Some programs have been tested by staffs. The new softwares for the N810 have been added to the Maemo. They called this packet experimental XChat package.