mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

I have been playing lately with the Nokia N800 and I found it a great device, initiating quite often the WOW effect around me. At first I was sceptical (ah well, another device to carry that just doesn’t do everything yet!) but since I have start using the device - had it with me the last 10 days and used it in many different places in different contexts, my opinion changed from sceptical to enthusiast, well done Nokia!

When taking it out of the box, the first thing that surprised me was the impressive quality of the high-resolution touch screen (800 x 480 pixels) with up to 65,536 colors widescreen display, checked the demo video in full screen mode and yes, haven’t seen such a great quality on a ’small’ screen yet.

Start using the device is a piece of cake, the interface is really simple and easy to understand, everything shows or explains itself, the N800 discovered my WLAN immediately to start surfing the mobile web - nuance here (!) with this device you can surf ‘normal’ web pages, no need for mobile adapted .mobi style adapted web pages, this is the real stuff - check for yourself some shots I took from my blog, going to my Flickr pages, MyBlogLog and Twitter. Watching YouTube video’s (see corner right picture - video choice by one of my daughters!) on a portable device is a reality now, you can even view the vids full screen, great quality!

The N800 OS and applications are all build with Maemo, an open source - Linux based - development platform from Nokia. Kudos to the developer teams at Maemo, the N800 OS and applications I used are very stable, I didn’t had to reboot the device yet!

The RSS Reader (image below) is again very easy to use and consult your feeds, I could even view my vpod.tv video feed. This is a real need for me when travelling to stay updated, I can use both GPRS and WiFi connections.

Then I tried to setup a VoIP/IM service to be able to chat on the road. The N800 people have thought a lot about ‘easy of use’ to setup thing, it took me 2 minutes to setup the IM client using my Google talk or Jabber accounts, then I setup my Twitter account to be used from the device with Instant Messaging, besides web and mobile (see below). Note the virtual keyboard can also be displayed full screen and you can input text using handwriting recognition.

I also downloaded & installed the Gizmo VoIP & IM client for the N800, I’m looking forward to my first internet video chat, volunteers: please get in touch. I wrote on the Internet Calling service Gizmo and how it works on the N80 at Read/WriteWeb. I also wanted to play a bit more with Google Maps but for one reason or another the maps didn’t come out as I wanted - full screen map search would be great on this device! Maemo is working on a mapper client, I’m looking forward to start using that - you can check a video demo of how it’s going to look on the device.

Another practical use, specially for business people is the PDF Viewer with presentation possibilities, ideally for any powerpoint or keynote presentation to pdf and be viewed on the device (picture right), it’s great in person to person meetings, the screen quality is just so great. Adding some more functionality here would be realy usefull for people like me. If you own or buy a N800 now there’s a 1 month free subscription offer to use the Rhapsody audio/video streaming subscription service. Nokia and Real have teamed up to release a firmware update that adds Rhapsody support to the N800. I tried it out and I must say it works fine as on online subscription service: great artists and songs collection to choose from and very easy use to create your own playlists. I created a playlist with some of my favorite Motown music in a minute (see below), the sound quality of the device is quite impressvie too. The only thing here is that using Rhapsody is a great service to use as long as you have an good connection, meanwhile I prefer the MyStrands Social Player that works with the music I have on my device, hopefully soon available for the N800 too (disclosure here)

So, the verdict? I haven’t explored all the possibilities yet but I think I will carry this device with me for a while next to my mobile phone and laptop, I hate to carry too many devices all the time but I do see a lot of advantages to use the Nokia N800 especially while travelling, as long as I can find a WiFi around this is a gO!

NOTE: Tips & Tricks on the Nokia N800 at the N800 Blog, complete techspecs can be found here, view my N800 m-trends.org Flickr set here.

Analysis, Bluetooth, chat, Cool Devices, gtalk, im, internet calling, internet tablet, iphone, maemo, mobile 2.0, Mobile Apps, Mobile Lifestyle, Mobile RSS, mobile video, mybloglog, n800, nokia, rhapsody, social media, twitter, Ubiquitous Devices, usability, video, wi fi