Nokia Booklet 3G previewed and well appreciated

Although I for one didn’t have the chance to get my hands on the new to come Nokia Booklet 3G, the folks from LaptopMag did, and they posted a little preview with their impressions of this first Nokia netbook (and a video).

First of all, the device looks very nice. It has an aluminum body, but a glossy plastic lid available in Blue and White. You just can’t get rid of the glossiness, can you… Anyway, the mini notebook is quite sleek, being just 20 mm thin, but weight ain’t that great. You would have expected a device so small to weigh less than 2.6 pounds, but you should consider it has a huge 16 cell battery that adds a lot to this weight.The good part about this battery is that Nokia fully integrated it into the shape of their netbook, occupying most of its back part. Oh, and it will allow up to 12 hours of life, which is more than many of us would need.

The 10″ screen comes with a 720p resolution (1280×720 p). Everything would look smooth on it I’m sure, but as i find out on the Asus 1101HA ( an 11.6 inch device, also HD Ready), the small DPIi would make reading/writing quite painful for your eyes.

On such a portable toy, keyboard’s and touch-pad’s quality are very important. Although it’s chiclet style and should be pretty good theoretically, the guys from LaptopMag didn’t quite like it, as they both feel cramped and just too small for comfortable use for a longer period of time. And that’s odd, especially since there would have been plenty of space on the device to fit some slightly bigger keyboard/touchpad .

Keyboard and touch pad are unfortunatelly pretty cramped

In terms of features and connectivity, i guess you already now the Booklet 3G brings almost anything you want: 3G, Wi-fi, 3xUSb, HMDI output, 1.3 MPx webcam, etc . As for hardware, Nokia’s netbook will house the low power Z530 1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard-drive. From what i reckon, that 1 GB can’t be upgraded, as it is soldered to the mainboard, and that’s quite a big bummer. Hopefully, I’m not wrong about that, please correct me if i am

Anyway, there’s no doubt the Nokia Booklet 3G is quite a competitor in its class. It will be expensive, $600 on Best-Buy . But it will surely be available with some monthly 3G plans for a lot less. I’d reckon $249or $299 , considering it was already announced in Germany for around $400 (249 euro) with a 2 years 20 euro/month plan.

But is it worth it? Well, i can’t give you my fair opinion just yet, I’ll just have to wait to get it to offer a review. But i do have to say this Nokia Booklet 3G really has its strong points.

Tags: 10" netbook, 3G, Nokia