Sum and Substance
Thumbs Up
Great attractive design, 3G, great battery life.
Thumbs Down
Slow sluggish CPU
Inside the Trunk
Net book with Windows 7 starter and other soft wares like office suit and antivirus.
The Whiz Kid Speaks
Processor Intel Atom Z530 / 1.6 GHz, Chipset Intel Poulsbo US15W, 1 GB DDR2 SD RAM, 120 GB Hard disk, Display 10.1 in TFT, Resolution 1280 x 720
Interfaces 1 x Modem – RJ-11, 3 x USB 2.0 – USB 2.0, 1 x DC in, 1 x Headphones, 1 x HDMI
802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN, Bluetooth 2.1, Camera
OS – Microsoft Windows 7 Starter, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Other Softwares – Drivers & Utilities, Microsoft Office Small Business Edition, F-Secure Internet Security 2010.
Razzle Dazzle
Nokia Booklet 3G is sturdy and solidly built and it is not too heavy either. The screen hinge is good and feels quite good to open the computer. There are color options for the back of the lid, you get white and black. We had a black model for testing in our centers.
Inside Dope
Now what is mobile phone giant, Nokia doing in an already overcrowded net book market? For dummies, Net books are different from laptops. Net books serve the purpose of basic functions like e-mail (which is the reason behind its name) and laptops can be for basic purposes as well as gaming.
Net books are made with a mind set that the user needs it only for e-mails and other internet related activities. On the user end you get a cheaper, slower computer (since the hardware is quite less taxing on the battery resources) and a sleeker notebook. You can carry a net book almost anywhere it is very tiny as compared to a standard sized laptop. But don’t even think of running games on these devices you will end up pulling your hair frustratingly, net books cannot handle gamming.
Nokia net book is prepared for people who only need internet and e-mail connectivity. The display of the computer is extremely tiny 10.1 inch big and will give you a resolution of 1,366X768 which is what high end net books in this range have.
Inside the computer there is a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530, a slow processor which contributes to longer battery life, one GB DDR2 RAM having frequency of 533 MHz. It has a 120 GB hard disk of 4,200 RPM. A hard disk of more than 5000 RPM would again dry up the battery quickly. So Nokia trade offs a slower hard disk for longer battery life. Don’t expect file transfers to be quick on this computer. It will be longer than your standard desktop computer.
The chipset is Intel US15W and integrated graphics is Intel GMA 500. On the software front you get Windows 7 starter edition. Windows 7 was a little slow on this computer. This computer cannot take multi tasking. Opening even two applications like web browser and word processing document at the same time will severely slow down this net book.
Connectivity options include HDMI, three USB 2.0, SD card reader, SIM card slot, there is no optical drive. Absence of the optical drive is the reason behind its light weight.
The net book has an integrated mobile broadband but we had a lot of problems operating it.
You will get the idea of how big the computer is when I say that the screen is just 10.1 inch big. The small computer gives you a cramped keyboard, as all the basic keys have to be accommodated in the small space. But then a spacey keyboard has to be sacrificed if you want an ultra portable computer. But we must say that we have seen net books having better keyboard than this, regardless of the size.
The Nokia booklet battery was one of the plus points it ran for a little more than seven hours in our tests. The long battery life is probably because the 16 cell battery and the slower processor which is battery friendly. The battery life is one of the best that we have ever seen in our tests.
Nitty Gritty
We were quite impressed with Nokia Booklet 3G. It delivered according to our expectations quite well. True, that it cannot handle complex applications but that is not a job of a net book. Ultra portability and net connectivity are the two tasks assigned to a net book and this net book performs well. It looks quite attractive too and will sure make heads turn. One thing that could have been improved on this computer is the processor. It is too slow and has serious issues with taking even two applications at a time.
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