I remember this Day pretty clearly – the August 24th, 2009 was the Day when Nokia decided to step foot in a new Territory, my favourite Brand from Finland (and quite frankly the only Brand from Finland i can remember right now lol) has unveiled the Nokia Booklet 3G. “After more than 25 years as a pioneer and leader in the mobile industry, Nokia will bring its rich mobility heritage and knowledge to the PC world with the new, Windows based, Nokia Booklet 3G” stated the Press Release that hit my Mailbox this hot August Day. To be honest, I had no Idea what Nokia was up to at that Point. Why trying something new when the “rich Mobile Heritage” is obviously limping? Why not trying to do what they did best the last 10+ years – impress me with cool Handsets? I was fed up with Nokia at that Time and i am not completely recovered yet. Software and Hardware Faults, useless Updates of already existing Devices and much more has dominated my View at Nokia at that Time, and here they are, floating out a Netbook.

I was skeptic, had no Idea what to think about it, but i wanted to get to know the Booklet. My very good Friends of WOM World Nokia have contacted me recently and gave me exactly that Opportunity – giving me some Time with the Nokia Booklet 3G and see what it’s all about. Keep in Mind, I’m far away from being a Computer Expert. I learned over the Years how to burn a CD, but please don’t ask me deep technical Details, i just don’t know. With that in Mind, i spent two Weeks with the Booklet (Thanks again to Nokia Austria for helping out with a Euro Charger Cable) and here’s what i have in Mind about it:

Hardware

Straight out of the Box the Booklet looked incredibly well. A shiny black Top Finish on the Display Part with a silver Nokia Sign on it starts off a very well-built Netbook, and the Build Quality continues to impress. The whole Body of the Booklet is made of Aluminium, it feels solid, durable and very high quality – i’m a big fan of that. With something around 1.25 kg (according to Nokia), the Booklet is not too heavy and can be easily carried around all day on the Road. I actually did that when i spent a Day in Vienna recently and never felt like my Shoulder was about to fall off. Measuring  264 x 185 x 19.9 mm it is also very suitable for Shoulderbags like i’m usually wearing .. oh, and the Size is very attractive to Girls lol.

Looking at the left Side of the Booklet, we have several Connectors for HDMI (which works okay if you do light work), 2 USB Plugs, 3,5mm Audio Jack and one of 2 built-in Loudspeakers. While the front Side remains empty, the right Side contains the Charger Plug, a third USB Plug, SD Card and SIM Card Slot (this is what the 3G stands for, you know), the On/Off Button and the 2nd Speaker. All in all, the Booklet’s Connectivity is pretty good, i never felt i miss something there. Of course, one can always wish more (a eSATA plug f.e.), but if you stay with the “on the road”-spirit of the Booklet, you certainly will NOT have an external HDD with you. 120 GB of internal HDD should be more than enough to have all your important Documents, Songs and Videos with you – wherever you go.

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Opened up, the Booklet reveals a 10.1″ Screen with a 1280×720 Resolution. The Display is hidden behind a Glass Frame, so it’s hard to damage, another Sign of a well-done Build Quality. Above the Screen is a 1,3 MP Webcam, that has no Application to fire it up. I have no Idea why, but it is like it is. I tried and it gets recognized by Windows Live Messenger etc, but if you wanna snap a quick Picture, you’re lost. Since i don’t do it that often, i didn’t search for a 3rd party app, but i’m sure there are some out there.

Underneath the Screen is the black Keyboard. Very nice buttons in my humble opinion, typing on them was a lot of fun. The feedback was okay, the spacing was just right, even some of my friends with larger fingers were flying on it. The only Problem i had, which made me freak out literally, was the “Fn” Button, on the far left Side of the Keyboard. Get used to hit CTRL+C for the past 13 Years and then have a Keyboard that has the Buttons switched. You’ll know what i’m talking about. The Trackpad, underneath the Keyboard works nice, even having a slight touch of multitouch – like pinch for zooming in a website, worked well in both, IE and Google Chrome, my new favourite Browser.

Battery Life

I’d like to give this a separated Mention, as this was really important for me. Although the Booklet isn’t exactly a Powerhouse (more on that down below), the absolute best feature about the booklet is it’s Battery Life. Although it does not reach the promised 12 Hours in my Case, it worked well for about 8 1/2 Hours, connected to WLAN. Very impressive Score i must say, easy to get through your whole Day without any Needs for Power. Very well done Nokia!

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Software/Performance

The Booklet 3G is “powered” by Windows 7, Starter Edition. Which is already the weakest Point of the whole Experience. While my first Try of 7 was a pretty nice one, and i can imagine using it on my Laptop/PC, it was a different Story combined with the Booklet’s internals. Looking through the Specs Sheet (Intel® Atom Z530 with 1.6 GHz and 1 GB RAM), this might already indicate that this is no Powerhouse by any means, and well, to make a long story short, the Booklet is HORRIBLY underpowered. The 1 gig RAM is NOT expandable, which means there is no Hope for a bit more Power, you’re stuck with the current Setup.

My normal Application Setup when i use a PC/Laptop is: Tweetdeck (Twitter), Thunderbird (Mails) and Google Chrome (Internet browsing). I know Tweetdeck is not exactly a RAM-saving Application, but i just love to use it, and lets be honest – What is the Point of a Netbook, when you can’t use your favourite Applications on the Go!? As if this wasn’t enough, Things get a lot worse if you wanna do Stuff additional to the above mentioned Programs. Try listening to Music, Windows Live Messenger and maybe watch a Youtube Video besides. At least one of those Things will horribly lag, and you will also notice that the Apps take a really long Time to open and be ready to work on. Speaking of my favourite Video Service, Youtube HD (720p) does not work fluently, it stucks a lot and eventually, you want to throw the Booklet on the Wall get frustrated. So much for HD Video Playback. I didn’t try with .mkv-Files but something tells me that it won’t work well either.

Another bad Point is the Starter Edition of Windows 7. Would we ask too much if we want Home Premium? Hell, we can’t even change a frickin Wallpaper on the Starter Edition. Aero is  missing, which is a feature i really like on Vista, and now i have to miss it on the Booklet. Maybe it hasn’t enough Power to run the Taskswitch smoothly? Who knows..

To continue with Things that are missing, where exactly is Nokia on the Booklet? I mean, we have the Nokia Sign on several Spots, but software-wise, i missed the Nokia Touch. I’m not sure if my Booklet was maybe used already – I read on Mark Guim’s The Nokia Blog, that he had Ovi Suite installed already – no matter where i looked, all i found was the Nokia Social Hub Application. Nokia Social Hub collects all your Data and puts it into one Place for you. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and even your SMS messages are collected. The Idea itself is pretty good, but very basic for now. Since i use all the Services myself i actually like the Idea, i just think it needs a few more Features to be good enough to get me away from Tweetdeck.

What do i get and what does it cost me?

  • Nokia Booklet 3G
  • Nokia Computer Battery BC-1S
  • AC/DC power adapter
  • Quick setup guide
  • Nokia Headset WH-205
  • Nokia USB charging multi-cable CA-126
  • Cleaning cloth

Another major Downside of the Booklet 3G is the insane price tag. I just had a look at Amazon.de and the Booklet still costs around € 750,– here, which in my Opinion is as much overpriced as it is underpowered. Nokia, my 16″ Acer Laptop (2 GHz dual-core, 4GB RAM, ATI HD 4570, 320 GB HDD) has cost € 699,– a year ago. And it works. fast. powerful. fluently. 50 euro cheaper. I mean, yes the Hardware is extremely well-built, but from the User Experience you get , 750 euro is waaaayyyy too much. The only Operator that already sells the Booklet is A1 (Vodafone) and they still charge € 399,– for it PLUS a 24 months contract! The pricing is ridiculous and is FOR SURE one of the main reasons why a lot of people will turn away from the Booklet. Let’s face it, there are better Netbooks out there, for less Money. I hate to say this, but that’s exactly how i feel and the People i talked to about the Booklet.

Conclusion

The Nokia Booklet 3G is a mixed Bag of Nuts. Nokia did a very nice Job in choosing the Materials for the Chassis, the Booklet feels VERY solid, thanks to the Aluminium used on it all over. The Battery Life of more than 8 Hours also deserves a Praise, but from there, it goes downside unfortunately. The Specs are an enormous Funkiller, you can feel from the Moment you put first Apps on it, that it’s extremely underpowered. Having a few Apps opened already results in laggy Software, not even the Transitions in the Ovi Suite run smoothly. I gave the Booklet to some random People to try a bit and the Results were pretty much the same – it’s too slow. way too slow. 4 of 4 People would not buy the Booklet – and to be honest, while i love the Size, Build Quality and Battery, i wouldn’t buy the Booklet either – It’s just too expensive for the bad Performance. Still, i’m looking forward to future releases, let’s see if Nokia can do it better with upcoming Booklets, so that i can get one for myself too ;-)

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