DHL just took my Booklet away

A couple of weeks ago Nokia sent one of their 3G Booklets to try out. The Booklet is Nokia’s first foray into personal computing – a netbook with a 3G sim card slot.

I was a little surprised when they contacted me. But they said they came across my website and wanted me to put one through it’s paces. And maybe blog about my experiences.

Now, I love my gadgets. But I’m no tech guru. So rather than go on about the awesomeness (or otherwise) of the Atom processor I thought I’d just talk about how the Booklet performed in real life. Or at least my approximation of it.

First Impressions
The build quality is amazing. It’s made from a single piece of aluminium, just like the new MacBook Pros. Indeed it looks like the netbook Apple would’ve built if they hadn’t decided make the iPad instead.

Everything feels solid and beautifully crafted. It makes the Dell Mini 10v I hackintoshed feel like a piece of plasticy rubbish. You could demolish buildings with this thing.

On the road
The trial coincided with a six-day trip to Italy, a perfect opportunity to use the Booklet how I would if I was off ‘researching’ one of my books. I loaded it up with trial versions of Microsoft Office, Photoshop, InDesign and Lightroom. And popped in a CF card reader (the Booklet already comes with the more popular SD slot) and an external portable hard drive to store my photos.

It soon became apparent that the Booklet was a head-turner. While a multitude of MacBooks passed through the security checkpoint at Stansted without comment, the Booklet was singled out for special attention. When the guard on duty saw it was a Nokia he took it away to be ‘swabbed,’ primarily so he could show it to the other guys on duty. They nodded their heads, seemingly impressed.

It wasn’t the last time someone wanted to take a closer look at the Booklet. Every time I pulled it out in Italy someone noticed the Nokia badge and came over to have a closer look. Nokia obviously have a strong and respected brand image so their move into netbooks is not as crazy as it first seems.

Performance was pretty standard for a netbook. I could keep two or three programs open without any noticeable effect on performance. Editing 20mb photos in Photoshop took longer than on my desktop but not annoyingly so. The 3G sim card picked up the local network without any probs in Italy. And the Nokia social media application looked like it would work seamlessly with all the appropriate social media websites. I just baulked at paying £4 a megabyte to update my Facebook account!

Positives
Battery life. Nokia are claiming 12 hours between charges. I never found out. Like I said, I took the thing to Italy for six days and didn’t have to charge it once.

Sure I wasn’t using it heavily. Transferring photos and editing them, writing the odd article, doing a bit of (wifi) web surfing. But that’s how I would use it if I was on the road. Just the odd hour here and there.

Now I know all netbooks boast long battery life. But in real life I’m lucky to get two or three hours out of my Dell Mini. To be fair to Dell, I hackintoshed it so I could run Snow Leopard on it, probably screwing up its power management settings in the process. But the Booklet just didn’t die.

Mac-like design. Stylish and and extremely well made. Like I said before, the Booklet was an attention magnet. Anyone who saw it felt compelled to comment. But more than that, I had no doubts it would handle six months or more at the bottom of my backpack.

Negatives
The price is a major hurdle. At £695 rrp that’s £500 more than my Dell Mini 10v set me back. It’s definitely worth the extra £500 – you can see where the money has been spent. The problem, for me at least, is justifying that extra expense for a ‘spare’ laptop to lug on the road.

The second is the 3G capability. In theory, being able to browse the web, update blogs and social media sites, email etc over the local telephone network anywhere in the world is a huge, huge bonus. Unfortunately, as it stands now, it also results in an equally huge phone bill. That’s not Nokia’s fault, but until the likes of Vodafone start charging reasonable fees for data roaming the sim card slot is a money pit not a feature.

Conclusion
I want one. If I didn’t already have my Dell and an unexpected royalty cheque came in I’d be tempted to shell out the extra cash. The build quality and design is just that much better. And I’ll be honest, the attention it garnered was kind of nice. I wasn’t just another wanker with a MacBook. (And I say that as a wanker with an iMac)

On a practical level, it did everything I needed it to do. And gave the impression it would handle a six-month jaunt through the former Soviet Union or a trip down the west coast of Africa.

I just wish the phone companies would come up with some kind of reasonable international roaming plan so I could make the most of the 3G slot.

Disclaimer
Nokia sent me the Booklet to trial for two weeks. (The man from DHL just took it back off me.) There was no obligation for me to blog or tweet or Facebook about it. But I figured a lot of you maybe looking for some kind of laptop to drag on your next adventure.