Nokia N800 Internet Tablet Review

Internet tablets are oriented not only towards the Internet, but towards multimedia entertainment as well, the latter consisting of both sound and vision.

There is a music/video player installed on the device, which enables you to listen to the music on memory cards. Unfortunately no playlist option has been foreseen. However, recordings can be filtered by performer / album / style. A total alteration of the interface can be achieved thru additional software: yet this is the underlying concept of the open-source core of the Linux.

On-line Radio

In case the music on your memory turns out not to suffice, you can listen trouble-free to on-line streaming radios: one is even memorized in the tablet. We added a favorite online radio station and enjoyed it thru the WiFi.

FM Radio

However, in case you do not have a WiFi at the moment, listening to a broadcast is still possible – the standard analogue FM that you can tune to thru the cable of the ‘wire’ headphones, which serves as an aerial. By default, the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is not supplied with FM radio software but has the necessary hardware at its disposal. What you need to do is an effortless FM radio wave software download from the Maemo site. The latter is quite convenient and makes it possible to save various ‘favorite’ radios with user-ascribed names, as well as to create a small shortcut on the home screen.

The music can be listened to from the tablet’s loudspeakers, located on the front panel. While the sound is powerful enough for a quiet environment the same cannot be said about its quality – this is why we would rather use it for conversations than music. To obtain high sound quality one must use the 3.5 mm jack not only to plug in various headphones, but connect to active stereo equipment as well. Unfortunately it is not possible to use stereo Bluetooth headphones or another stereo device that relies on the A2DP protocol as the N800 does not support it.

Video Player

The video player is rather convenient and it takes only a click to revert to full screen mode. It is a pleasant occupation to watch a funny clip (or a new music one) on your pocket tablet when there is time to kill. Naturally, once again you can use additional software. Unfortunately it does not support MPEG h.264.

Picture viewing is done by a standard interface that allows for zooming in and out. Full screen viewing is also available.

Chess Game

The big display is suitable for playing games. The tablet is supplied with a few: ‘Chess’, ‘Blocks’, ‘Mahjong’ and ‘Marbles’ but there are many more and diverse downloadable ones to be expected in the future.

Canola media player

The platform being an open source one, does in no way limit you to the use of the built-in players. A very good example to this effect is the ‘Canola’ application, which integrates them into one player with a good-looking and convenient interface.