Nokia Booklet 3G Netbook Reviews Appearing — Lackluster Performance
Nokia created quite a stir by entering the crowded netbook field, and the Booklet 3G set the bar high with an appealing design and special features not found on other netbooks. The metal casing, MacBook-like design and integrated 3G make for a stylish entry into the field for Nokia. The Booklet 3G also has higher display resolution than most other 10-inch netbooks (1280 x 720). The first reviews are starting to appear as the Booklet 3G gets closer to distribution, and our friends at Laptop Magazine have given the new netbook a go. How did it fare? They found the performance a bit lacking for a premium-priced netbook.
The Booklet 3G is a netbook at its heart, with an Atom processor powering the system. Laptop found that to be a problem for displaying video, much the same as other, cheaper netbooks. A particular bottleneck they noted was the slow, 4,200 rpm hard drive, which hampered performance.
“The tardy hard drive was just as bad when it came to file operations. It took a leisurely 7 minutes and 3 seconds to complete the LAPTOP Transfer Test, in which we copy 4.97GB of mixed media files from one folder to another. That’s a rate of 12.0 MBps, which is below the category average of 15.4 MBps and way behind the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA Seashell (22.2 MBps) and Toshiba mini NB205-N330BL (17.9 MBps).”
Nokia has promised all-day battery life with the Booklet 3G, and Laptop verified it does indeed last a long time. Their web surfing over Wi-Fi benchmark saw the Booklet 3G lasting almost 8.5 hours, a decent endurance. The gist of the review finds the Booklet 3G to be well designed, but not excelling in any one area to justify the high price that Nokia is asking for the netbook in the U.S. — it sells for $299 with a 2-year data plan, $599 without the plan.
yeah the 4200rpm hard drive and $600 price tag will be its downfall
$299 at Best Buy with a 2year ATT plan
Hmmm…well, the price is not a big issue given the battery life. A lot of netbooks cost half as much but only last at most 3 hours on battery. Getting a battery that would extend the usability to 3 times longer would tack on at least 200 dollars more to say a 325 dollar netbook with the regular 3 cell or 4 cell Lithium battery. Nokia build is generally better than most or all of the netbook makers. So 600 bucks is not out of the question.