When Nokia announced its tie-up with Intel earlier in the year, few people would have expected to see a new device produced so quickly.

The last computers made by Nokia were in the 1980s, but the Booklet 3G isn’t actually made by Nokia. Nobody will tell us who the manufacturer is, but we aren’t that bothered because the design is 100 per cent Nokia.

When is a netbook not a netbook?

We’re not supposed to call the Booklet 3G a netbook, but rather a ‘mini-laptop’. Nokia believes the word ‘netbook’ conjures up the image of a low-cost, cheaply built and mass-market laptop with limited processing power and capabilities. Yet the Booklet 3G is still powered by a netbook-style Intel Atom Z530 processor, running at 1.6GHz with 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. It certainly sounds like a netbook, but it definitely doesn’t look like an Eee PC.

The design, with an aluminium chassis that serves as a heat sink and enables the laptop to do away with a fan and ugly looking vents, is up there with the latest MacBook family. In fact, while Apple has been stating it has no intention of getting into the netbook market, Nokia has come along and proved exactly why there is a gap in the market for a small laptop for people with higher aspirations.

The chief designer of the Booklet 3G, Ian Buckle, told us that Nokia has been watching the PC market for a long time, waiting to produce something that hadn’t been done before. The Booklet 3G retains many key Nokia design trends, including a subtle ‘Nokia Smile’ curve that most people probably won’t even notice.

[pb/]With the Booklet 3G in the hand, it feels every bit as solid as a Sony VAIO or MacBook. It will ship from day one with Windows 7, not XP, and Nokia has also promised not to pre-load it with hundreds of trial applications that you spend hours removing, not to mention slowing down the machine considerably and extending start-up times.

Indeed, the only applications, beyond the standard Microsoft stuff, will be the Ovi suite of applications – including Ovi Maps (the Booklet 3G has an internal GPS receiver too) and Ovi Sync.

Easy to use

Although Nokia’s launch video showed how easy it is to synchronise data with a Nokia phone, you can of course use it with any mobile phone. Connectivity is plentiful, from USB to Wi-Fi (supporting 802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth. The other feature, which is a must for a Nokia-made device, is 3G connectivity with HSPA (7.2Mbps down/5.76Mbps up). The SIM is inserted via an easily accessible slot on the side.

Netbooks boast good battery performance, thanks to the low-power Atom processors, but the Booklet 3G boasts an exceptional 12 hours of usage time, based on MobileMark 2000 benchmarking. Even with 3G or Wi-Fi usage, Nokia reckons that you’ll be hard pushed to get less than eight hours of use before needing to find mains power, giving the laptop yet another significant advantage over the competition.

Unlike netbooks with bulky extended batteries, Nokia has used a slimline battery that takes up a great deal of the base of the unit – so it doesn’t add any bulk.

[pb/]Until we get a model in for a full test, we can’t really test out the long-term performance of the Booklet 3G. The GPS didn’t work indoors, nor could we test out its video playbook performance – given that the laptop has an HDMI port for connection to any HD TV. Nokia claims it can play HD video, but we have some doubts; Atom-powered computers usually struggle with large video files, especially the high bit-rate files that come with high definition.

The Booklet 3G is likely to retail for around £500 excluding VAT. With its support for 3G, Nokia hopes that retailers will be offering the Booklet 3G with a subsidy for those taking out a mobile broadband contract, just as they do for the other major laptop manufacturers.

Nokia is also suggesting that some operators may offer combined deals for buying a Booklet 3G and Nokia phone, with two SIM-cards and a combined data account. Nothing has been confirmed, although if Nokia is lucky enough to attract the type of customer that has been waiting for a smaller MacBook, the price may not actually be an issue.

Author: Robert Johnson

Nokia Booklet 3G review: First look