Nokia Booklet 3G — the First Intel Pine Trail Netbook?

Nokia_Booklet_3G01_lowresTypically a go-it-alone type of company, Nokia is starting to make new frienemies and that means new products. The traditional handset maker has jumped into the netbook pool with their Nokia Booklet 3G device.

Just a few months ago, Nokia announced a patnership with Intel. That was followed by news of a mini alliance with Microsoft just two weeks ago. While the focus of those moves was on radio technology, system software and productivity applications for handsets, Nokia is parlaying those relationships with their new netbook as well. And they’re trying to package their Ovi services with it.

Full details of the Booklet 3G won’t be announced until Nokia World on September 2nd, but what is known illustrates new licensing agreements. The 2.75 pound netbook will run Microsoft Windows on an Intel Atom CPU. Like many other netbooks it will have a 10″ display, but should have a higher resolution than most 1024 x 600 units — Nokia calls the display “HD ready” and offers an HDMI output. Coming from a phone-maker, you’d expect an integrated 3G option and of course, it’s there in the form of HSPA support, which will complement the 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. A-GPS is also included and it looks like Nokia put the mouse buttons under the trackpad where they belong. Based on a partial keyboard photo, the right-Shift key looks good too. This introductory video shows the Booklet 3G running Microsoft Windows 7, although the Aero functions aren’t enabled.

Nokia claims a 12 hour battery life, which would trump every other netbook on the market right now, including my new Toshiba NB205 which sees around eight hours on a charge. For Nokia’s battery claim to be remotely accurate, the Booklet 3G will have to have a very high capacity battery or run on Intel’s new Pine Trail platform. I’m leaning towards the latter case as Pine Trail is rumored to be ready in the fourth quarter of this year and should greatly reduce the power consumption of the CPU and chipset. My expectation is that Nokia will have a detailed product announcement on September 2nd, but not a shipping product for at least one to three months.

 
loading

Comments have been disabled for this post