When I first asked the guys over at WomWorld to send an N810 my way, I said that the most exciting thing to try would be the built-in keyboard because I am an occasional writer and wanted to test the possibilities of making the tablet  a writer’s companion.

The Keyboard

Due to the size of the tablet, the qwerty is well-sized and after reading a couple of reviews, I expected it to be very good. During the last 2 weeks, I used the N810 to type blog entries (especially reviews of the N810 itself), as well as some casual writing every now and then but I wasn’t feeling very inspired.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed. It’s just an honest opinion here, but typing on the N810’s was slow’ish and I wasn’t all that efficient using it. Then I remembered, a while back on Symbian-Guru, I did a comparison between different keypads. where the N95 8GB had the best timing with 12.01 seconds. So I thought I’d do the same experience with the N810. I was expecting to get 15-16 seconds, but was astonished to see I did it in 11 seconds, from the first try. I thought I was mistaken, and repeated it, same result. Apparently it was quicker but still felt slower. Keys are stiff and the whole thing doesn’t feel comfortable using.

There’s another issue with the qwerty. The keys layout. Who, on earth, thought that putting the directional keys on the left is a good idea?! Who is the crazy person behind that?! We are ALL used to having the directional keys on the right, and yes we CAN get used to them on the left, but we CAN’T get used to having the qwerty pushed a little to the right. I usually use my left thumb to hit keys up until the YHN column, on any keyboard. With the N810 it’s even a pain to hit the TGB column.

One more layout issue: the Ctrl key. Ctrl is normally there so you can access shortcuts as well as do multiple selections. For shortcuts, there is no problem. But for multiple selection, it’s a huge PIA. Imagine the scenario. You want to multiple select items, normally on any keyboard, you hold the control key with the left thumb or index (depends on which you’re used to) and you used your right hand fingers to select the different items. No no no, not with the N810. The Ctrl key is on the far right, meaning that if you wanted to hold it with your left thumb you should have an acrobatic thumb and hold the N810 in a very uncomfortable way. And no, I can’t switch hands and select with the left hand instead of the right. I am not a lefty and using the stylus with the left hand is about as precise as me trying to throw a basketball in a 10m away net.

Ironically enough, the N810 provides another faster input method. I know I’ve raised some eyebrows here. The on-screen keyboard gives, IMO, a better writing experience. I normally have the tablet laying on a desk, I fire the on-screen keyboard and use my index fingers. I did the same experiment as above with the qwerty and caught a 10second time, over and over again. It might not be as precise (sometimes you can hit the wrong key), but it feels comfy, and somewhat impressive.

The Software

I loved a couple of things about the software. First the predictive text can have two languages set at the same time. Second, if the keyboard isn’t open and you tap the screen with your thumb, it opens the large on-screen keyboard, whereas if you tap it with the stylus, it opens the small on-screen keyboard. How genius is that?

Problem is that the N810 doesn’t come with an office suite. It can not read nor edit word/excel/powerpoint documents. I was surprised to see it, and then I thought I’d look in the Maemo site, there must be plenty. Only thing I found was a doc reader, that doesn’t do that good of a job. Seriously?! Later, I was talking to some friends who saw the tablet with me and they were all baffled by the idea. With the qwerty layout (or the on-screen keyboard), and the gorgeous screen, the tablet practically SCREAMS “use me as a portable office viewer/editor!”.

Later I was talking with Ricky and he said he believed this was because the N810 was an Nseries, meaning a Multimedia dedicated device. Problem is that the N95, the N76, the N73, all are Nseries, and they all have QuickOffice! They all allow us to at least view office documents. I would like Nokia to put all their effort into developping an Office solution, be it Microsoft Office or Open Office, I don’t care. This is an ultimate use for the N810 and it’s a shame to let it go away.

That brings me to saying that the built-in text editor, the Notes application isn’t very functional since I’ve had it crash at least 5 or 6 times so far, and lost everything I wrote. If I forget to save the document every 3-5 minutes, I know I’m going to lose a lot. Some of you might say that Google Docs are an alternative, but this isn’t true. WiFi isn’t worldwide available, it’s starting to be more ubiquitous, but still many many places don’t have it. So until Google Docs function with Google Gears, we are left in the blue.
What can be improved?

1. The directional keys need to be moved to the right, would be great of they were put next to the screen, but that would make the tablet larger and that wouldn’t be nice. Most importantly the Ctrl key need to be moved to the left of the keyboard.
2. Please add more shortcuts to the keyboard, like bold = ctrl+b ; italic = ctrl+i ; underline = ctrl+u.
3. The Ok key in the directional keys has a weird behavior. Normally this goes as enter, but on the tablet, you have to scroll to OK on the screen and then tap the Ok key. That’s the weirdest thing ever, for example when you are in one context menus, like renaming a file, saving a file,… Deal with it!
4. Handwriting recognization is a torture. Never worked although I am known to have a good handwriting.
5. As I said, an office reader and editor is a MUST.

Categories: Reviews
Tags: Features, n810, Notes, qwerty