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I stopped by my local Best Buy yesterday to make a return and the demo unit of the new Nokia Booklet 3G caught my eye. I was impressed. The device is small and has gracious curves. It is thin and has almost no breaks in its super-clean lines. And it is solid. And I mean SOLID! Like the uni-body MacBook Pro, it is carved from a solid piece of aluminum. This gives it a high-end feel and makes it stand out from the rest of the netbook crowd.

I thought I might want to get one once they were released.

That thought left me a few seconds later.

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Once I started reading the device rapidly became less attractive. There are, in fact, two areas that will keep the Booklet 3G from Netbook glory. One is ugly. The other is hideous.

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Ugly… The Specs

Netbooks are underpowered. We all know that. Then again, they aren’t designed to be full replacements for notebooks and desktops. Instead, they are companion devices for couch-surfing and being on the go. Even so, once I tricked out my Toshiba NB205 I found that it runs quite well. It now has 2GB RAM and an SSD drive.

The Nokia Booklet 3G?? 1GB RAM and a slooooooooow 4800RPM drive. This is the drive I had in my Fujitsu P1500. It was a great device but the slow drive killed it. (And the Booklet has a 120GB while most netbooks have at least 160GB.) At that configuration (and it is unclear how easy it is to upgrade the internals) this promises to be at the low end of the netbook scale from the perspective of power and that’s not pretty.

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Hideous…. The Pricing

The Nokia Booklet 3G comes with an internal 3G modem using WCDMA 850/1900/2100. It cannot be used for voice calls but does promise a constant connection. (Okay, it is using AT&T Wireless so take the “constant” with a grain of salt.) The device will just cost $299… so long as you sign up for a data plan.

And the plan you need in order to get the subsidized price? An activation fee PLUS a commitment to take a $60/month data plan for two years. That brings the total cost for this device to over $1700. Yes $1700 for a netbook!!!!!

And remember- that locks you into this device for two years and two years is an eternity in the world of netbooks. (Consider this, the first true “netbook” was released by ASUS in later 2007 and it is only later 2009  right now.)

You can, of course, also buy the Booklet at the unsubsidized price of $599 but for that price you can get something with a lot more ooomph! No it won’t have the same design features but are those aesthetics really worth paying double the price you would for a similarly priced netbook of equal or greater power??

The Nokia Booklet 3G is a good looking machine. There is no doubt about that. But this is a case where beauty is only skin deep… and it is going to cost you big!

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  1. Nokia Booklet 3G first impressions