Nokia is now shipping the Booklet 3G in the UK for £649

The 10.1” netbook is being sold directly via the company's online store, but it's still ridiculously expensive

We recently reported that Nokia's Booklet 3G netbook was available for pre-order from various e-tailors, as well as from Nokia's online store; with the manufacturer stating that it would start to ship in February. Well Nokia can now ship one to you in a matter of days for £649. Before I go on to besmirch Nokia for giving their machine such an outlandish price, I'll mention some of the positive aspects of the Booklet.

The Booklet runs without cooling apparatus, as it doesn't need any apparently. This is due to its modest set of components: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, an Intel GMA 950 GPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a 120GB hard drive. It's clear that the Booklet won't be able to handle much work at all, but the netbook's appeal is its portability: it weighs only 1.25kg, it's 2cm thick, and apparently it can run for up to 12 hours on battery power. Nokia doesn't mention how many cells the machine's battery has, the manufacturer simply states the battery's power output: 56.8Wh. With a 3G modem, 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR support, a 1.3MP webcam and a microphone, it's certainly well-equipped for video conferencing and travel.

January 2010 will be remembered by those living in netbook land as the time when a wealth of manufacturers introduced their first Pinetrail-based machines to us. Nokia wasn't one of those manufacturers, they've chosen to bring their netbook out in February, without a Pineview processor. For far less than this price, I would have expected Nokia to include a certain set of components inside the Booklet, namely a Pineview processor, more RAM, and an SSD or a much larger hard drive.

Another negative aspect, which we mentioned some time ago, is that the machine's RAM can't be upgraded, consequently limiting the its overall performance and long-term appeal. However this isn't just because the machine has one slot available, but because Nokia has decided to solder the memory module to the motherboard.

Other e-tailers are stocking the Booklet, but for some reason, the usually cheap Amazon.co.uk still have an inflated price, which is now £698.97; and a quick search on Google reveals that several e-tailers are selling it for a little more than Nokia. It's hard to understand how a manufacturer can get the price of a netbook so wrong, as I said in my last article:-

“Until its price falls, the Booklet 3G remains an anomaly in a mass of slightly better configured, but far cheaper netbooks.”

It would be interesting to know how well this netbook sells, and indeed how many pre-orders Nokia has taken for it already. There is plenty of strong competition out there to warrant a significant price drop, but there has been no positive change in price since the netbook first appeared. The Booklet has been lambasted by so many reviewers it's now evident what the consensus is, but will Nokia do something about it?

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