In a spell of temporary insanity (or some may say stupidity), I bought one of the just-released Nokia N810 Internet devices on Black Friday. I found it at Best Buy, where they told me they had a grand total of two sent to them. Apparently, the stores are taking a few to see how they move before taking chances on larger orders.

My wife wanted something more portable than her laptop. Her desire is to access the Internet for instant messaging and Web browsing. While the N810 does those things and more, it is NOT a phone; apparently many are confused on this point. We looked at alternatives, but the N810 had us drooling weeks before its release.

The Internet Tablet, as Nokia calls it, connects to Wi-Fi and WLANs effortlessly. It uses Boingo (and others) for paid Wi-Fi ($7.95/month) and one can connect to free signals, of course. Others have detailed much of what the device does. My focuses here are the mapping and GPS capabilities.

I tried to download a 7-day free trial of Wayfinder, which provides driving directions. Wayfinder promises voice guided turn-by-turn navigation in 15 languages. However, the trial is not functional until Dec. 2007 (but is unavailable as of this writing). Cost will be $129/36 months in North America. Some have lambasted this charge, but it comes to $3.50/month for updated maps, real-time traffic (if Internet connected), and points of interest (POIs) – not bad if one uses these features regularly.

GPS loading is pretty slow – 4-5 minutes; not so good compared to most automobile GPS devices. You can see a video of the N810 with GPS in driving action from TabletBlog. One concern I have with the driving GPS is the unit’s battery life. While it specs out at 4 hours, in my experience it is lower, so forget the long trips unless you have an inverter for the charger.

One irony of the mapping is the use of TeleAtlas map data. Nokia is acquiring TeleAtlas competitor NAVTEQ so I expect that future versions will switch data providers.

Overall, the device has a nice design. The screen is gorgeous and generous in size for such a portable device. The keyboard is also decent – not like typing on a regular keyboard for sure, but compared to typing on a normal cell phone or Blackberry, it is better. It starts fast and has shortcut buttons that make sense. Plus there is a word prediction feature that reduces typing.

The device comes with maps of the U.S. (split into eastern and western regions) plus Canada. One can download maps of other parts of the world, including Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Russia, and Singapore. There is a “3-D” view, which from my cartographer perspective is a bit hokey but available on some modern navigation devices. One cannot, however, zoom on the 3-D view.

There are some features in the mapping that require the GPS to be enabled, but they are not highlighted in any way so that one knows. Also, on the address search, it did not find my home address, even though the house has been here for 15 years and other mapping services have it.

In addition to the streets, there are points of interest (POIs). POI categories can be on or off. One can search for a POI near an address or near the current location (if the GPS is enabled). However, it is not clear the proximity used, nor is there a way to increase the proximity. One can search a POI for more information on the Web; for example if you see a restaurant and want to learn more about it then just click on the WWW search option on the POI icon. There is also an option to add the POI to a favorites list and to open any details the database might have on it.

In addition to the POIs, the N810 offers searching for a specific address, a city, and even a specific latitude and longitude. The lat/lon search surprised me – a real geo-nerd feature that I expect will go mostly unused.

While some think the $479 (list price) cost is obscene, compared to a small laptop, it is not that bad. It is expensive, especially if you add in the extras. However, the biggest negative in my view is the absence of decent instructions. There is a very high level instruction sheet to get started, but beyond that there is no paper and the online help at the Nokia site is terrible.

In summary, the Nokia N810 is a unique device that provides good portable Internet services and decent GPS capabilities, even for driving. While the costs seem high, relative to a portable PC plus a GPS device, the N810 costs are reasonable. My wife probably won’t use the maps much, focusing on the messaging and Web browsing. She might use it to find something when she is out but not in the car – she has that feature in the car GPS system. But when I borrow it, I’ll definitely use its mapping and navigation features. As more location apps are built for it, the N810’s appeal will increase.