In a surprise move, Nokia unveiled its entry into the Android market with the N1 tablet and it may be one of the best surprises for tablet consumers.
Read on to find out why the Nokia N1 may be the best tablet choice for your needs.
Design
There's no denying the design is beautiful, whether it copies another device or not (it does). The beautifully rounded edges and the minimalistic industrial look are definitely in right now. In fact, this is one of the most beautiful Android tablets on the market.
Unfortunately, the design is quite blatantly a rip-off of a certain Apple tablet, the iPad Mini. The USB port on the bottom is a reversible "C-Type" USB port, but it looks like the Lightning port on Apple's devices. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. While Nokia cannot be credited with the design of the device, the result is an Android tablet that looks great.
Speaking of the USB port, did I mention it's the reversible "C-Type" USB port? This is one of the first devices to employ the new USB technology, which is surely a positive. The reversible USB Type-C connector will be fitted to the specifications of USB 3.1 and USB 2.0 and will have transfer speeds of up to 10 Mbps.
Operating System
Thankfully, Nokia has not tried to resurrect Symbian and has instead opted to run the device on Android 5.0 Lollipop. Google's latest mobile operating system offers a number of great new features, including a refreshed design and better privacy features.
Nokia has also loaded the device with its Z Launcher, which is simple, beautiful and streamlined. Z Launcher is dynamic, and changes throughout the day based on when and how the user makes use of their device. Z Launcher is also available in beta on the Google Play store for other Android devices.
Power and Memory
The processing power is quite generous. With an Intel Atom Z3580 2.3-GHz 64-bit processor, the power should be plenty for even the most active multitaskers among us. Its graphics card is the PowerVR G6430 GPU, which was announced last year and was used inside the iPhone 5S. It isn't as powerful as the Nvidia Tegra K1 found in the Nexus 9, but it holds its own nonetheless.
The Nokia N1 also includes 2 GB of RAM, which is not bad at all. It is the same as the Google Nexus 9, and should be plenty for most users. Unfortunately, 2 GB doesn't really future-proof the device, although users should have no problems for at least a few years.
Internal storage is becoming less and less important with the advent of cloud-based services yet the N1 includes a healthy 32 GB. Most users will likely use a combination of on-board storage and cloud-based storage, and for those users 32 GB is plenty.
Other Specs
The 2K display is quite beautiful. While few have actually seen the display yet, on paper it's looking great. With a 326 ppi pixel density and Gorilla Glass 3, you really can't go too wrong.
The camera, however, is nothing to write home about, but it's not too bad, either. The rear-facing camera is 8-megapixels with autofocus as well as 1080p video-recording capabilities.
The front-facing camera is 5-megapixels, which should be fine for the selfie-takers among us.
Conclusion
It is clear the Nokia N1 is a great device. The design, while unoriginal, is beautiful and the device has the specs to match, especially when it comes to processing power and memory. One of the best things about the device is the price. At a measly $250, this tablet is one of the best on the market for the price.
