Business Bytes
Renee Oricchio

Nokia And AT&T Think We're Stupid

 

Nokia just threw it's hat in the netbook ring with AT&T as its service provider.

Starting October 22nd (the launch date of Windows 7), Nokia will be selling it's first netbook (called the Booklet 3G) offering it through Best Buy. Read the next part carefully.

The Booklet 3G costs $299 with a $60- a- month, 5 gig-a-month AT&T two year contract. It's $599 without the contract.

Just what we need; more bandwidth hogs feeding off AT&T's overburdened 3G network!

But, that's minor compared to my other knee-jerk reactions to this announcement.

1. Nokia's netbook has a 1.6 ghz Intel Atom processor. I bought my HP Mini (without selling my soul to a telco for two years) for $330. It has a 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom processor, too.

2, Nokia is promising 12 hours of battery life. Okay, you win on that round. But, I get six hours easily on mine. For $1440 in savings ($60 times 24 months with AT&T), I can find a wall plug every six hours.

3. Nokia's unit will have Windows 7. Cool! But will it have the RAM to support it without an upgrade?

4. Nokia brags the Booklet 3G has a keyboard that is 95% of the size of a regular keyboard. My HP Mini is 92%. Is 3% worth $1440?

5. One word: tethering. Why would anyone in their right mind commit to a $60 a month contract to connect via AT&T? Why not just connect by tethering with your Blackberry or other smartphone via your $30 a month data plan that is already in place. Let me get this straight; AT&T hopes to charge customers $60 a month for their netbook service plan and another $30 for their smartphone service plan!

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio