Nokia unveils N810 Internet Tablet

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Top cell phone maker Nokia is introducing an upgraded version of a wireless multimedia device without a phone, the company said on Wednesday, as it takes aim at Apple Inc's iPod Touch.

The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet is intended for heavy users of Web sites, such as Google, Skype, Facebook and Flickr. It connects to Wi-Fi hot spots or Bluetooth connections, instead of cellular networks, as cell phones do.

The N810, with a price around US$479, has built-in maps and satellite navigation for getting directions, a high-resolution camera, instant messaging, and a 10-gigabyte memory card that stores up to 7,500 songs in compressed format.

"What we have created is a clean Internet device," said Anssi Vanjoki, general manager of Nokia's multimedia business. "It does not bring any of the ridiculous leftovers of the past," he said, referring to older telecoms software.

The N810 resembles Apple's recently introduced iPod Touch Internet multimedia device, which also goes without phone features and costs $299. Nokia's new device was unveiled at a news conference ahead of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Among the key differences, users can choose a touch screen, writing stylus or pop-up keyboard that hides behind its screen that is more than 4 inches across -- larger than Apple devices.

Adding conventional phone features would be easy, technically speaking, for Nokia, a company that produces more than 100 million phones a year.

But for Internet-focused devices this would conflict with Nokia's push to offer devices designed to work on the open Internet rather than on cellular networks, said Ari Virtanen, Nokia's vice president of multimedia convergence products.