Nokia 770 Internet tablet available for order in Europe

The Linux-based tablet announced by Nokia Corp. a few months ago can now be ordered from various Nokia Web sites in Europe for about €350 (US$413.35), Nokia announced Monday.

Nokia first announced the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet in May. The device comes with an integrated Wi-Fi chip for browsing the Internet and runs an operating system called Internet Tablet 2005, which is based on Linux and incorporates several open-source applications.

The 770 is a bit of a departure for Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone vendor. It is much smaller than Tablet PCs that use Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system, but like those devices it is designed to be used with a stylus and comes with handwriting recognition software. Tablet PCs are generally as large as notebook PCs and are used resting on one arm, but the 770 is more of a handheld device, measuring 141 mm (5.55 inches) long by 79 mm (3.11 inches) wide by 19 mm (0.74 inches) thick. It weighs 230 grams.

Nokia designed the 770 as a mobile entertainment device, with a 4.13-inch display that has a resolution of 800 pixels by 480 pixels. It has 128M bytes of flash memory, 64M bytes of which is free for user storage, which can be used for MP3 music files or videos, according to Nokia. The 770 also comes with 64M bytes of DDR (double data rate) RAM and a 64M-byte RS-MMC (reduced size-multimedia card) expansion media card. RS-MMC cards as large as 1G byte are available from third-party vendors.

By next year, Nokia will release an upgraded version of the Internet Tablet operating system that supports VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) and instant-messaging technologies, the company said in the release.

Nokia said the 770 was shipping in Europe, but it was listed as out of stock on Nokia's U.K. Web page. It will be available through certain retailers as well as the company's Web page, Nokia said. The 770 will begin shipping in the U.S. next week.