It's been rumored for a long time, and now it's real: Nokia has unveiled its first tablet, the Lumia 2520, a 10.1-inch Windows-based model that emphasizes "mobility" above all else.
To prove the point, Nokia isn't offering a version of the tablet with just Wi-Fi connectivity â€" it will only be sold through wireless carriers with a plan to connect with 4G LTE networks.
"We're experts in mobility and that's what we're designing for," says Ifi Majid, Nokia's head of product marketing for smart devices. "All of the tablets that we create will be LTE- and Wi-Fi-enabled."
The Lumia 2520 stands out among tablets for other reasons: The chassis is a "unibody," meaning the backside and edges are made out of a single piece of polycarbonate. The new Lumia tablet also one of the few tablets to run Windows RT 8.1 â€" not too surprising a choice given Nokia's close relationship with Microsoft, which is about to become permanent via an acquisition.
"There are a number of reasons we went with RT," says Majid. "If we went with [Windows 8.1] Pro, there'd be a design tradeoff â€" it'd be thicker, you'd have to have a different processor, and you wouldn't be able to get the slim, thin tablet that we were able to achieve."
Although it doesn't run full Windows, the processor inside is no slouch: a quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800.
I got a brief hands-on with the Lumia 2520, and it is indeed slim and very sleek. The unibody construction leads makes it feel solid, and the full HD IPS (in-plane switching) LCD really pops. It's bright (Nokia rates it at 160 nits) and glossy, but it doesn't have too much glare.
Nokia is also offering an optional accessory for the 2520: a Power Keyboard. The keyboard folds over the tablet and cleverly resembles a chic notebook. It's fairly lightweight as keyboard accessories go, but still packs an extra 5 hours of battery life. The nature of the fold puts the trackpad an inch or so away from the keyboard, however, which I found a little jarring.
"We think there's a real opportunity to bring differentiation to the connected devices space," says Ifi Majid, Nokia's head of product marketing for smart devices. "One of the things we wanted to do is bring this great balance between fun and productivity. It's really difficult to type on an iPad, and if I take my laptop it's not really exciting to watch videos, movies and music."
Nokia hopes the sleek design (just 1.26 pounds), all-day battery life (the 8,000 milliamp-hour battery is good for up to 10 hours) and LTE connectivity will appeal to anyone who needs to get work done in train cars, coffee shops and park benches. After playing with it for a few minutes, I thought it was pretty fun, too; the Snapdragon 800 CPU keeps the experience nice and fluid, and the colorful design is friendly â€" more so than the Microsoft Surface 2.
There's no U.S. carrier information for the Nokia 2520 yet, but the suggested retail price is $499.
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Images: Nokia
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