As a result, the Finnish phone giant this week announced plans to ramp up production of the 770 to better satisfy demand; to the surprise of many and itself (it seems).

The 770 is a detour of sorts for Nokia, as it only accesses the Web and receives e-mail via 802.11b/g broadband wireless, not a cellular network. At the time of the 770's initial announcement, Nokia VP of convergence products, Janne Jormalainen, said the company expected Wi-Fi use to continue to grow significantly.

That's why Nokia chose to experiment with passing up cellular voice for WLAN voice communications in the 770. Nokia said it hopes to free people from the Wi-Fi tether that it perceives desktop computers to be.

"Most Internet use is done from a PC, which is usually fixed to a certain place and is pretty restrictive,” asserted Jormalainen.

He added, “Wouldn't it be nice to make a Voice Over IP (VoIP) call from anywhere in the house, do instant messaging at the kitchen table, or do a Google search in the bedroom?"

In addition to Internet and e-mail access, the 770 come with applications to read RSS news feeds, listen to audio, watch video, and view images. While its 802.11b/g radio lets users access the Internet via broadband wireless, support for Bluetooth enables you to use the tablet in conjunction with a Bluetooth-enabled phone; as part of a personal area network .

Unlike most of Nokia's smartphones, which are based on the Symbian operating system and the company's Series 60 (now called S60) or Series 80 interface, the 770 runs on Linux. It has 64 MB of RAM and a RS-MMC (reduced-size MultiMediaCard) slot for memory expansion.

The 770's landscape orientated touch screen display measures 4.1 inches diagonally and runs at a healthy 800 x 480-pixel resolution. The unit itself measures 5.1 x 3.1 x 0.75 inches (141 x 79 x 19 millimeters) and weighs 8.3 ounces (230 grams).

"This is the first step to creating an Open Source product for broadband and internet services," said Jormalainen. "We will be launching regular software updates. During the first half of year 2006 we will launch the next operating system upgrade to support more presence based functionalities such as VoIP and Instant Messaging."