I’m typing this from my local coffee shop on a Nokia Booklet 3G, the Finnish handset maker’s entry into the crowded Netbook ‘mini laptop’ space. And there’s no doubt that I’m in possession of one of the better looking devices of this type that are on the market.

Nokia’s design cues feel like they’ve been taken directly from Cupertino, the hardware aesthetics are certainly Apple-inspired.

But then so is the price.

Retailing for just shy of £650 from Nokia’s own online store, for what is for the most part under the hood an average Atom-powered (1st generation?) Netbook, seems a little ambitious. Then again, your average price savvy Netbook buyer clearly isn’t the customer.

In a move that might leave many a tech analyst scratching their head, Nokia have announced their own Windows Netbook, albeit a high-end one.

Why the world’s largest mobile phone maker would enter the crowded and low margin market of Netbooks, when it should be focusing on how to restore its lead in the much higher margin ‘smartphone’ category, is a very good question. The answer, however, is simple.

Carrier subsidy.

Here in the UK, we lead the way in the carrier-subsidy merry-go-round where Nokia does very well indeed out of the whole facade.