Linux Tablet to be Released in Two Days

Rambo writes "Nokia has finally set a November 17th US shipping date for the $359 770 Internet Tablet. It features a Debian-based distribution called Maemo, which includes kernel 2.6, X.org/Scratchbox WM, and GTK for easy porting of applications. Hardware specs are: 800x480 ) screen, 220 MHz TI OMAP ARM processor (with DSP), 64M of RAM, 128M of flash, USB slave port, 802.11b/g wireless, Bluetooth, IR, and a RS-MMC slot. Even more details at LinuxDevices and Internet Tablet Talk. It sports a battery life of 3 hours for continous Wi-Fi usage, and accepts common Nokia phone batteries. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Nokia, and am anxiously awaiting my own pre-order!"

Comments

I've got one!

[Dynamoo]

I've had one for a week now. It's great.. except it doesn't reliably connect to my Netgear router at home, and everything else does including a Nokia 9500 Communicator.

Sure, there's a lot of other traffic going on in the same frequency band with thing like the neighbour's wireless access points, DECT phones and the like but NOTHING seems to make this connect reliably.

At work, with less interference I can connect just fine to a bog standard access point. Also, no problem with any Bluetooth phones (I use a Sharp).

Despire the wireless connectivity issues - the 770 ROCKS. The 800 pixel wide screen is actually smaller than you'd think though, it's just very high resolution. The screen clarity is excellent. The web browser is excellent, plus there's a so-so RSS reader and an email client which I haven't used yet.

The interface is quite simple and easy to learn, although a few minutes studying the slim manuals that come with it is a good idea. Windows users shouldn't have much trouble adapting.

When I ordered mine I got a letter explaining that I was one of the first people to get a 770, and Nokia would like to have an interview with me to find out what I think, so I'll mention the wireless connectivity problems then. Other than that, it's great. Good quality web access no matter where you go, and it does a (limited) range of multimedia too.

One thing I can't figure out.. how can they make something this sophisticated for that much money? They can't be making a profit on it!

Re:I've got one!

[sydney094]

I got mine Friday too (dev program)... The first thing I did was install xterm and get ssh running. After that, I spent most of my time squinting at the screen trying to read websites. I've had no problems connecting to my cheap Fry's access point with WPA/PSK.

The device itself is pretty interesting. It doesn't actually turn off (unless you explictly tell it to). It doesn't even sleep in the traditional laptop way... it just turns off the screen and wireless (and sends the CPU into a type of sleep mode). That makes turning it back "on" instantaneous... and I like that.

However, I have a few gripes with it. The screen (beautiful as it is), I think is actually too small. The screen is too small to hold the device at a comfortable distance away and actually read a website. You have to zoom the browser just to be able to read the text (at a comfortable distance). (Disclaimer: I am under 30 and wear glasses, so my vision isn't the problem). Also, there is no scroll wheel. This means that in order to scroll in Opera, you have to take the stylus (which is uncomfortable in and of itself) and click and drag the screen. With only a limited screen height, reading slashdot can be painful... more so than usual. The main buttons are also a little small, and force your hand into an awkward angle to use them. The directional pad is also blocked by the screen cover, so that makes clicking the left arrow a little difficult to use.

Also, there is not enough RAM on the device. Reading a website like ESPN (lots of flash and graphics) will cause the device to slow down and display "Low memory" warnings. However, GMail works like a charm...

I would have also liked to have seen a CF slot. My digital camera uses CF cards, and this would have made a great platform for viewing pictures. But this also goes back to the size... they went small and didn't have room for anything more than an RS-MMC.

Final gripe: wireless is great for one location, but there is no easy way to configure the device to work in multiple locations. You can define wireless networks and wep/wsa-psk codes for each network, but there is no way to easy switch between them. For example, I have it configured to auto-connect to my home network. When I go to work, it has to try to connect to my home network, fail, and then I can select which access point I'd like to try to connect to. Also, there isn't support for VPN connections, which makes my campus wireless access (PPTP) impossible.

Overall, the 770 is a good little device. In fact, I have to steal it back from my wife at times (it includes a Mahjong game)... It has a good interface (modified gnome/gtk), and connectivity is good. However, it is too small to be useful as a good internet tablet at home. The size is a bonus in that it is easily portable, but the difficulty in switching between networks makes travelling (and using 802.11 connectivity) harder than it should be. I also like the fact that you can attach the 770 to your main computer and it appear as a usb flash drive... this definitely makes getting files onto the device easy.

There is a lot to like, and a lot to not like. If you get one, just know the limitations and you'll be happy. After playing with mine for a few days, I'm not sure I would not have bought one at retail price... to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I would have paid the developer's price either... This is a good first effort by Nokia, and their software deisgn is actually very good. They just need to work on the hardware design... I hope that the 2006 software update fixes the problems with configuration, but that isn't going to change the hardware issues.

I'd give it a 6/10.

Re:Sure it can play flash movies

[diegocgteleline.es]

Just for completeness... http://repository.maemo.org/pool/maemo1.1rc6/free/ b/bash/

LiveCD for compiling, yes, it runs bash

[ubiquitin]

There is a bootable Linux live CD that has a development environment for the ARM chip in this thing: maemo.org/maemowiki/LiveCD


I got a development unit on Friday last week. It took me about a half an hour to get ssh, vi, and nmap running on it. Shell tools are a variant of busybox. The ssh client and server that are the easiest to get running are from dropbear project. I'm working to compile gdb for this thing.

Other comments: wifi is INCREDIBLY sensitive. Will make a great stumbling platform and 1G MMC cards are only like $75. Bluetooth works, and requires that you sync with a 4 digit code every time. The big question is whether it will work with bluetooth GPS.

As a side note, hats off to Nokia for sending units to developers before sending them the press. Don't get me wrong, CmdrTaco, I hope you get the free unit that you feel entitled to in a few months from now, but the fact that Nokia wants these in the hands of developers before the press speaks volumes about how successful this platform will be.

It's all about the software.

By the way, if you want, I can paste a dmesg from this thing. It feels pretty quick, especially running X. Native RAM/storage is 128MB and it comes with a 64MB storage card. MP3 playing slows it down a bit. It can play movie files, but pretty much if that's the only app you're running. Chess, Mahjong, and a Marbles puzzle game are all very nicely built out. The RSS feed reader in this Nokia770 is AWESOME and puts the PalmOS equivalents to shame. The web browser feels like Firefox in your hand and already has Flash support in it. Blah blah blah; I'm rambling, if you have questions, post them here and I'll do my best to answer.

Operating System

[hungrygrue]

It sounds like a neat gadget, its a shame that most people will never realize that it is a Linux device based on the information that Nokia puts online:

Operating system
        Internet Tablet 2005 Software Edition