Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Reviewed

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has reviewed the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet which is powered by a variant of Debian Linux. Eric Bangeman praises the device for its "wow" factor and has high hopes for its potential, but nagging issues with the implementation, relatively weak specs, and small software library lower the device's chances of becoming a hot item. From the review: 'The 770 could also use some beefier hardware. One of the attractive things about the 770 for me is the price--US$359. In order to hit that price point, I imagine Nokia had to make some hardware trade offs. Unfortunately, those make themselves glaringly apparent at times. 128MB of shared memory isn't enough; neither is a 250MHz ARM processor.'"

Comments

Debian...w00t!

[Orrin Bloquy]

I'm APT to GET something like this.

The new...

[kermitthefrog917]

Crackberry now comes in Tablet form!

Game plan for success

[eikonoklastes]

Double the battery time, quadruple the memory, and sell for $500. Profit!

Rendering engine

[schlpbch]

I'm curious: What kind of rendering engine is this thing using? KHTML, Gecko or Opera?

Re:Rendering engine

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

KHTML. The K stands for Krap.

No no, it's a KDE software.

Come to think of it, you're still right...

Re:Rendering engine

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera.

no way...

[Connie_Lingus]

I simply REFUSE to buy any NOKIA products because of that stupid cell phone ad where the dork sings "...just a good ole boy..." from (i think) Dukes Of Hazzard...god that ad p*sses me off.

Re:no way...

[rootedgimp]

although that particular commerical doesn't really piss me off that bad, i must say, i am glad to see another person with uncommon views on commercials. i think these companies honestly think the more annoying a commerical is, the more likely it is to stick into my memory, and thereby i will recall their brand in the store and buy it. that is just retarded.

i really think there are some companies that are just so huge and well known already, that noone will be convinced to buy from them based on a commercial they saw. point in case: tampons. if tampon producing companys stopped all television advertising right now, i can guarentee none of them would see a loss of profit for the next quarter due to their lack of tv ads. women know what they use, no out of touch bullshit ad is going to change that.

tv is retarded.

Re:no way...

[Rude Turnip]

THANK YOU! God, it looks like the guy in that commercial is waiting for a slice of pizza to become un-stuck from the ceiling so that he can eat it.

Re:no way...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is a great spot to go to commercial just after freezing the last frame and having the narrator ask a few obvious questions about the parent post.. .

I think Seth McFarlane did this in one of his Family Guy episodes just to make fun of the dukes of hazzard.

Re:no way...

[YrWrstNtmr]

i think these companies honestly think the more annoying a commerical is, the more likely it is to stick into my memory,

They do, and it does.

if tampon producing companys stopped all television advertising right now, i can guarentee none of them would see a loss of profit for the next quarter due to their lack of tv ads.

Wrongo. Maybe not the next quarter, but in a year...profits down by 25%. I used to work for a marketing research company. The amount of money companies spend on getting 'just the right ad' is insane. Put out a crappy ad, or no ad at all....sales go down.

McDonalds vs Burger King. Coke vs Pepsi. If any of those were to stop advertising....the other would rule the market. They don't like spending all that money, but they're on a treadmill that they cannot jump off. Running as fast as they can, just to keep abreast of the competition.

That one of the reasons we haven't seen more direct TV downloads. The networks, and their customers the retailers, haven't figured out how to use that format to present ads to you.

Re:no way...

[heinousjay]

You're right - women would probably stop themselves up with wads of leaves or grass, or maybe bunched up toilet paper if they were feeling fancy.

I used to work for a marketing research company.

Out of curiosity, did you just have to check your soul to work there, or turn it over completely? My money is on the latter, but if I knew, it wouldn't be gambling, and it wouldn't be fun.

Re:no way...

[wertarbyte]

They don't like spending all that money, but they're on a treadmill that they cannot jump off.

Advertising is like a nuclear warhead: You only need it because the other has it as well.

Re:no way...

[Kadin2048]

I think you turn your soul in when you sign your contract, and if you survive until retirement you get it back during your exit interview. It's kind of like a deposit.

As you're going out the door, soul restored and gold watch in hand, it hits you: "What the fuck did I just spend 25 years doing?"

Re:no way...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing overall sales of tampons (I'll go with your example, since you seem fixated on it) with sales of a particular brand. Tampon maker A wants more business, they need to take customers from Tampon maker B. They come up with some gimmick or maybe a real change in the product, and advertise that. Put it another way, most people use toothpaste, but if Colgate wants more sales, they try to get some Crest buyers to switch. How to do this? Advertising.

Re:no way...

[heinousjay]

It wasn't my example, and your explanation wasn't previously stated. I suppose it could be assumed, but since it wasn't the original point, I didn't really think it mattered.

I was more amused by the idea of a woman jamming a handful of leaves up in her birth canal to stop up a heavy flow. What did women do before they invented napkins and such?

Agree on wanting something beefier

[gbulmash]

I liked TFA's author's point that he was conflicted, wanting to love it for certain elements, but being seriously disappointed by the slow processor and limited RAM, which he says are probably a function of the low price point ($359). This is in contrast with something like OQO which looks to be very cool, but costs $1299 (MSRP).

Honestly, I'd like to see something OQO'ish in the $599 price point range that can run Linux. That would probably be the best of both worlds.

- Greg

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[IAmTheDave]

With the slower proc and shared RAM, and limited software library, is this anything more than a somewhat enhanced Palm like device? Sure it's got a bigger screen, but it's a bigger unit too, so perhaps less portable... I know that certain Windows based handhelds like the ones Toshiba makes can easily break the $400 mark...

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I'd like to see something OQO'ish in the $599 price point range that can run Linux. That would probably be the best of both worlds.

And it really needs to provide built-in EVDO for Internet connectivity. WiFi coverage is not sufficient, and mucking around with Bluetooth and a slow, expensive connection through a mobile phone doesn't cut it.

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[NeuralAbyss]

Take a look at the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100. I've got a friend with the C3000, and I'm strongly tempted to get one of the C3100s at the end of the year.

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[knipknap]

Wow. I didn't know the oqo, it certainly is a lot prettier. If it ran Linux I might even have given it a go. Though the built in keyboard doesn't look very encouraging (usability wise).

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, but OQO runs Linux (albeit not officially supported). See for example their Ubuntu pages: ftp://ftp.oqo.com/unsupported/linux/OQOLinux.html

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[knipknap]

Cool, but seriously, I would not want to pay for a Windows license only to have the additional work of replacing the software on the device.

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slightly off-topic, but tell me again what exactly happens when I buy a normal Wal-Mart desktop PC and install Linux there?

Yeah, Microsoft, fuck my ass, I'm bending!

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[knipknap]

Well, pretty much the same, which is the reason why I would not buy a Windows PC from Walmart. Also, considering that Windows is far from being the default OS in the mobile domain, I think it's a fair complaint if the vendor is trying to force you into buying the OS with the device.
In addition, it's a lot harder to install Linux on the OQO than it is on a normal desktop, if you read the instructions in the parent's URL. All this makes the device a lot less attractive.

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[timeOday]

With the slower proc and shared RAM, and limited software library, is this anything more than a somewhat enhanced Palm like device?

I think the screen width of 800 pixels would put it in a different class. That's the minimum usable size for a decent web client IMHO. Even 640x480 is pushing it on a Palm-sized device - the pixels are very tiny. (Not that I'd ever want a grainy screen, but at some point more pixels just look better instead of also equating to more screen real estate).

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[fm6]

... seriously disappointed by the slow processor and limited RAM, which he says are probably a function of the low price point ($359).

A faster processor also means a lot more power consumption. The thing only lasts three hours as it is...

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[Saanvik]

The three hour battery life is only if you are using WiFi constantly. Most users report 10+ hours of usage before needing to recharge.

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[fm6]

What use is an "Internet Tablet" if it's not connected to the Internet?

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm postng this using a 770 linked to a bluetooth connected nokia 8801, and although the device has its limitations, i'd be lost without it..
I'm in an Ohio rest stop in the process of moving to California.. all my computers are packed.. but i can still trade my stocks, read my mail, get slashdot's rss feed and pay bills..

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm posting this from a 770 without using wifi... and i'm easily getting 10 hours of life.. wonderful stuff that bluetooth!

Re:Agree on wanting something beefier

[fm6]

Good point. So who's your provider? Somebody who hasn't crippled Bluetooth on their phones, obviously.

Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

I'm very keen on a true tablet PC system ( I hate Palms and other similiar devices -- they don't really seem designed to fully utilize a stylus input), but I don't have $1800-$2500 to spend. I have a 770 on backorder.

I was emailing Chris Ball, one of the developers of dasher, which is a very novel and efficient method for character and word input. Unfortenately, I was dismayed to learn that:

We finished the port. Problems:

• It runs too slowly. We did some basic optimisation, but it's still too slow to feel good.
• The hildon-input-method dynamic library is closed-source, so we can't get it working as an input method. This pretty much removes any further motivation we had for spending our time on it; if you care, I suggest complaining to Nokia.

So I don't think we're planning a release.

What a shame. I thought that with the maemo platform being open-source, this would be a killer device.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[Anonymous Coward]

The hand writing recognition stuff is the only thing not opened, because of 3rd party obligations (or so I've heard).

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

It runs too slowly. We did some basic optimisation, but it's still too slow to feel good.

Eh? It's a 250 MHz ARM processor! If they can't get it to work fast enough on there, they need to retake CompSci. I could understand perhaps if graphical performance was the limiting factor, but somehow I don't think so. Since I don't believe that Ball actually failed CompSci, I think the real reason is the second part:

The hildon-input-method dynamic library is closed-source, so we can't get it working as an input method.

I'd really like to know if they talked to Nokia about getting some specs and/or tech support. Given how unproven this device still is, Nokia might have jumped at the chance to help. Source code is nice to have, but tapping the brain of the developer is much better. :-)

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

From what I got from the conversation, it wasn't the graphics that was the problem. It was the extensive word and phrase prediction that drive dasher:

> [Me] Do you think the slowness problem comes from the smooth animation
> of the letters scrolling?

[Chris] No, I think it comes directly for the probability calculations needed to determine the size for each Dasher node. The CPU on the 770 really isn't that high-spec.

Here's a paper that Chris directed me to.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Dasher do its calculations in floating-point? On most (all?) ARM systems floating-point is actually emulated in the kernel and is therefore really, really, REALLY slow. If that's the problem then maybe it can be recoded to do its math using fixed-point 32 bit numbers.

I used to use a Corel Netwinder (the original StrongARM-based one, not the later Transmeta one) as my primary desktop machine and ran across this from time to time. Most programs ran at a reasonable speed (compared to other machines of the day) but if you tried something that made major use of FP it would slow to a *crawl*

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Have any of you ever tried to *use* dasher, other than just giving it a once-over? It really really sucks. While it's a nice looking thing, in practice, it is slower than typing hunt and peck style on a simulated keypad.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just lazy.
The handwriting recognition in Newton OS 2.x (some MP120's and MP130's, eMate, MP2000, MP2100) is very very good. The MP120 and MP130 and eMate are fine with it and their CPU is a 20 MHz ARM 610 processor. That's not very high spec.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[WouldIPutMYRealNameO]

I agree. I've seen Dasher running really quite nicely on a 200 & 400 Mhz PXA255 Linux system. I believe that the TI chip should be somewhat comparable.
Also, if it is the FP in Dasher causing a problem, you can link to software FP libraries, which ought to be lots faster than the kernel method (the CPU executes an FP instruction, which causes an unknown instruction abort. The kernel traps the abort and synthesises the FP in software. Yes, it is as slow as it sounds :)

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[ArsEric]

I agree. From my experience with my old eMate, Newtons, and even my Audiovox XV6600, the 770 had the weakest handwriting recognition.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[mjg59]

Hunt and peck typing on a simulated keyboard gives you over 30 words per minute? With the same degree of accuracy? Really?

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[mjg59]

It runs too slowly.

If you grab Dasher CVS right now and build it for a Maemo target (./configure --with-maemo), you'll get something that runs at a just-about usable speed. The floating point has all been removed from Dasher itself, which helps things a great deal (I got about an 8-times speedup from removing a small amount of floating point code - integer maths is pretty much good enough in this case)

The hildon-input-method dynamic library is closed-source

More of a problem. There's currently no API documentation for producing an input application in Maemo, which makes it difficult - ideally, Dasher would be integrated in the same way as the keyboard or handwriting recognition. The other issue is that Dasher makes much better use of vertical screen real-estate than horizontal. On a device like the 770, Dasher would work much better at the side of the screen than at the bottom - and that's something that the libraries just don't support at the moment.

On the plus side, porting Dasher and making it look and feel like a native Maemo application took about 3 hours, including setting up the Scratchbox build environment. Compared to developing for the Zaurus, the 770 is an absolute dream. I'd actually put it ahead of developing for PocketPC, too, despite the lack of a specialised IDE. It's a really nice device for developers, and (despite the occasional obvious lack of performance) it's a much better integrated device than any other small, portable ARM based machine that I've ever used.

So, there's certainly hope for Dasher on the 770 - it's just something that I don't have time to work on at the moment (I'm doing a PhD in genetics right now, so don't have anywhere near as much time to hack on stuff as I'd like to), and Chris has left for the US and h0t chixx0rs (well, possibly only the one). The current performance issues are primarily down to the amount of time taken to draw all the anti-aliased letters, and the simple optimisation of disabling anti-aliasing for them or using Xft directly rather than going through Pango would probably help greatly. Then somebody just has to spend enough time working with Nokia to deal with the input API, convince them to add support for vertical input widgets, rebuild it and things would work beautifully.

If anyone's interested in hacking on it, then check out http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/Develop. html and get on the mailing list (Yahoogroups, I'm afraid. Yes, I'm sorry). Someone with enough time could probably get it into a useful state in well under a week.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[mjg59]

It never really ran acceptable fast on a 400MHz PXA255 (I did the port to the Zaurus, though that wasn't helped by Qtopia's nasty model of having a single input thread running at a low priority - if your input method takes lots of CPU, input events get delayed by up to 2 seconds. Qtopia did more to make me hate Qt than anything else in the world), but again ripping out more of the floating point would have helped that. The older PocketPC port ran much faster on similar hardware, but was effectively an entirely different codebase.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

No, I think it comes directly for the probability calculations needed to determine the size for each Dasher node.

God invented Fixed Point math for a reason. That reason was so that calculations on a processor with no FPU could be nice and speedy. Back in my day, we had to make due with 16 bits of fixed point precision, and we liked it that way. (Or more like, we had no idea that anything else existed. BASIC and other contemporary languages used Fixed Point.) Now they've got a 32 bit processor, running at 5 times the speed of a 486, and his excuse is that he can't compute a fractional number without slowing things down?

Give - Me - A - Break

No specs? I can understand that. Too lazy to convert to Fixed Point? Sure, I'll go for that. Can't implement it because the processor is too slow? Bullshit.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

Hey, I'm a PHP hacker. I have a liberal arts degree and I have a tough time with anything more advanced than binomial equations.

The source code is freely available. I would really enjoy it if you were able to make dasher run at a reasonable speed on the 770.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

Looks like Mig59 already did the job. Time for some serious Kudos! :-)

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

Dude, you rock! Sounds like you did the work to get the thing up and going. Now if I only had a 770... ;-)

I always thought that Dasher was a neat idea. Unfortunately, I just didn't see it showing up in a useable device any time soon. Now that it's been ported to the 770, it looks like there's finally a really good use for it. Here's hoping that you can get Nokia interested in helpimg to improve your work.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

Link?

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

Link? He replied to you, not me.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

Argh! Please don't make fun of my slashdot skills.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

Ah, but it's so much fun. Keeps you on your toes. ;-)

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

What did I just get done asking you?

BTW it's Mjg59, not Mig59.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[Anonymous Coward]

- 'basic optimisation' is not enough for embedded device.
- why not make it as a gtk immodule, why it has to be part of hildon im lib?

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[Anonymous Coward]

# It runs too slowly. We did some basic optimisation, but it's still too slow to feel good.

That's right. Get off your lazy comfy asses and optimise optimise and optimise until it runs good. I've seen miracles done on 1mhz c64 and this machine has 250mhz arm processor. If it runs too slowly, your coding skills suck.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[commanderfoxtrot]

Dasher is not hunt-and-peck... I've just downloaded it and it's very clever! I think it would be much easier though with a stylus and not my laptop's finger-pad-thing!

Oh, and I can do 30wpm hunting and pecking quite easily.

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

Details, details. I for one, have an excuse. (The hook on the j is obscured by the underline.) ;-)

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[lawpoop]

If only I had modpoints...!

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[AKAImBatman]

If only I had modpoints... ...you couldn't use them because you've already posted. :-D

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[pdc]

Most gadgets with pop-up input areas are horizontally rather than vertically oriented. Could Dasher be rotated 90% and work moving down the screen rather than accross? Or does that feel too much like a downhill slalom to be comfortable...?

Re:Dasher developer agrees

[mjg59]

It can do that, yes (in the desktop version, you can choose the orientation in the preferences). It doesn't seem to work so well, though. Having the letters approach from the right means you get to read entire words in a fairly natural way. Having them come from above doesn't get you that advantage.

(Yes, it flips to work left to right on left to right languages)

Sheesh

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

he price--US$359. In order to hit that price point, I imagine Nokia had to make some hardware trade offs. Unfortunately, those make themselves glaringly apparent at times. 128MB of shared memory isn't enough; neither is a 250MHz ARM processor.'

All that and more (just look at the specs) for that price in a small package "isn't enough"?

Can you say techno-blase?

Re:Sheesh

[ch-chuck]

Can you say techno-blase?

35 years ago it was "Future Shock", when market demands of science and technology create such rapid changes that it leaves people incapable of adjusting fast enough, leaving them in a state of perpetual disorientation.

Now we have just the opposite, where the insatiable market demands for faster, cheaper and better technology based products cannot be adaquately met by scientific research quickly enough, leaving consumers in a perpetual state of disillusionment and disappointment. ;)

Some drawbacks.

[Sheetrock]

• It's difficult to use like a laptop -- even plugging keyboard and mouse into the USB, I doubt there's enough room on most laps to hold a keyboard and this device. You can prop it up against a wall, however, if you want to use this like a desktop with an LCD monitor.
• The device does not contain a cellphone, which is a little confusing.
• For the price, it would be nice to have Windows XP on the device. Even if it had to be in a dual-boot configuration, it'd make gaming easier.

Re:Some drawbacks.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

For the price, it would be nice to have Windows XP on the device.

Oh yeah, they'll release an XP version just as soon as Microsoft completes the ARM port, any time now...

Even if it had to be in a dual-boot configuration, it'd make gaming easier

You do realize computing != beige box PCs right?

Re:Some drawbacks.

[Roguelazer]

• Since the USB port doesn't supply any juice, you can't use a keyboard or mouse.
• It's not supposed to...
• Are you crazy?
  • XP won't run on ARM
  • XP won't fit in the 64 MB of Flash ROM that Linux fits in
  • What gaming do you expect to do on a four-inch touchscreen?

Hmm. I should stop replying to flamebait.

Re:Some drawbacks.

[cygnus]

It's difficult to use like a laptop

it's difficult to use like a hammer, either. it isn't long enough to generate enough leverage, and i'd be happier if the weight were distributed more to one end.

The device does not contain a cellphone, which is a little confusing.

it doesn't have a can opener, either. what if i get stranded out in the woods? i'm stymied.

For the price, it would be nice to have Windows XP on the device. Even if it had to be in a dual-boot configuration, it'd make gaming easier.

i'd also like a port of OS/390, in case i want to convert my international banking corporation over to these.

Re:Some drawbacks.

[Anonymous Coward]

The device does not contain a cellphone, which is a little confusing.

it doesn't have a can opener, either. what if i get stranded out in the woods? i'm stymied.

it does have wifi, you could just use the internet
and call a taxi to bring one.
Oh, Right!
It doesn't have any sound Input!
So Nokia, the phone company,
made a wifi device, that could not be used for any kind of VoIP.

Re:Some drawbacks.

[snuf23]

What gaming do you expect to do on a four-inch touchscreen?

Well you can do plenty of gaming on a 4 inch touchscreen. There are tons of great PDA games available that use a stylus. Not just puzzle ones like Bejeweled and Bookworm but stuff like Age of Empires.

But yeah as for "dual booting into XP for gaming", I sure the poster was a troll, I can't imagine being that stupid.

Another Review..

[Dynamoo]

Also reviewed here but the review unit didn't want to talk WiFi. Looks like Nokia's customer service is dreadful and probably best avoided.

What...

[Anonymous Coward]

... does it hit too close to home?

But does it run...

[J0nne]

long enough with a full battery to take it along?

you thought I was going to say 'Linux', didn't you ;).

One-handed browsing

[BushCheney08]

The stand is designed so that you can prop the 770 up on your desk, coffee table, or any other flat surface so you can use it with a single hand.

Ummm...

Re:One-handed browsing

[Anonymous Coward]

ugh-hugh... :nod:

Re:One-handed browsing

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: "internet" "pr0n".

Re:One-handed browsing

[Anonymous Coward]

From the EULA: Nokia is not responsible for any loss of eye sight caused by one-handed use of the product.

Re:One-handed browsing

[MECC]

I hope it can stand being dropped...

Re:Parent's sig

[guitaristx]

Grammer tip: 'Effect' is used as a noun. 'Affect' is used as a verb.

Spelling tip: 'Grammar', not 'Grammer'

Backordered

[YodaToo]

Unless you got your order in before Nov. 16th, grabbed one of the few at CompUSA, or want to pay a premium on eBay, don't plan on getting one any time soon. Nokia has been awful about meeting their ship dates. I think the date on their web site for new orders is now sometime in January.

Re:Backordered

[jasonmantey]

This is quite true. i am on my 770 for the first time today - but i ordered the first day it went on sale. my first impressions? it can be a bit slow, but it is much better than i was expecting, after reading so many iffy reviews. i am listening to shoutcast writing on /. what more could you want from the couch?

Re:770 Love

[Orrin Bloquy]

I'm sorry, I just patented w00t earlier in this thread, so you owe me a licensing fee.

$350 for that??

[stavromueller]

Woah, I think the Apple Newton had better specs than that! I could see myself buying one of those for maybe a $100 less.

A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[skynetos]

I was a day 1 zaurus owner and this is exactly what the Zaurus should have been but was not. Out of the box, you pop in the included 64meg memory card, turn it on, and boom right in front of my face is my web browser, my RSS reader and e-mail. Best of all since its Linux they support all the secure e-mail connections (tls, ssl, imaps everything) so I don't have to compromise my security while using it. It has a huge library for something that has only been out for a short while. It's package management is 100x better than the zauruses! I jump on WIFI or Bluetooth to my phone to the internet, browse to the maemo.org site, click a package and it asks to open it in the package manager! It uses Opera 8 with Flash support. Plays full screen videos just fine, and let me tell you the screen is incredibly bright and detailed!

Its a 800x480 display, just beautiful! Not to mention the browser is a full one! No PDA versions of web pages, no side scrolling. You can zoom in, browse history and book marks it works!

I installed very easily mind you, GAIM for IM, Doom a bunch of other little games, an xterm, they have SSH for it, and the library is growing!

Drawbacks:
Occasionally, when using it not as intended, say using the not-ready or polished GAIM, or lets say loading up 20 web browsers, with your rss feeder in the background its going to run out of memory. This is an internet tablet, it has RSS feeder, web and e-mail and its all fully featured and ready to go out of the box. If you use it as intended it works and thats that!

Contrary to any reviews I have NEVER encountered any wifi flakyness or bluetooth crazyness. I have used it every day for about a week now, and it is just SOLID. Its design is slick as snot! check out the screen shots below, and check out nokias own site for the 770, its silver metal case and its included pouch is just awsome.

and of course, it runs linux! all my Ipaq and palm friends are very jealous!

check out http://maemo.org/ for more info.
For screenshots: http://maemo.org/screenshots.html
Third party applications you can install at the click of a button: http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ApplicationCatalog
Another Nokia 770 site: http://www.internettablettalk.com/

Re:A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[Anonymous Coward]

There are three things I want to do with one of these:

a) surf the web

b) check my email using IMAP/SSL

c) use an SSH client to get a remote shell

I know this can do a). Can it do b) and c) out of the box?

If it can do all these things I'll probably buy one.

Re:A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[skynetos]

It can do A.
It can do B.. in fact I use B like this: IMAPS (Secure), SMTP secure (port 465) ssl, and it just works great!
C can be done not out of the box... this is an internet tablet for end users not a development tool, but of course you can just install the SSH client/server package and the xterminal and your good to go! But thats understandable...

Hope this helped!

Re:A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[sci50514]

I second you. Nokia designs it as a secondary Internet connecting device. It is not meant to replace your main computer. I got it so I can watch movie on the subway, do some reading and check the weather on my bed the moment I wake up. FYI,you may want to disable popup for the browser.

#### READING /. ON MY BED NOW :) ##########

Re:A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I didn't really mean "out of the box", I meant "Can I apt-get ssh"? I love apt-get.

I should have just known the answer would be "yes".

I was worried it would be like a Zaurus.

Yeah I'll probably get one now.

Thanks for answering my question!

Re:A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[po8]

The N770 has no PIM suite! I repeat: no PIM suite.

For me, this is a pretty fundamental omission. Someone is working on a GPE port. I'll probably buy one of these boxes when it can replace my Palm IIIxe. For now, I'm in the process of returning the one I borrowed from a friend. It's awesome, except for the one task I use a palmtop device for most often.

Re:A review from a Nokia 770 Owner

[UnxMully]

IMHO that's not a problem. I installed the ported GPE apps, but then found that the PIM functions on my mobile phone are more than adequate for what I want to do, and the free Outlook synch software that Nokia provide for that works perfectly well - now if only Apple could learn from that and support the 6320 I'd be in heaven :(

As a device for browsing, watching video, reading e-mail (this needs some work) and general geekiness, the 770 is the equal of the Palm or PocketPC platforms and in some cases (browsing) far exceeds them (again IMHO).

OK it needs some work, but there have been two new software releases in the month I've had mine (with each providing speed improvements), the Nokia developers are responsive and the third party stuff is appearing at a steady rate.

I do agree that 128ROM/128RAM woould have been a better setup from the start, RAM does tend to run out rather quickly and one of the downsides of a decent browser on a small device is that websites treat it like a PC and open new windows all over the place, punt flash down the wire to you and do all sort of funky stuff that you're really not interested in.

Having said all that, I like it and it's replaced my iPaq 4700 in daily use.

Biggest gotchas: flash slot and USB missing

[MDMurphy]

I'd be all over this as a remote tool using VNC to either my Mac or PC. The higher-rez screen than we usually see in something this small is the big appeal.

Additionally, I'd use it as a portable viewer of some sort. But what kills it for me is that it doesn't have a standard USB host port or a standard SD or CF slot. Either/Both of those would let me plug in a memory card or thumbdrive and view/transfer/share the contents. RS-MMC is not going to cut it if you'd like to pop in the card from your camera and see images on the screen, and without the standard USB host connector you can't even use a cheap card reader to view. (a hack will enable host mode, but the connector won't be right and can't supply power by itself )

Bluetooth and WiFi are great, but being able to read/write common external storage devices are important too. The lack of them is what killed it for me.

Re:Biggest gotchas: flash slot and USB missing

[Rambo]

It's not that hard to hook up just about anything that's supported in Linux over the USB. The connector is a standard mini-USB port and all it takes is connecting 5 volts to the power wires (black/red) within that cable to make it talk to any device (a F-F gender changer is needed so you can actually plug something into it). I've connected a flash reader, keyboard, and hard drive so far and I am loving it. Nothing else even comes close to the 770 in that regard! My next purchase will be a USB network adapter so I can connect to networks without wireless.

Re:Biggest gotchas: flash slot and USB missing

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't find a PDA (and pda-like) unit that can deliver powered USB Host mode....
It needs 5 volts and is practically hard to implement without draining the battery.

That key feature...

[Hobbex]

I think the problem with specialized devices like this is that everybody is going to miss that one feature that _they_ really need. So in the end, to please anybody, the device ends uphaving to be a complete computer like the OQO. And then people complain about feature creep, and why they have to spend money on all those features that _they_ didn't need.

My missing feature: video out. With video out, I could bring this device instead of a laptop when I travel, and connect use it to run to presentations from when giving talks. Without video out, I need to drag along a laptop anyways.

Handwriting Software

[Compholio]

Does anyone know if Nokia will be releasing the handwriting recognition software or does anyone know of any good programs for an on-screen keyboard with handwriting recognition for Linux that's free?

Re:Parent's sig

[Eccles]

You misunderstood. He was quoting Kelsey Grammer, I think it was in an early episode of "Frasier."

The hardware's not the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

128MB of shared memory isn't enough; neither is a 250MHz ARM processor.

The problem isn't the memory or the processor; it's X Windows and a distro not optimised for a resource-limited mobile device.

Re:The hardware's not the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

No the problem is the storage isn't enough for my 1 terabyte collection of hentai tentacle rape porn.

Re:The hardware's not the problem

[Raphael]

The problem isn't the memory or the processor; it's X Windows and a distro not optimised for a resource-limited mobile device.

I assume that you haven't tried the N770 yet. The applications are reasonably optimized for that device and from my point of view, the benefits of using X11 outweight the drawbacks. Opening a new application takes time (a few seconds) but once the application is loaded, it runs quite well. Most of the performance bottlenecks that I have hit seem to be related to the size and speed of the memory (and CPU) rather than X11.

I have developed and ported software for a large number of small devices using Windows CE, Symbian (UIQ) and now Maemo (Linux/X11/GTK+). Although Symbian is a nice OS from a conceptual point of view and is designed to perform well on resource-limited devices such as mobile phones, writing software for it is very painful. Writing for Windows CE seems to be much easier at first, but there are many gotchas: you think that you can use most of the Windows API, but then you discover that the function that you need is not supported or has some limitations forcing you to rewrite a lot of code from scratch. Writing for Maemo is a refreshing experience: of course there are some limitations, but once you have set up the Scratchbox environment, development and testing is relatively easy (compared to other mobile devices). So from a developer's point of view, the choice of the X Window System and an open distribution such as Debian is a good one.

I wouldn't mind having more memory or a more powerful CPU in this device. But as it stands now, the 770 is already a very nice gadget for web browsing, checking the news or previewing/uploading pictures taken from my mobile phone (SonyEricsson K750).

Re:The hardware's not the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume that you haven't tried the N770 yet.

Well, you know what happens when you assume, don't you?

So from a developer's point of view, the choice of the X Window System ... is a good one.

Oh really?

Re:Parent's sig

[nganju]

Not to mention that 'effect' can be used as a verb. Oh, and 'affect' can be used as a noun. Grandparent had good intentions, but needs to look at a dictionary.

Review was a lot better than I thought it to be.

[OrangeTide]

I expected the Nokia 770 to be another dud. But the review on it was not too bad. Too bad I already spent my mad money on a GP2X. Else I might have gotten a 770, although by the time they quit being out of stock I'll have more mad money.

I wonder how well the video chipset of the GP2X and Nokia 770 stack up against each other. It's sort of a shame the nokia didn't put some buttons on both sides of the device, maybe you could play some old games on it (1942, Galaga, etc). Also I wish support flipping the buttons and screen for left-handed people was more of a priority for handheld electronic devices.

Re:770 Love

[gazpa]

Sorry, but I just patented owing earlier in... europe, so you owe me a licensing fee.

KHTML / Konqueror soon...

[billybob2]

Ars Technica is reporting that Nokia 770 Internet uses Opera, but I would think it's quite possible that Nokia will offer updates containing a KHTML-based browser (some version of Konqueror) soon.

Nokia has been collaborating with KDE developers to build a browser for some of their other embeded systems, such as the Series 60 Smartphone. Nokia engineers have stated that KHTML is more resourceful than Gecko, has a cleaner architecture, and starts up faster. Also, KHTML is free (LGPL), while Opera is proprietary and therefore probably requires them to pay licensing fees and royalties.

Re:KHTML / Konqueror soon...

[MrLizardo]

Someone has already contribted a beta build of gpe-mini-browser which is based on GTK-webcore, which IIRC is related to KHTML in some way. mini-browser has some issues right now, such as lack off HTTPS support, but renders well and is impressively fast on low power hardware. It runs great on my Zaurus C1000 (with an Xscale @ 416MHz). It would not suprise me to see a port of konqueror show up at some point. Firefox is also likely to be an easy port since it will compile and run on a Zaurus (both have ARM-archictecture CPUs), though IMHO Firefox is too heavy for a system like the 770.

Re:KHTML / Konqueror soon...

[espergreen]

Yes, I was very confused that it comes with opera instead of webcore. After all nokia is the one that ported webcore/khtml to gtk in the first place!

http://gtk-webcore.sourceforge.net/

Re:KHTML / Konqueror soon...

[zsau]

Ported? "Is porting", or maybe "started a port". Hopefully once GTK+ Webcore becomes useable rather than an alpha-quality in-development port, Nokia will look at using it...

How does it compare to Dell?

[Eccles]

The x51V model (I think) has similar specs, and a faster Mhz processor (only 640x480 screen tho'); how do the two compare?

Re:How does it compare to Dell?

[LinuxOnEveryDesktop]

The x51V model (I think) has similar specs, and a faster Mhz processor (only 640x480 screen tho'); how do the two compare?

Well, I've never even considered one of those Dell toys, because they run a pretty buggy OS (I have a friend with an Axim, and he has been less than impressed with its (lack of) stability). Oh, and the OS is not Linux. In other words, the Axim's hackability is, well, pathetic.

On the upside, the Dell has a faster CPU, and a compact flash slot.

But my 770 is on backorder...

not much better than a Zaurus in other words

[ecloud]

I was wondering. The extra bit of resolution would be nice but it sounds like it's underpowered, and the apps out-of-the-box aren't any better, so the main advantages would be lower cost, and that it's the current vogue while the Zauri are now hard to find. I hope they manage to sell a ton of them anyway, but my hopes have fallen a bit since this device was announced.

What's with that RS-MMC crap that only Nokia is using? There is no way they couldn't afford the space for an SD slot. They are as bad as Sony in this regard trying to push yet-another-memory-card that nobody has a good reason to buy.

I wonder if they are making good use of the DSP? Maybe the PDF viewer could use it to accelerate some repetitive math stuff.

Re:not much better than a Zaurus in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Go figure. RS-MMC is what they use already in their phones...!

Re:not much better than a Zaurus in other words

[bfree]

Perhaps this may offer one valid reason for not choosing sd. Not sure that RS-MMC is any better mind.

C'mon...they didn' mean any harm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Been in trubble wit duh law, lickin tit, and skittled-braws sins duh tay they wuz barn.

Score: 0 (Logged-in users start at Score: 1). Create an Account! To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: echelon

Sad

[QuantumG]

This is the state of mobile computing? Look how think that sucker is! How about a little style? Seems if I want to read something on the john I'm still going to have to print it out and shred it when I'm done. At least I get to make environmentalists cry.

Re:Review was a lot better than I thought it to be

[Wm_K]

But the review on it was not too bad. Too bad I already spent my mad money on a GP2X [wikipedia.org].

5 minutes after OrangeTide posted on Slashdot that he spent his mad money on a GP2X, The wikipedia pages get updated to tell us that the GP2X, is in fact, a gigantic dildo.

Phone Function

[deconvolution]

Nokia should integrate a mobile phone into this device. I could not understand why they are trying integrate everything such as contact list, calender, mp3 player, game console, even two digital cameras into one mobile phone whilst this is for nothing. Anyone who need 770 for serious purpose must realise each time he/she goes out for travel, he/she must carry one 770, one mobile phone, at least one charger and ear phone. She/he probably have to charge two devices every day. Every true mobile operation must take care two devices (770 and phone) in the same time....

I will wait to check their next release...

Re:Phone Function

[DaveBarr]

A good tablet is fundamentally incompatible with being a phone. A good tablet is flat, rectangular, and big enough to read a web page. A good phone is small, small, and small.

It was plain good design that they a) didn't even try to make it a phone but b) made it dead simple to allow it to bluetooth off the awesome phone you already have. (If you don't have one by now, get one, they're everywhere). I'm tired of otherwise great phones that try and horribly fail at trying to browse the web (and mediocre web enabled phones that horribly fail at being a good lightweight phone). Let me leave my sexy BT enabled phone on my hip where it belongs and let me have this nice sexy tablet in my hands.

With devices getting this small, manufacturers are beginning to make huge mistakes in attempting to merge two already-perfect devices together into a single device that fails at both. (Witness the Rokr flop, yet booming sales of the Razr and Nanos).

Re:Phone Function

[Psiven]

Word, Brother.

Re:Phone Function

[UnxMully]

If I had any Mod points, you'd get them.

Re:Phone Function

[ian mills]

Why not get a Nokia 7710 then?

Re:Phone Function

[Lars T.]

But a tablet with a (Bluetooth) headset could be both. You just wouldn't be required to use your phone with those small, small, and small keys.

Me too!

[Anonymous Coward]

where the dork sings "...just a good ole boy..." from (i think) Dukes Of Hazzard...god that ad p*sses me off.

Yeah! I bet he browses Slashdot all day and posts comments bitching about commercials too!

Buy it here online

[$exyNerdie]

Main site: www.nokia.com/770

USA site: http://www.nokiausa.com/770

Buy it here(on back order in US): http://www.nokiausa.com/add_nonactivated_phone_to_ cart/1,1890,p,00.html

We have one-its cool

[rihock]

We got ours yesterday and the article is spot on- the screen is crisp, clear and great- it's a tad sluggish, but not really. The email client could use some work- setting up multiple accounts is easy, but you can't sort/filter the email into separate folders. Also, the streaming radio is cool, but doesn't support a lot of types streams. Its cool for simple browsing and light email- but I think it needs to be a bit larger for everyday business use.

Re:Parent's sig

[frostw]

Meanwhile, over at Kelsey Grammer School...

Maybe not if you like Java

[blueapples]

128MB of shared memory isn't enough; neither is a 250MHz ARM processor.

You have got to be kidding me. Considering the fact that the 68k mac was implemented using a 4 MHz processor with 4 MB of RAM and still somehow ran a GUI and was even capable of primitive multitasking with software add ons, I find this statement a bit hard to swallow.

Remember Wirth's Law: "Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster." Maybe it'd help if the GUI toolkit was implemented in ROM instead of using GTK or whatever bloated "modern" system this is dependent on. Just to name one example of a poor implementation choice for a portable device.

Besides all that, Delphi for instance is capable of producing executables under a few hundred K. You could install several of those on half of 128MB. Honestly, with a device that is meant to be connected to the Internet and thus able to take advantage of lockers, streaming audio/video, etc., I just don't see why the provided hardware shouldn't be more than enough.

This thing is basically a powerful Apple Newton (as originally designed, not as it was released) with a disappointingly poorly implemented OS.

Re:Maybe not if you like Java

[jockm]

You have got to be kidding me. Considering the fact that the 68k mac was implemented using a 4 MHz processor with 4 MB of RAM and still somehow ran a GUI and was even capable of primitive multitasking with software add ons, I find this statement a bit hard to swallow

The original Mac had 128K or RAM (64K of ROM) and used a 8Mhz (actually a little less) processor. That is not to take away from your core point however

Re:Maybe not if you like Java

[Dave9876]

4MB? You're off by a bit. Try 128KB.

Re:Maybe not if you like Java

[blueapples]

I often mix the specs of the Classic, Plus, and SE. Just can't keep them all straight for some reason, even though I have them all sitting on a self over there.

But, yes, even the SE now that I look at the back of it has only 1MB built in memory, 800K disk drive and a 20 MB hard drive.

At any rate, a custom OS would do this device better than whatever they've got right now.

Re:Maybe not if you like Java

[Tune]

>At any rate, a custom OS would do this device better than whatever they've got right now.

this could help. A little, at least...

specs

[Anonymous Coward]

it's 64MB of memory (not 128) (limited by the TI OMAP), and the browser is Opera core...

you're gonna loooove micro-SD then

[Anonymous Coward]

even smaller !

Re:you're gonna loooove micro-SD then

[ecloud]

Well micro-SD (AKA TransFlash) has a wider following, among multiple manufacturers, so I imagine it's going to be around a while. And yes it really is much, much smaller, so the excuse that tiny cellphones need tiny memory cards has a little bit of merit. But RS-MMC is not that small, more like mini-SD (another useless half-measure that doesn't need to exist); so they are just muddying the water rather than making an actual improvement.

I like how some Zauri have both CF and SD slots. Both very well established, and you can even put in a microdrive if necessary.

Re:Parent's sig

[m50d]

It's a sad day for literacy that people need the fact that the great-grandparent is being humourous pointed out to them.

Big Evil MegaCorp Deserves Some Kudos...

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, MegaCorp deserves some kudos in having a developer program and shipping 500 units gratis to developers (I received a month or so ago) and supporting Gnome instead of Qt.

The display and touch screen makes it quite amazing.

Built-in wifi and bluetooth makes it cool.

The battery life I have experienced makes it amazing.

The fact that I can buy fairly cheap nokia phone batteries for extra battery power is very nice.

If you want some cool app for it, port or write your own instead of your lame slashdot comments.

nokia 770 is puff ..

[torpor]

.. this is the hand-held linux portable machine de-jour...

i mean, you can't beat the last 3 weeks worth of nice, adventurous, linux-like hacking the gp2x has had done for it, nossir.. way ahead of the pack.

Re:nokia 770 is puff ..

[despisethesun]

I love my GP2X, but seriously, it's ludicrous to compare it to the Nokia 770. They are two entirely different beasts. One is a gaming/media machine, and the other is an internet tablet. Shit, if the GP had any sort of internet connectivity it might be a valid comparison, but it doesn't. They're aimed at two very different markets.

"I got my hands on one..." - he surely did

[gummyb34r]

"When they became available in the US, I got my hands on one... "

Based on this photo in the review http://media.arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/noki a770.media/770.jpg,
he got his hands on one all right.

Dont knock it unless youve tried it/own it

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to a compusa, get to the nokia display and try it out for yourself. None of these bad remarks mean anything unless the person has actually TRIED it out! You will all proove your selves wrong!

Modern PDAs are faster

[snuf23]

Well, it is ok spec wise - but aside from the nice big screen most common PDAs have more powerful CPUs.
My Asus 716 which is almost two years old has a 400MHz Xscale in it as well as being easy to expand via a SD and compact flash slots. At time of purchase is was less than $400.
Just making a quick look - $400 for the top of the line Dell Axim gives you:

624MHz Xscale
64MB SDRAM
16MB video RAM
256MB Flash memory built in
VGA resolution screen (640x480)
Expandable via SD, Compact flash
Integrated bluetooth and wifi 802.11b

Yes it doesn't run Linux. But strictly as a hardware comparison the only thing the 770 has going for it is the bigger screen and landscape orientation.
I'd love to see a nice PDA styled more like a PSP with a bigger screen. Tapwave tried to do this but failed.
I'm looking at the GP2x for Linux based goodness, but this is more of a media/gaming device, no provision for wireless networking as far as I can tell.

Re:Modern PDAs are faster

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to see a nice PDA styled more like a PSP with a bigger screen

How about the Pepper Pad? It has similar specs to the Asus, plus an 8.4" 800x600 screen, 256MB RAM, a 20GB HDD, and a built-in keyboard.

Re:Modern PDAs are faster

[snuf23]

The Pepper Pad looks pretty neat. The one thing is that it sure costs quite a bit. $850 is more than double the cost of the PDA - although you do get a much bigger screen and 20gig hard drive.

Re:Modern PDAs are faster

[Anonymous Coward]

When OMAP first started getting used in some PDAs people were claiming they were about twice as powerful as XSCALE (so a 200MHz was about the equivalent of a 400MHz). There's was also something about an additional DSP core that can be used to get even more out of them...

Re:Modern PDAs are faster

[despisethesun]

I just got my GP2X a week ago and I love it. There's an awesome homebrew community based around it and its predecessor, the GP32, and even though it's only been available for about a month there's a good sized library of games and emulators. If you're looking to do anything but play games and maybe a few media files, though, you're better off with a PDA. There's no wireless, no touchscreen, and not much in the way of non-game-related applications. I personally have no use for a PDA, though, and so the $230 Canadian it cost me was money well spent.

128MB is a lot for X11

[OrangeTide]

I had an AgendaVR3 and it runs X11 and found it to be quite snappy. I admit it was only using a grayscale video mode and had a low-res display, so it did not need much frame buffer memory or pixmap cache. But it only had 8MB of RAM to run linux/X11 out of, on a 66MHz cpu.

This is proof that the parent poster is right, you can run these things on a limited device, if the distro is designed for that. There are debian-based palmtop distros out there that do just fine, it's quite obvious from the features and screenshots that the Nokia 770 is NOT running stock debian.

Quit living in the past

[Anonymous Coward]

For example: That Apple had something like 512x384 display, 1 bit per pixel. This has 800x480 with 16 bits per pixel. The ratio is 31.25. That would mean Apple with similar specs would require 125 MHz nowadays just to run the graphics on this thing. (And if you today try the good old Mac... Well, it really sucks.)

Oh, and did it have a web, browser? Or any of these:

  Audio: MP3, MPEG4, AAC, WAV, AMR, MP2
  Video: MPEG1, MPEG4, Real Video, H.263, AVI, 3GP
  Image: JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, SVG-tiny, ICO

- WLAN?

I don't think they use "modern systems" to slow things down. In fact, it kind of helps to get software & applications _fast_ on the device. But I gotta agree, Windows would've been a better choice. Especially from the developers' point of view.

Re:Quit living in the past

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, those BMP decoders really do need some horsepower.

Comparison with zaurus

[Anonymous Coward]

I just picked up a Zaurus C1000 shipped from Japan for $380.
640x480, keyboard, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, CF, SD, 416Mhz ARM cpu, USB host capable

Your opinions will very depending on your use (note no built in networking on the Z), but I'd rather have the faster CPU than the slightly better screen and networking.

More:Quit living in the past

[Anonymous Coward]

Oopsie, the Mac had ~8MHz processor, so that scales nicely to 250MHz. Just for the display.

And as for the mem... You're right. 4000kB should then be enough. Too bad they _can_ now provide you with some extra. You know, for video, music, web-browsing, etc.

Just tired of people who don't know anything about technology complainig about how technology today sucks.

Without a hard drive it is another useless toy

[Anonymous Coward]

Have MP3 players taught us nothing. Until these devices have enough storage to actually contain some real data, they are just geek toys.

Pepper Pad

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you're looking for a Pepper Pad? It has a USB host port in addition to Bluetooth, WiFi, a built-in SD card reader, and an 800x600 screen. It runs Linux, and both VNC and RDesktop are available.

Re:Pepper Pad

[MDMurphy]

The problem is the Pepper Pad is 4x the size and more than 2x the price. It's not very pocketable. If Nokia had at least made the storage a real SD card that would have meant it would have a tie to some existing common hardware.

If/When the Pepper Pad people go belly up I'd be happy to grab one or two for $100 from Woot or eBay. They could replace my Audreys as generic web viewing devices.

I worked on testing this thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

The variant it uses is BusyBox and a lot of the interface is based on Gnome code. It's rumored that Nokia is looking at using Firefox instead of Opera in the next version.

For the simple-minded, yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you can always WLAN to your desktop 1TB hardrive... Or if you're not home, you can stream it (music, video, photos) via the internet. You choice, really, but it's a helluva lot more than what I'd be willing to carry around.

Wouldn't we all, friend...

[Kadin2048]

... wanting to love it for certain elements, but being seriously disappointed by the slow processor and limited RAM, which he says are probably a function of the low price point ($359). This is in contrast with something like OQO which looks to be very cool, but costs $1299 (MSRP). Honestly, I'd like to see something OQO'ish in the $599 price point range that can run Linux. That would probably be the best of both worlds.

In other news, I really wanted to like the Kia Rio, but was seriously disappointed by the 110-horsepower engine, which is probably a function of the low price point ($10,570). This is in contrast with something like the Ferarri F430 which looks to be very cool, but costs $174,585. Honestly, I'd like to see something Ferarri-ish in the $15,000 price point range that can do a 13-second quarter mile. That would probably be the best of both worlds.

Re:Wouldn't we all, friend...

[timeOday]

But you're forgetting the most popular competitor of all in the market for Internet Tablets: nothing, for $0. Most people don't think they're worth the money. The market is clearly waiting for a better value, not just a different point on the existing price/performance curve.

Re:Wouldn't we all, friend...

[10Ghz]

How can you say that "Market is clearly waiting for better value"? I mean, the product has been out for few weeks now, how do you know how well it's selling?

Re:Wouldn't we all, friend...

[kyrre]

This device is sold out all over europe. Nokia underestimated their sales by quite a margin. Not to say that people will continue buy them when Nokia comes around to deliver their back orders.

Re:Wouldn't we all, friend...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thought about buying one of those, right price margin and liberated as default. Then I heard that Nokia can't deliver those so I bought an used 12" laptop, it will get debian too, but isn't as cool as this Nokia would have been. On the other hand, I like having a keyboard and some more space for pr0n.

Pepper Pad

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you're looking for a Pepper Pad? It has video out in addition to a hard drive, bigger screen, built-in keyboard, and all sorts of other goodies. Plus the CPU is clocked 3x faster, at 624Mhz.

Quit whining...

[mikiN]

..., start designing.

On all the forums I visit I hear people whining about mobile devices having weak specs like insufficient RAM and slow processors.

The answer that comes up eventually is this:
- RAM, CPU and video chips eat power, raw.
- People don't want bulky batteries in their mobile gadgets.

These two are at constant odds with each other, so unless someone comes up with more energy-efficient alternatives for all the above-mentioned, I'm afraid we'll be stuck with things the way they are for a while.

Quote from an interesting blog posting on MSDN (about the virtues of Persistent Storage on Pocket-PC's):

A typical battery holds 1000mAh of charge. 128M of RAM takes about 500mAh to stay resident for 72 hours. 64M takes about 250. This is why you never saw a 256M WM 2003 device. It would have run for a minute then decided its batteries were critically low.

So there you have it. If you don't trust the numbers (why should you, even if the article is quite recent?), look them up, then do the math.

Re:Quit whining...

[mikiN]

Forgot to add: "Critically low" in this context means "able to hold the contents of RAM for 72 more hours", part of a design rule implemented in WM 2003.

10% cash back rewards on Nokia...unbashfull plug

[ScrewTivo]

at savern.com Yes Sir...Suit on and snug ..over

Amen -- quit it with the memory cards

[Kadin2048]

What's with that RS-MMC crap that only Nokia is using? There is no way they couldn't afford the space for an SD slot. They are as bad as Sony in this regard trying to push yet-another-memory-card that nobody has a good reason to buy.

I'm right with you on that one. Using some bizarro memory-card format that's only used on some cellphones (I don't care if they're Nokia's cellphones) was the nail in the coffin of my interest in this device. I hope it's successful because I like the concept, but they shot themselves in the foot with the execution, especially with the memory card. If they had gone with a format that has a bigger form factor, at least there would have been the theoretical possibility of an adaptor to use these mini MMC cards that they've got such a ridiculous hardon for. But by making that the computer's built-in reader's form factor, they rule out ever using a bigger card in anything approaching an elegant fashion.

It reeks of arrogance on the part of the designers -- they have their pet memory card format and they think they can just shove it down the user's throats. It sucks just as much when Sony does it with Memory Stick, but at least with that there are an order of magnitude more devices that use it. I've never even heard of anything non-Nokia that uses this format (actually I'd never heard of it period, before today). I'll never buy a PSP because of it's stupid memory card format, but if I was really interested there, I could probably argue to myself that at least there will be an economy of scale involved and the prices on the cards will come down -- these RS-MMC things will probably always be expensive.

They should have given a call down to Pontis in Germany, asked them how their MP3 player sales are going. Pontis had one of the first practical MP3 players I'd ever used, but it was crippled because of some strange proprietary filesystem on the cards that required special readers and driver software to load songs. At least they used basically standard physical cards, but in the end they got out-maneuvered (at least in the U.S. market) by cheaper solid-state players that worked like Mass Storage devices. I'm not sure what their marketshare numbers are now, but I've never seen one in stores in years. Take a hint, Nokia. Nobody likes storage that's a pain in the ass to use.

Re:Amen -- quit it with the memory cards

[Emil Brink]

Here in Sweden, street prices for a 1 GB MMC RS seem to be virtually identical to those for MemoryStick Duo (around 700 SEK, around $88 US). Both of these are ~25% higher than for 1 GB of Compact Flash, but I guess you get the smaller size for the extra money. In comparison to foreign prices, keep in mind that these prices include the Swedish VAT of 25%.

Re:Amen -- quit it with the memory cards

[Kadin2048]

That's actually cheaper than I can find it in the U.S. for (and that price includes 25% tax??).

Meritline.com, which traditionally sells media quite cheap, has a 1GB MMC-RS for $95 USD. A regular MMC costs $58 for the same capacity. CompactFlash is about the same -- however CF has the additional advantage of going all the way up to about 8GB also.

The kicker for me is that if they had used a regular MMC slot, they would have given consumers the choice of either format, since you can put an RS-MMC into a MMC slot with an adaptor. By choosing the smaller format when there really wasn't any reason to, they've locked people in to the smaller and more expensive version forever.

I can understand wanting to go with the small one on a cellphone, but not on something that's as big as this tablet is.

Zaurus

[wytcld]

Just got a 3100 from pricejapan.com. Came in less than a week, at under $600. (Could have wished for packing material between the retail box and the shipping box, but it arrived intact despite that lack.) Then put pdaXrom on it and it's a real Linux computer. I'm also running Debian Handheld on it in a chroot -- haven't got that fully ironed out yet, but it does run nicely enough. And this is nearly twice as fast as the model under discussion, with a 4 gig HD as well as SD and CF card slots. It fits in a normal pocket, yet the screen is sharp and the keyboard usable by a large guy like me (in two-finger style, but still, quick enough). There are a half-dozen other Linux variants that also run on it, including the Japanese QT-based version it comes with, which has been well-translated to English (and German) by Trisoft.de, who'd be worth buying from if you're in Europe.

Nokia Sucks A55

[0tim0]

I guess Nokia has a good marketing department. I've always had a good impression of them -- even though I've never owned one of their phones. I was looking forward to the 770 because it seemed to be the form-factor I've been wanting. It seems the engineers did a nice job making a cool new product. They made the software open and "hackable" -- exactly what I wanted. Too bad all of their good will was ruined for me by their sales department.

I signed up for email updates on the 770 before it was released. I never got a single email from them (it's been out for a while).

I ordered it online three days before it was supposed to ship. It didn't ship one time (not even close). No email. Nothing. When I called two weeks later to ask what happened the customer service rep was pretty rude and explained that I'd ordered a "pre-order" item -- and they had no idea when it would ship. And, if I'd read the fine print I'd know that I agreed that they could ship it whenever they wanted and even change the price, thank you very much.

So I finally got it today (four weeks after it was supposed to be shiped to me) -- and it was used. That's right, the box had been opened and re-sealed. The packaging was missing. The RS-MMC card was replaced by an (apparently) defective MMC card (it didn't work hanging out of the device at all). There were finger prints all over the device. I just can't believe they would send out a used device like that.

I've never had such a bad experience buying something from a company.

--t

I know this

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty common with any _truly_ pre-order stuff...

They probably sent you one as soon as they _could_, no "mint" devices were yet/anymore available, and the MMC got screwed up in a hurry. The question is, though, why are you complaining here? Why don't you just call the company up and ask for a replacement MMC? You'll probably have to send the defective back, though.

By the way, RS-MMC:s can have MMC adaptors attached to them (small metal-thingy). Remove the adaptor, and it should fit into the slot. If there isn't, call them up; you really got the wrong card.

Or be a good american, sue their a$$e5 off.

It doesn't have to be that way

[Weaselmancer]

I agree completely. Why on earth go with a 250Mhz arm for the processor? That's 5 year old tech at least. For maybe 50 bucks more they could be running AMD Geode x86 at 1Ghz at least. The thing would be a PC you could hold in your hand. You wouldn't have to port anything to it. Every linux distro would work straight from the iso images. Wine and Windows XP would run on it. And software you could buy at CompUSA. All major GPS software would work on it. It would be a no-compromises handheld.

Re:It doesn't have to be that way

[Rattencremesuppe]

Because x86 consumes too much power compared to ARM.

ARM cores have a very good performance to power consumption ratio, that's why they are used in PDAs, phones etc. But 250MHz is a bit slow indeed, and I wonder how much the 770's software benefits from the OMAP's DSP core...

Re:It doesn't have to be that way

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a no-compromises handheld.

Unless you consider lugging a 3 kW generator around to be a compromise.

Re:It doesn't have to be that way

[antime]

Why on earth go with a 250Mhz arm for the processor?

Nokia use the OMAP in their phones. That means they're familiar with it and the tools, can reuse designs etc. Remember that this is really a pilot/prototype project.

A moderate price point...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a little above your price point, but why can't one of these Nokia Tablets be paired with a Mac mini? You can pick up a mini refurb from Apple for $370; you can get the bluetooth/802.11g module for another $70... Pick up 512 MB RAM for $40... Total cost = $840. Well, plus shipping, handling, taxes... Still, gets you a compact, robust linux box (or OS X, if you lean that way) and a handy tablet.

You could access applications on the mini via X and VNC, depending on the OS and your needs.
g=

wifi and ssh?

[twitter]

Bluetooth and WiFi are great, but being able to read/write common external storage devices are important too. The lack of them is what killed it for me.

It's supposed to work with ssh. If that's true, you should be able to drag and drop your files from any computer using Konqueror.

I've done similar with a Zaurus running OpenZaurus. Using GPE, you can even run stuff via X forwarding, which is kind of fun, but silly if you are really intersted in a laptop replacement that fits into your pocket.

Yes, having a CF and MMC/SD slot on the Zaurus was nice. I put in a 512MB SD and used the CF for wifi. The SD worked as a /usr and extra home space. This device has the wifi built in and you will be able to do the same thing with the compact SD as you can with an SD.

The world of Linux handhelds has been sweet for a while now, but things are getting much nicer all the time. It does not take much to run Debian as this wacko from my LUG demonstrates. If a 150 MHz P1 with 70MB of RAM can do it, handheld devices are not far off. 128 MB of RAM should be more than enough, if only they had a 4Gig hard drive on it for OS storage, you could run a full distro. Such machines are on the way and they will be running Debian or some other version of free software.

Re:wifi and ssh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the closing "is teh bettar than teh 3vilz M$" line.

Graffiti like recognition from GPE

[twitter]

Does anyone know if Nokia will be releasing the handwriting recognition software

Graffiti like handwriting recognition comes and goes on OpenZaurus. Rosetta and Xstroke have done the same. Why it goes away, I don't know, but when it's there it's about as good as Palm's ever was and WAY better than any M$ device ever dreamed of being. You should be able to apt-get it if it's available for use.

Re:Graffiti like recognition from GPE

[Anonymous Coward]

any M$ device ever dreamed of being

That's nice, but what does it have to do with my question again?

Captain Obvious wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: you're dumb.

Re:Captain Obvious wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for pointing that out Major Obivous. The world is now a better place.

Nice flame...

[Tune]

...But your math doesn't work, most of the time. The ratio you refer to applies to video out and is mostly unrelated to the CPU. Except for streaming video, which really is a silly application on a lightweight tablet. There, wifi bandwidth is more likely to be a bottleneck than the CPU.
Anyway, the newton *was* able to reproduce audio in the formats considered "standard" at the time. I don't see why contemporary (compressed) formats would be a problem, as they take less than 30% CPU time on my 10 year old 90MHz Pentium box.
And images. What exactly is it that you want to do with them that requires over 250MHz ARM power?

As for browsers, I have to agree that these have evolved to very complex pieces of software. Though I won't debate that firefox, opera, safari and IE all carry a certain portion of bloat, I don't see small embedded browsers with full support any time soon.

As for Windows, you gottabe joking. You're not a WinCE developer, are you?

Not surprising

[porneL]

Opera has very good small/medium screen rendering mode. This should be useful on device with 800px wide screen and webpages designed for >1k pixels.

Opera can work decently on slow hardware (full-blown engine works on most hi-end mobile phones).

AFAIK KHTML and Minimo aren't ready to compete in these areas (yet).

Not flaming, man.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't think that the UI needs to do anything with the components it is intending to draw? You know, blit images, icons, borders, and such. You must be joking. In fact, now that there are all kinds of _fills_ (not only 1-bit pixels... ok, maybe some dithering, etc.), there's a lot more to draw. _Somehow_ the action of moving, say, a window has to get operated onto the frame/backbuffer. I don't see how this is not related to the CPU power. Without (I presume, just like the good ole mac) graphics accelerator?

Video out is actually DAC or some stuff in the TFT that just refreshes the display with the video RAM. And true, that's _fast_. I presume it's being done ~20-60Hz regardless of anything, and no, it doesn't have anything to do with the CPU.

Imagine scrolling a whole framebuffer, which is pretty common when browsing. Don't tell me you don't realize what needs to be done at least ~20 fps to get smooth scrolling. Imagine cycling through windows, you'll probably need to redraw about the whole screen. Also, what happens, when you move the window over a _non_solid_colored_background_? Lot of bitmap access there. Also, you'll need doublebuffering to meet today's requirements. And don't even get me started on alpha-blending. That requires reading the backbuffer also. On that 1-bit fb mac, life's a lot easier. So, relatively speaking, 250 MHz is just about enough.

Whatever Newton was able to do was, again, then. Now, you'll need to decode the video and audio, plus maybe add some transparent layer on top of that. It's not free, and it's 800x480. At least has to be _scaled_ to that resolution. You'll also need some color-space conversions (YCbCr -> RGB). It's not free either. All the time, the CPU might be involved (in addition to the DSP), because you might need to draw windows or some other stuff on top of the video. So that means that you might not be able to route data directly from the DSP to the video RAM.

For images, try PNG (huffman), JPEG (IDCT, this was _very_ slow to decode on 66MHz 486, the rendering apps visually showed the process, if I remember correctly), JPEG2000 (IDWT), GIF (LZW). Sure, a pentium can handle an image or two per second. Then again, it can cache all the bitmaps onto the harddrive (talking about gigabytes). And the Mac, well, 1 bit per pixel, no compression. Maybe RLE, which is _really_fast_ to decode.

What's a 'xyz developer'? I've developed on C64, Amiga, DOS, Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc., with enormous amount of programming languages. And yes, windows has a lot better dev tools than any of those. Project management tools, compilers, debuggers & disassemblers, for instance.

Re:Not flaming, man.

[Tune]

OK. My point is that in terms of usability, we havent come nearly as far from the old Newton days to justify the hefty hardware requirements of modern appliances. Chips get more powerful more or less according to Moore's law and software takes advantage, mostly by wasting clock cycles on eye candy. I like alpha blending, and full lenght DVD movies, but I'd much rather have a portable that's useful for more than a couple of hours. If it means a photo album slide show can only show 20 jpegs per second, that's fine with me ;-)

WRT to embedded it is *very* important to notice that batteries do not "grow" according to Moore's law. That's why we shouldn't expect mobile to look anything like desktop software in the first place.

Sure there's some truth in a higher number of bits that need to be moved on high-res color devices. But bitshifting is only a portion of GUI incurred CPU load. Don't have any number, but I suppose a significant portion is in clipping logic, or simply message passing, heap allocation, event handing and context switching. I mean, theoretically at 32bits moving 800x600x16 bits takes less than a microsecond so something other than bitshifting must be going on. Like, shifting the wrong bits in the first place - for example - due to inefficient programming.

For example. Scrolling in firefox is noticible on my 90MHz pentium. Sure, it may tak up to a full second. But it's noticible on my 3GHz Athlon as well. (Must be somewhere around one or two deciseconds). I use both with standard non-accelerated VGA at 1280x1024x32bpp. So, with a "bitshifter" that's supposed to be roughly 33 times faster a speedupfactor of only 10 is a bit disappointing, don't you think? (More so if you would take fsb bandwidth into account).

On the xyz developer thing. In a sense, you're right: embedded programming is just like programming C64, Amiga, Win32. The main difference is that here, size and bloat matters. Small screen, no keyboard and slow hardware requires tradoffs. In Wince, Microsoft makes most of these tradeoffs for you, but not necessarily the way you would make them yourself.

As you may have read in other posts, some stuff that you've come to think of as essential is simply not there. So a lot of time you find yourself recoding basic functions from scratch. Also, it doesn't give you the tools to scim and trim your binaries to the bare minimum, which is a major problem in the embedded area.

Re:Not flaming, man.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you don't expect an Internet tablet to look like the Internet PC at home, doesn't mean that other people don't expect so.

They're not microseconds, they're milliseconds. And it is load & store, so it's clearly more that 1ms. Plus you get cache misses, so you can't expect latency to be 1(load) + 1(store) per pixel. Anyway, it was the ratio that was essential. And this doesn't assume alpha blending (~10x slower). Doesn't assume color-space or color-format conversions, or any kind of per-pixel operations like gradients, fades, etc. Doesn't assume that previously hidden components need to be redrawn, etc.

Shifting bits is like a 2. It has very little to do with direct blitting, which is mem load & store. So pardon me if I missed something.

C64 had 64kB of memory. There was no multiplication command in the processor, 6510, the first thing you needed to know was how to code it or avoid it. Word-length was 8 bits, so, e.g., even 16-bit arithmetic was not entirely trivial. Screen resolution was 320x200 max, but could be increased with hardware exploits. So yeah, I know how to make tradeoffs.

If you want to really optimize a full-blown web-browser for each and every single proprietary embedded system, go ahead. By the time you're finished, desktop browsers will happily run in the latest hardware.

Oh yeah, one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Where my math _really_ doesn't work is SVG-tiny. There you'll actually have to generate the graphics. Preferably more than 20 times per second. From a relatively complex parametric representation. This means that a direct ratio for the graphics processing isn't enough. The complexity can be anyting. With anti-aliasing (requires either super- or multisampling. And the other-one requires blending, etc.) and all the modern goods, video backdrop and an mp3 playing in the background. Try that on your 90 MHz pentium. Can it even play flash? I doubt, since sometimes my 2 GHz laptop can't handle it.

Re:Oh yeah, one more thing

[Tune]

SVG: help is underway. Xara has a very fast anti-aliased vector rendering engine that has origins in Artworks, an unknown but blazingly fast vectorgraphics designer launched in 1991 for 12MHz ARM2 based archimedes A440.
But I'd have to admit that 20 frames per second is pushing it on a 90MHz pentium. Should just be possible with a 250MHz ARM, though ;-).

On mp3's, mind that this specific appliance features TI's OMAP arch which I believe includes a DSP that should take the major workload off the CPU; unlike my 90MHz pentium system. Could help on some video tasks as well, I suppose.

Flash. Well, if probably will have some hickups once intel finally hits the 5GHz. That both due to macromedia beefing up the platform in sync or faster than Moore's law can provide for and partly due to incompetent programmers. Its a nice gadget for games, animations and simple interfaces, but I suppose Flash was never intended for any kind of real-time performance.

Not enough RAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

128MB of shared memory isn't enough

Thank God there exists a port of Multi Platform RAM Defragmentation for Maemo. Just look here: http://ramdefrag.sf.net/

no built in networking on the Z

[wiredog]

But you can use it with a CF wifi card, or with USB networking.

Fps on what graphics data?

[Anonymous Coward]

As for Xara, I cannot really tell, I cannot benchmark it against anything myself, and they don't give comprehensive enough info on their website. "We don't believe Cairo or GDI+ support graduated transparency separate from the graduated fill (important for many graphic designs)" sounds pretty amateur, though. Cairo is open-source, Win32 API is public. Why don't they just look it up? Do they think it's some trade secret or something that cannot be plugged into either in a day or two? What is graduated anyway? Gradient? Beating Cairo is no merit, by the way. It is known to be _very_ slow. You can check the code. Academic curiosity there only. Double precision processing, etc. Typical for open-source. I mean, nobody would give out a _really_ fast library out for free.

Flash = SVG + sound + ECMAScript. That's what I'm talking about. So if you think that has hickups on 5GHz, it'll have that on 350MHz.

Yes, mp3 is probably accelerated. Probably helps on _some_ video tasks also, since decoding MPEG4 is far from possible with 250MHz. Pentium II with 350MHz isn't enough for DVD MPEG2. And that thing has MMX & SSE. And obviously floating-point support for vector graphics, just like your old pentium. So there actually has to be some pretty amazing hardware sitting in the 770. Still, there's only so much it can do, very specialised tasks like MPEG4 decompression probably. Besides, interactive graphics can't have latency. Flipping mem from the DSP to CPU and vice versa causes latency. That's what you'd call a bad user experience, and that's what you'd have to do since the DSP obviously cannot accelerate all of the graphics.

Re:Fps on what graphics data?

[Tune]

>Flash = SVG + sound + ECMAScript. That's what I'm talking about. So if you think that has hickups on 5GHz, it'll have that on 350MHz.

Right. But does that tell you something about the adequacy of certain CPU or does that tell you something about Flash? And why do you need flash on an appliance again?

inhouse control and automation device

[audionoom]

I was looking for precisely a tablet like this, to use as a remote control for my domotics and home automation.

Every inhabitant in my house will be getting a Nokia 770 - which can then run Flash apps on the 770, thus controlling the whole house as such. This gives me the ability to code my own apps in Flash - store them on a centralized server, which can then be used by each family member.

I use Vantage [vantagecontrols.com] devices - as they have an IP enabler that allows to match a local IP to each button, sensor, or whatever thing you incorporate. The frontend is Flash - enabling me to use any computer or flash capable device to run the show.

Now - if I would have wanted touchscreens in each room, that would have set me back around 1000 euros per screen - which I thought was ridicully expensive.

The Nokia 770 enables me to do all this however - and a ton more --- browse, read, etc.

I think the 770 has a bright future, albeit not for the sales drones and their ilk - more for the DIY homeowner or traveller ...

Just my 2 euros.

Re:Parent's sig

[DoctorFrog]

It's a sad day for literacy that people need the fact that the great-grandparent is being humourous pointed out to them.

Perhaps they don't. Sometimes I find jokes less funny because the premise has a gaping logical flaw in it. I find it particularly irritating when I can see a way the joke could have been told without the logical flaw.

That doesn't mean I don't get the joke, it simply means that the joker's delivery was flawed. It would be a sad day for humour if I had to explain that, but fortunately I don't.

Re:Parent's sig

[m50d]

Perhaps they don't. Sometimes I find jokes less funny because the premise has a gaping logical flaw in it. I find it particularly irritating when I can see a way the joke could have been told without the logical flaw.

Yes, but the response to that is not to criticise the joke as if it was meant seriously.

Mini PCs

[ultrapcs]

Here is a nice web site that discusses these small factor PCs: http://www.minipcs.com/