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

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

[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.

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 ;).

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?

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: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.

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.

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.

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: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).