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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.'"
I'm APT to GET something like this.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
Crackberry now comes in Tablet form!
I may be wrong but you're downright ugly!
Double the battery time, quadruple the memory, and sell for $500. Profit!
I'm curious: What kind of rendering engine is this thing using? KHTML, Gecko or Opera?
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.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
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
Start a happiness pandemic
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:
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.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
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.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
long enough with a full battery to take it along?
;).
you thought I was going to say 'Linux', didn't you
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...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Grammer tip: 'Effect' is used as a noun. 'Affect' is used as a verb.
Spelling tip: 'Grammar', not 'Grammer'
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
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.
This way to the egress...
I'm sorry, I just patented w00t earlier in this thread, so you owe me a licensing fee.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
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/
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.
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.
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?
You misunderstood. He was quoting Kelsey Grammer, I think it was in an early episode of "Frasier."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
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.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
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.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
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.
The x51V model (I think) has similar specs, and a faster Mhz processor (only 640x480 screen tho'); how do the two compare?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
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.
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I will wait to check their next release...
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
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.
# nohup
Meanwhile, over at Kelsey Grammer School...
http://www.sydney-webcam.com
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.
www.blueapples.org
It's a sad day for literacy that people need the fact that the great-grandparent is being humourous pointed out to them.
I am trolling
.. 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.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"When they became available in the US, I got my hands on one... "
i a770.media/770.jpg,
Based on this photo in the review http://media.arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nok
he got his hands on one all right.
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.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
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.
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.
... 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.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
..., 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.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
at savern.com Yes Sir...Suit on and snug ..over
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
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.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
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
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.
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.
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...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?
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).
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).
-Raphaël
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.
But you can use it with a CF wifi card, or with USB networking.
Best Slashdot Co
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.
Knowledge first. Social contact later.
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.
>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?
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.
Yes, but the response to that is not to criticise the joke as if it was meant seriously.
I am trolling
Here is a nice web site that discusses these small factor PCs: http://www.minipcs.com/