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Nokia's Linux-powered N800 Tablet Sneaks Out
sjvn writes "Officially, Nokia Inc.'s new Linux-powered N800 Internet Tablet doesn't exist. In reality, it's already for sale in the United States and boasts double the RAM and Flash Memory of its predecessor and it has a faster processor to boot."
Will it totally replace the 770, or will it be a big brother?
I hope it brings the 770 price down a touch, its just over my novelty price bracket at the moment.
liqbase
more information at http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com/
I hope it features a powered USB connector (unlike the 770)
as the link in the submission doest even have any pics just fluff leading to the real article here (with pics)
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9981902594.htm
I'd be curious to see how fast this unit runs in real life. I purchased a 770 to run small flash presentations/slide shows, and it performed rather dismally. Not the market I'm sure, and I love the concept, but if your going to have an internet/s tablet it needs to be able to see typical content...
too bad nokia did not invest in a better designer. the 770 looks much better imo.
they should at least make a black version. also the hard cover of the 770 will be missed by some i guess.
What about just the lightest, foldable-smallest, cheapest tablet that is just a high FPS streaming/VoIP/VNC client with WiFi? Everything else but the AGUI can go on a server, if the WiFi can keep the streams over 24FPS and the audio over 80Kbps, with minimal jitter and framedrops.
--
make install -not war
I'm trying to find some pictures, but this is how the last revision looks. (From the n770 Wikipedia article.)
Okay, found it. Here are beautiful pictures of the Nokia n800
I had a 770 for a little while, but it was just too slow and unstable to really enjoy. When it wasn't crashing, it was often too slow to do anything really cool with besides surfing the web. Even that was pretty slow. I hope for the sake of the N800 that it has really addressed a lot of that because it would make for a killer gadget for a lot of people. In fact, if they have addressed most of those issues, I might get one.
What I am curious about is the processors in some of the PocketPC handhelds like the Axim are pretty powerful. Why didn't they go for similar hardware specs in the first place with the 770? With those, they might have been able to get embedded Qt instead of Gtk.
What about normal usage? :P
Better photos over here
Well, let's hope that it's not too drunk when it comes home. That N800 is a hell-raiser, for sure. It's girlfriend is a pink Sony Ericsson but its parents would never approve of a mixed relationship.
At least the price point is within reach. I'm looking forward to it! Esp. all the hacks that are sure to come down the pipe! SSH to my server and get some work down from the crapper!
Maybe this one will be made avaliable worldwide, or at least here at Brazil...
It's almost impossible to find a n770 around here, and when it's avaliable the price is almost the double (around R$1700.00 or U$800.00).
Nokia, come on... the n770 already proved that it can beat the Palms to death, and give some real competition to the PocketPC domination. Just market and sell this thing!!!
One of the people who owns one has posted a video of it booting and some general use. It looks slick.
It all comes down to the developer community.
Do remember that ultraportables deliberately sacrifices performance in favor of battery life. They'll always be inferior to bigger machines in raw processing power.
That said, I would think that a 220 MHz processor would be fine for most Flash presentations. Perhaps the ARM implementation of the plugin is less robust than the Pentium version. Or perhaps you're doing fancy animation that overtaxes the system.
And don't make the usual mistake of fixating on the CPU as the sole provider of application performance. Any application uses many different resources, and a bottleneck in any of them (in graphics applications, it's usually the video adapter, not the CPU) will screw you over.
Here's a question, will it be a cellphone out of the box and take sim cards? And keyboards of some kind. I know it is a tablet, but a keyboard would be useful. Heck, even a video out port, use the thing like a tiny desktop at home plugged in to the wall.
anyone any idea if it supports voip calls (sip or h323) ??
I have a 770. First off, it's brilliant device, I love it. Definitely using it on my next long-haul flight rather than the built-in video players on airplanes. (I wouldn't use the built in video player, but mplayer has been ported to it and plays 400x240 movies full screen [hardware pixel doubling to fill the 800x480 display] at full fps, 128k audio, and about 500k video. Very watchable, and a full-length movie fits on a 1GB MMC with plenty of room left over for a couple of TV shows.) And of course there are various PIM style apps available for it over at maemo.org, not to mention VNC, xterm, ssh, ...
From what information we currently have (including the pics and video referenced above), I have to say I think they've addressed several of the biggest issues with the unit, specifically:
From the good close look we get at the connectors in the video nursegirl linked to, the USB connector is still unpowered. Frankly, I'm not sure how big an issue this really is. Yes, it means you can't use your existing USB keys with it even if you had an adapter cable, which -- true -- is less than ideal. In terms of other devices, you wouldn't want to power an external keyboard of the poor little 770's battery -- you're better off getting a little portable Bluetooth keyboard. I haven't felt the lack of the power on the USB port yet.
Looks like a great upgrade, good to see Nokia thought it was worth pursuing the product line... I hope the next focus is on software -- improving the handwriting recognition, doing some Nokia-tested and certified PIM apps (calendar, etc.), improving the little desktop area, etc. Doing this device with Linux, documenting the API, and fostering a development community were all masterstrokes, but you can't leave everything to the community, too many users won't be able to handle the complexity (not to mention that, er, some ports are done better than others...).
I hope there is some kind of Psion 5-sized usb-keyboard. If those two could be combined in some kind of holder, I'm sold. (The Psion 5 has always been my favourite in size and usability, because of the excellent keyboard. I've used it for about five years, but then the display broke, and the replacement broke in less then a year.)
I am provocative here, but think about it, in terms of specs not target. The specs are VERY similar. Yes, the form factor is different, but many things are definitively similar. The biggest difference is the price, Nokia being 2.5x more expensive. Is it really worth? I hope OLPC will show that you can produce these tablets at reasonable price and drive the overall market price down.
After reading this thread and the lined stories (yeah, i RTFAd), i called CompUSA who confirmed that the store closest to me had 7 in stock - despite it not yet being on their web site. i drove down to the store and the employee i talked to said it didn't exist - and as proof, pointed to their web site. i recounted the call to CompUSA, including that i'd clarified with the guy on the phone that it was an N800, not an N80 (a common mistake); the guy called his manager, who checked some other inventory system that only managers have access to (why? who knows.), which confirmed 7 in stock. the manager went into the back store room, found the 7, but informed me that they've got stickers on 'em saying they can't sell them before tuesday, or risk a fine. they took my name and will hold one for me to pick up on tuesday.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Seriously, if it can do USB host, then I am sold. It can then be a hand-held oscilloscope, handy terminal (via USB->RS232 adapter) for embedded devices, etc.
I can't speak to how good this looks on the device, but it looks ok and sounds ok for TV output on my linux box.
I use ffmpeg to transcode DVDs to mpeg to play on my Treo 650. The Treo is not an ideal platform for video playback.
Completely separate subject, I'm having trouble getting matrixview to work. I think reencoding a video in matrixview for this device would be sorta cool.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
...have not changed - my new 770 off ebay gets here tomorrow, dammit...oh well...
you think it's easy, but you're wrong...
The last year (over the summer to be exact), I bought a 770. The idea was to used it with a bluetooth cellular phone to connect internet. As a linux user, that seemed to be the logical choice. Over the one week period I owned 770, it only once worked more than 10 minutes. Other than that, it crashed frequently, even when booting itself. I tried several firmware, the one shipped with 770, the updated one from nokia website and another one from maemo. Before buying I read the reviews and I found that nearly half of the 770s had similar problems. I guess my geekness factor overweighted my concoisness and I bought one regardless. The turned out that I was one of the unlucky owners. I returned it back to CompUsa, instead bought T-Mobile MDA and I'm happy so far with Windows Mobile especiall to access the internet both over my laptop and phone. The nice thing was, Amazon had a deal that let me bought the phone for $50 :)
Add a full qwerty keyboard and all the remainig Revo veterans will buy it!
The problem is that Nokia is a cell phone company, and the 770 seems to be a side project that gets little support. Nokia needs to back the product line for it to be successful. The Nokia 800 will likely be another dud simply because Nokia defines itself as a cell phone manufacturer.
I have a Nokia 770 sitting here that I bought as a project for work as we are a Linux-based shop. The wifi simply does not work with many routers and the reception seems to be poor when it does work. The Maemo operating system is an interesting variation of Debian but the tablet simply is not fast enough to make it very useful. Finally, the handwriting recognition is a complete joke.
On the plus side, it has a beautiful screen. It has a nice set of software inside it. Too bad it simply does not work.
I should mention that the first Nokia 770 I received was a brick. The Nokia 770 I have is #2. Luckily the vendor took the product back with no hassles. There was not much support from Nokia Canada.
Most people forget that Nokia is a pretty big company with a lot of products. From roots in paper, rubber, and cables, in just over 100 years Nokia became a powerful industrial conglomerate. The corporation also produces telecommunications network equipment for applications such as mobile and fixed-line voice telephony, ISDN, broadband access, voice over IP, and wireless LAN. Not to mention satellite receivers, [Linux based] set-top boxes etc etc.
Norway? :(
:(, said the American in the land that's not technically part of Scandinavia (unlike Norway).
i guess this is slashdot
I'd like to use it for browsing my recipes and playing music mostly, but being able to watch TV, even on a small screen, would be nice, too. But, I see it's an ARM processor, so the atrpms site won't have a precompiled install. Has anyone tried to compile mythtv from source for a Nokia 770 or this new 800?
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
Ummm. Nokia is a Finnish company. At least Norway and Finland are close...
I don't therefore I'm not.
Can anyone explain the rationale of using this over the more powerful, more versatile Dell Axim? Prices are comparable at the least, and Dell runs specials often enough to make the 624 mhz x51v version price competitive.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
I did the same as you; called and gave them the item number, and they said they had 2 in stock. When I arrived, they couldn't find it up front, and had to get it from the receiving department, but they did sell it to me no problem.
aaaand...whee!
Had the 770 (and now the N800) been a cellphone as well, I'd be on this device like flies on ... well, I'd buy one. I had a word with one of the Nokia developers and they couldn't see why having an integrated GSM/GPRS transceiver wouldn't be better than having the 770 AND a separate cellphone communicating with each other either via Bluetooth or what-have-you. The savings on the number of items in ones pockets alone is enough reason to go integrated. Add to that possible incompatibilities with Bluetooth implementations in cellphones, cost-savings (integrated device would be cheaper), ability to function seamlessly between wifi and cellphone networks, etc. and it becomes compelling. And yet the dev guy I spoke with couldn't even see that advantage.
To any analysis, there's always a discussion of pros & cons, and the guy wouldn't even speak of said pros to having a cellphone integrated.
My ideal situation is to have an N800-like device with a GSM/GPRS/EDGE transceiver and a Bluetooth headset for using the device as a phone.
Enjoy.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Does this device have the battery life an resolution to make a decent ebook reader?
It may be Linux powered, but is it hackable?
Nokia so endeared all of the early adopters of the 770 by dropping all support of the platform and screwing all those customers out of the 300 to 400 dollars they spent. Do you really think they'll treat the people who buy the 800 any better?
The 770 was plagued by poor code, a lot of bugs, updates that had even more bugs than the code it was patching, no customer support and hardware that was broken fresh out of the box at least 50 percent of the time. In short nokia ran a beta test on the market and made the people pay for it, and then offered them nothing in return but a pretty worthless peice of crap.
Anything with windows CE in it is a better option (as much as it pains me to say it), because then youhave something that will actually work with other devices. This was a good idea, but Nokia doesn't have the technical know how, or programming experience to bring it to market. So don't waste your money.
From their "Careline":
Thank you for emailing Nokia Careline.In response to your inquiry, please be advised that the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet will not be released within the Australian market. However, it is released to the European and United States market.
We suggest that you use the following link should you wish to make a purchase online: http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/#l=products,n 800
Kindly be informed that the warranty is limited to the country of purchase.