Best Wi-Fi Portable Browsing Device?

foxxo writes "I'm a library worker, so I get lots of questions about our collection when I'm out in the stacks. I'd love to be able to access our online catalog and give patrons more comprehensive guidance without directing them to the reference desk. What options are available for a portable device with Wi-Fi connectivity, full-featured Web browsing, and (most importantly) no cellphone-style activation and service fees? Size is important, too; I need something I can carry in my pocket, not a micro-notebook with full keyboard. (And I am a library worker, so low cost is key!)" One device that sounds interesting in this category is the GiiNii Movit (not yet released, but shown off at CES). What can you recommend that's out there now?

Comments

Nokia n810

[murph]

No recurring fees, I just picked one up for $222.

Re:Nokia n810

[Kamokazi]

Seconded. Very nice device, and has a physical keyboard, unlike the other one likely to get mentioned a lot.

Re:Nokia n810

[bluephone]

Except the N810 is smaller than the N800, has 2GB of storage built in, and the kb slides out like many cell phones for text message addicts. It's an incredible package.

Re:Nokia n810

[monopole]

Amen to that. I've got the 770, n800 and an n810. The n810 wins out for this app due to the keyboard, and the size which is small enough to put in your breast pocket or in a belt holster. WiFi is good and the display is fantastic. Onboard GPS sucks but otherwise an excellent device.

Boot time is a bit long, but power management is sufficient to leave on for a long time.
 

Re:Nokia n810

[despisethesun]

The N800 also has the advantage of taking regular SDHC cards, rather than the miniSD used in the N810. The full size ones are cheaper, and the N800 can hold 2 of them. And they can be set up as part of the root file system, if you're technically inclined. Plus miniSD cards can be a pain to find in decent capacities, they're kind of the red-headed stepchild of the SD family.

The on screen keyboard on the N800 is not bad either. Obviously not as good as a physical kb but more than adequate. It's tough to go wrong either way, though, as they're both excellent devices. Definitely the best handhelds available for their purpose.

(Typed out on my N800. :)

Re:Nokia n810

[rtb61]

Keyboard or nor keyboard, not really the driver in the most appropriate selection. The main driver is how do you comfortably carry the device. Leaving the counter, carrying books, walking around the stacks tidying up etc. So obviously the most useful and cost effective device will be a typical netbook, getting it to the spot where it will be used, keeping in charged up between uses are the problem to be solved.

So small enough to fit comfortable in a pocket will end up generally speaking to small to be really useful, large enough and with suitable input devices is awkward to carry in your hands while you want to do other things and certainly doesn't fit in a typical pocket. So netbook stored in some kind of comfortable wearable pouch, shoulder holster, apron, bumpack etc. combined with a docking station for quick convenient recharging now add in a pen styled, optical scanner/bar code reader and you are done.

Re:Nokia n810

[supernova_hq]

How has nobody in this thread mentioned the N810's built in GPS? Nothing says "I know where wifi is" than a list of geo-coords to back it up!

Not to mention that the built in map program has a list of Gizmo (paid) wifi spots. There is also osm2go that allows you to edit osm maps (adding wifi spots, etc) on the fly in the field

Re:Nokia n810

[despisethesun]

You've clearly never actually used one of the Nokia tablets. They're plenty usable at their size and they fit easily in a pocket. I've gotten a lot more mileage out of mine than I expected when I bought it, and it's become an indispensable tool for managing the network at work. They are, without a doubt, exactly what foxxo was asking for.

Re:Nokia n810

[maxume]

The miniSD thing isn't that big a thing:

4GB for $8:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211343

16GB for $42 (which is only about $12 out of line with regular size SDHC)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134912

Re:Nokia n810

[itomato]

With the n810 you can have the best of everything (almost):

- Full Debian installation, including GTK and KDE apps
- Android
- Newton OS via Einstein
- Any platform where an emulator is available for ARM
- Bluetooth, WiFi, Webcam, Skype, built-in GPS (lousy)

All in all, it sounds like the ultimate development package. The major downside is the speed. Application response is a good 10% slower than it should be. A second negative point might be the GPS performance, which is widely reported to be weak, which I can attest to first hand, It's kind of fragile, and doesn't respond well to gravity checks, but the slide-out keyboard and brilliant flip-out stand/finger sling make it usable in a wide variety of situations - standing at a bar, sitting down, plus it comes with a novel vehicle mount. I assume the developers counted on the use of the device in its fulle GPS capacity. No doubt, it would be awesome, but it's just not quite there..

Fifteenthed.

Re:Nokia n810

[theillien]

Or you can get an 8GB microSD with a miniSD adapter. I bought a Kingston kit which came with the microSD card, a mini adapter, standard adapter and USB adapter for $16 from Amazon. I believe the 16GB kit was $25 or so. That said, I thirded the n810 notion. I have the Wimax edition and I'm quite happy with it.

Re:Nokia n810

[xSauronx]

indeed. i went from a thinkpad to a netbook for the sake of portability, the thinkpad was just a bit more than i needed on the go.

i considered an 810, and thats what came to mind when i saw the front page post, but i need a new phone and expect to get a blackberry or something with internet access, and didnt want to basically end up carrying 2 devices like that on me, so i got the netbook which will let me be a little productive.

Re:Nokia n810

[5pp000]

I have not gotten the micro-to-mini SDHC adapters to work in my N810. Looking closely at the differences between the adapter and an actual mini-SDHC card, I see that the contacts on the adapter are slightly recessed, while those on the card are on the bottom surface. Apparently the little wires in my N810 don't come up high enough to reliably make contact with the adapters. I don't know if many others have had this problem.

Re:Nokia n810

[carlzum]

That's something I've never heard of, but according to Wikipedia people really walked around with slide rules on their belt.

Some engineering students and engineers carried ten-inch slide rules in belt holsters, and even into the mid 1970s this was a common sight on campuses. Students also might keep a ten-or twenty-inch rule for precision work at home or the office while carrying a five-inch pocket slide rule around with them.

Re:Nokia n810

[Askjeffro]

Just realize that the n810 can only accept up to a 8GB card; 16GB will not work.

Re:Nokia n810

[5pp000]

Word on the Net is that the 16GB cards do work, even though Nokia hasn't updated their Web site to mention them. See for example Internet Tablet Talk for confirmation.

Re:Nokia n810

[drb_chimaera]

No problems here - I've basically standardised on using MicroSD cards here then adapting them to fit whichever device it needs, and have yet to have a problem.

Re:Nokia n810

[redxxx]

Right. Nokia has only tested 8gb cards. I have a 16 which works just fine.

Re:Nokia n810

[CannedTurkey]

Untrue - They will work with at least 32GB. They are SDHC compatible. There's a guy in the 810 community selling MiniSD to SD adapters, so that if you're using the larger battery pack (with accompanying larger battery cover) you can install standard SD cards.

Re:Nokia n810

[lazarusdishwasher]

The Library. So big it doesn't need a name - just a great big "the."
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Library

Re:Nokia n810

[roc97007]

From personal experience, I've found that SD cards can get chewed up by a small dog but micro-SD cards pass through unscathed.

Don't ask...

Low Cost?

[icebike]

iPhone or iPod touch, assuming what you want to access is browser based.
Low price? Not so much, but if you have one anyway... Or were looking for a tax write off this might be the way to go.

Re:Low Cost?

[PopeRatzo]

The poster did say nothing with a monthly fee.

Since the library certainly has Wi-Fi already, the iPod Touch is a good possibility, unless he wants to input any queries on a regular basis.

I love my Touch but I prefer real buttons to the virtual ones.

Re:Low Cost?

[dokebi]

He's probably using Dvorak, like me. I certainly find typing "querty" easier than "qwerty". Dvorak layout is so good that it even corrects qwerty's spelling mistakes! :)

iPod Touch

[erayd]

Gotta say the cheapest iPod touch is probably going to be a good bet here, particularly as it's a wifi-only device; you don't have to buy a whole cellphone at the same time.

Re:iPod Touch

[jmorris42]

> 1. $229 new from Apple, or you can get it cheaper used on eBay, Craigslist, etc.

Yea and an N810 is $259 and a lot more usable AS A WEB BROWSER. Yes the iPod is probably a better music player but that wasn't the question.

> 2. The screen is large and has great resolution.

No. 480x320 is NOT high resolution. Few non mobile phone optimized pages are going to display on that. The N8x0 series has 800x480. Do the math. Hopefully Apple fanbois can still do simple X > Y type reasoning.

> 4. Someone (you) could write a dedicated iPhone/iPod Touch App that does just what you want

And the Nokia runs Mameo, a Linux based open platform. Besides writing a full GTK app you can program something up in one of the SIMPLE SCRIPTING LANGUAGES THAT APPLE FORBIDS. And you don't need to get anything signed by Apple before passing it around. So your point was?

> 5. It's here to stay.

Because we all know Nokia is tettering on the brink of insolvency.

> Alternative: Sony Mylo

Discontinued, no replacement mentioned. You really should LOOK at a URL before you post it. But it really looked like an interesting product, hope Sony does get around to refreshing the line.

Re:iPod Touch

[ceejayoz]

These days no flash == broken.

Uh, to many of us, no Flash == much more functional, not broken.

Re:iPod Touch

[jmorris42]

> Uh, to many of us, no Flash == much more functional, not broken.

Not at all. You just have to install the flashblock plugin so you have control over the crap and can still access the useful stuff.

Re:iPod Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

6. It has a decent camera.

There is no camera. Only the iPhone has a camera.

The camera is a lie.

Re:iPod Touch

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO, neither ipod touch nor iphone have enough screen resolution to be a full fledged internet browsing device. ipod touch is only 480×320.

Better to go with an N800 or N810 - you get an 800x480 pixel screen, so 2.5X the ipod, and it still fits in your shirt pocket. Plus, it runs open source software - lots of Linux apps have been ported. And it's open: no jail-breaks needed, and you can run whatever you want. It's even a pretty decent MP3 player. The audio quality through good headphones is as good as any dedicated mp3 player I've heard.

Re:iPod Touch

[93 Escort Wagon]

Compare to the Nokia I mentioned which runs a Mozilla based product with a real Adobe ARM port of Flash 9 on a display good enough (800x480) to display real web pages instead of a 'mobile phone' experience that often totally fails unless the site has a special reduced 'mobile' version. Sorry, Apple's stuff looks pretty but the tech is always second rate.

You might consider actually trying the Safari browser on the iPhone or iPod Touch before commenting on the way it works. The browser displays exactly the same thing you'd see on your "real" computer, just smaller - unlike, say, the Windows Mobile version of IE (although even that is changing, finally). Most reviews of the web-browsing experience on the iPhone/Touch have commented on the true HTML rendering of mobile Safari - even those reviews that've lamented the lack of Flash.

People do sometimes write special pages designed for the iPhone's smaller screen; but they could just as easily do the same thing for a Nokia phone or any other small device - and there's no requirement to do any of that.

Re:iPod Touch

[Donniedarkness]

I dislike Apple for the most part, but I have to comment on #'s 1 and 2.

1.It's actually got a very good web browser.

2. If I understand correctly, it's the PPI that makes the Ipod Touch's screen so clear, not the resolution. I've owned one, and I was VERY pleasantly surprised by how clear things were on it.

Re:iPod Touch

[foo fighter]

It's pretty clear you have never seriously used the iPod Touch for web surfing. I dispute your implication that it offers an inferior web browsing experience.

Its 480x320 display is bright and clear. It's web browser is fantastic. I have never wished for or looked for the mobile version of a web site while using it. Its keyboard is good enough to let me enter this post.

It's also important to recognize that the iPod Touch is much smaller than an n-series: about 20% shorter, 20% skinnier, 40% thinner, and 45% lighter. I often forget my iPod touch is in my pocket when going through security. When I evaluated the n800 i gave up trying to walk with it in my pocket.

The merits of either platform are open to debate. I find the Mobile OS X platform to match my needs, but the submitter should look at both before making a decision.

P.S. You come across as much of an immature fanboy as the gp. Please take the level of vitriol and sarcasm down a couple notches.

Re:iPod Touch

[Warll]

@2: Correct, which is why the Nokia_N810's will look clearer, 225 > 163.

Re:iPod Touch

[Rocketship Underpant]

I think you're wrong. Javascript and Canvas/HTML5 have just as much functionality as Flash, if not more, and Apple openly promotes and encourages development of Javascript apps, even though they bypass the App Store.

Re:iPod Touch

[cbhacking]

Heh... Flashblock is nice, but the REAL killer plugin for a handheld web browser is AdBlock Plus (yes, it's available for n800/n810 - there's a plugin repo, and it uses the standard ABP filters). Faster load times, less clutter on the screen (800x480 is a good resolution for a handheld but you still don't want to waste space on ads), and no crappy flash ads at all.

This feature alone makes the n8x0 the best handheld browsing device I'm aware of right now, though I suppose it's only a matter of time until there's an Android browser with ad-blocking.

Re:iPod Touch

[CrystalX]

From what I've read, the reason that Apple didn't allow Flash on the iPhone was because Adobe couldn't produce a version of it that didn't consume a lot of power. Apple very much values the battery life of the iPhone, and putting an inefficient Flash port on the iPhone would threaten this.

Look here for a proper discussion:
> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/31/adobe_apple_working_together_on_flash_for_iphone.html

Sony PSP...

[powerlinekid]

Surprisingly its my PSP that I usually break out in situations where I need to browse the web but can't be at the computer. Yes its a game system but the wifi\browser are fairly decent if you can live without WPA2. I'm not too sure what else is out there, but a PSP can be purchased in the $150 to $200 range.

Define 'portable'?

[fractoid]

For sitting in a wifi coffee shop, I'd say my Eee 900 is a great compromise. Then again, having watched my friend playing with his iPhone I'd have to say that, for ultraportable / ultraconvenient / always with you access, the iPhone (or iPod touch) are probably the best you can get.

Re:Define 'portable'?

[EvanED]

"Define 'portable'"? Is "I need something I can carry in my pocket, not a micro-notebook with full keyboard" (FTFS) enough of a definition?

Yay Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Just found this on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handhelds_with_WiFi_connectivity

800 pixel wide screen a must

[Freedom Bug]

I have a Nokia N810, and think the 800 pixel wide screen is its killer feature. With an 800 pixel screen you can run any web site and not be stuck in the "mobile ghetto".

Re:800 pixel wide screen a must

[itomato]

Plus you can zoom back to 80% for really expansive sites, or in to 120% for narrow/small ones.

Re:Nintendo DS Browser

[Darkness404]

...I tried using that... it was, painful, to say the least. The iPod touch does a much better job of browsing and can be found for about the price of the browser + DS.

Archos 5 is my current favorite

[russg]

Have a look at the Archos devices. You can pickup some of the older models with Wifi as refurbished.
My Archos 5 is my, surf, watch movies, store data, listen to music, and play games device. The current 5 and 7 are called "Internet Media Tablets".
With Opera as the browser and flash support its really a nice internet experience for a small device.

I also have all three and prefer the 770

[Rob Simpson]

The keyboard on the n810 is almost perfectly flat with a hairline space between keys. Hitting multiple keys is extremely easy, and it is necessary to look at the keys while carefully clicking with my fingernails. The thumbboard on my Tungsten C is a fraction of the size, but far more useful. Even the popup stylus keyboard on the 770 is less trouble. The 770 automatically goes into suspend when the metal cover is flipped back on - unlike the slide button on the n810 that can get triggered accidentally - and it doesn't insist on wearing out the screen while charging.

Re:I also have all three and prefer the 770

[Anonymous Coward]

Best you keep it charged, as if it ever runs down to flat, you risk the "white screen of death" - damaging the screen permanently.
After that, let's hope you're good at blind tapping the screen to try and get your data off your new paperweight.

Don't buy a 770.

Sooner or later you will lose the russian roulette and the screen will die - permanently. Flashing will not fix it.
I got bitten by this one and it was only persistence and luck that I recovered my data.

(http://www.teleread.org/2007/08/11/nokia-n770s-white-screen-of-death-the-lowdown-from-internet-table-talk/)

Rant over.

Wi-fi Browsing? Decent battery life?

Check out the Pandora (http://openpandora.org/)

price point

[CheshireFerk-o]

the upcoming nintendo DSi has a built-in browser, touch screen keyboard, SDHC, and ability to play games. and at 170$ is much cheaper then an i* or a silly phone.

As an Ipod Touch / N770 / Netbook owner..

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say that it sounds like an Ipod Touch is what this person needs.

The reason why I'd recommend the touch over the Nokia Tablets is simply its a bit thinner and smaller and can fit easier and more comfortable in pockets. Although the Nokia tablets have a built in keyboard and higher resolution, I prefer putting the Ipod Touch in my pockets far more often because of the size of it. Also, the resolution on the Ipod Touch doesn't seem as big of a problem as I thought because the zoomming features of the built in Safari web browser is actually really really good. In my opinion, it works better than the Opera browsers on the Nokia devices. But if you need Flash, then the Ipod Touch wont work for you.

This being said, I use my Dell Mini9 netbook most of the time I go places. Simply it allows the most functionality with a somewhat typeable keyboard.

Re:I'm hoping the Pandora's a good one...

[TheRaven64]

I would've ordered one, but my country's exchange rate is shit right now

Wow, where are you that has a currency doing worse than the pound at the moment? It's fallen by around 25% against most other world currencies in the last six months.

The Pandora does, indeed, look very shiny, but they sold out within 8 hours of accepting orders, so I don't imagine they will be easy to get for a while. In January, Freescale launched the i.MX515 CPU, which is similar to the OMAP3530 found in the Pandora but runs at 1GHz+ and costs about half as much in bulk. The next couple of months are likely to see quite a few interesting devices released using these chips.