It Does Little and Not Very Well 318
wiredog writes "A Washington Post (frryyy) review of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, a handheld Linux device. The reviewer complains about the lack of keyboard, poor WiFi implementation, outdated software, non-standard memory card, and almost as many crashes as an unpatched Win98 install."
The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA: This latest failure underscores once again the main problem with miniaturization...that while we can continue to make things smaller and smaller, their interfaces (input - keyboard/mouse, output - screen/speakers) must remain large enough to be useful, and the larger, the better. Even if you totally discount other problems like removable data storage, the main problem of user interfaces will continue to stand in the way of true miniaturization.
I'm still wondering why we haven't seen a personal data device marketed with either a roll-up or projected keyboard, fingertip mouse, and VR glasses? Freed of these constraints, the device itself could easily be made small enough to be wearable.
"Review" misses the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
2) And - the review did not mention the O/S crashing - just applications crashing. Linux is not the problem here.
Anyway, on to the meat:
Nokia's 770 platform is only just starting. [newsforge.com] The 770 is available for retail sale, but not really intended for the general public.
There's an upcoming release [nokia.com] of the linux derived O/S it runs (in 2006) and Nokia are actively courting developers. (including discounts for gnome hackers) [linuxdevices.com]
I say kudos to nokia - they're (as the review shows) releasing a cool bit of hardware kit and they're going to let the software developement community (both free, open & proprietary) fill in lots of gaps. I hope it works out.
Oh - and rereading the review - it appears the reviewer's "biggest complaint" was the lack of keyboard. That's what seperates a tablet from a tiny laptop retard
Re:"Review" misses the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll tell you what -- I use a fairly excellent mobile device for my daily needs (it has basically replaced my need for a laptop and I rarely use my desktop). The biggest draw is that it has a full Qwerty keyboard that, while being very small, I can easily use to communicate easily.
If I'm going to move to a device like the Nokia 770, I would *expect* that it have a hidden/retractable keyboard that I could easily use when I wasn't just pointing and clicking on links or scribbling a quick note.
If no keyboard is what seperates a tablet from the rest of the exceptional mobile devices out there these days (including my Sidekick) then I'll stick with what I have and wait for EDGE/wifi support.
Different strokes for different folks (Score:5, Insightful)
All I can say is that I finally saw one of these about three weeks ago, and immediately (as in, next day) went to CompUSA and bought one. I love it. It does exactly what I want, and the only complaint I have is the lack of software -- but that will be quickly solved as the community ports apps to it. www.maemo.org is very active.
So it does what I want, and I think it's great. Obviously, if it doesn't do what you want, you'll think it's awful/pointless/a waste of money.
It has replaced my Zaurus (and has the added benefit that the form factor is almost identical to the Zaurus, so I can even use the same case for the N770).
Re:"Review" misses the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you sell it to the general public, then you are intending that they will buy it.
The fact that it is open source should NEVER be an excuse for putting out a buggy retail product.
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:5, Insightful)
I've thought about this for awhile and for the life of me I can't seem to come up with a compelling way of making a small, multi-purpose interface with a dealable learning curve. For these devices to succeed they have to be amenable to absolute manipulation in the same way that standard, non-digital physical objects are, and that's a mighty challenge that I don't think anyone has been able to succeed at to date.
Easy to fix (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Review" misses the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Read down to:
Admittedly, that comes after multiple problems of applications crashing separately, which is why you may have missed it.I say kudos to nokia - they're (as the review shows) releasing a cool bit of hardware kit and they're going to let the software developement community (both free, open & proprietary) fill in lots of gaps. I hope it works out.
Oh, yeah -- this is fantastic! It may be buggy and useless as it's currently sold, but the important thing is that they're giving discounts to GNOME developers who will hopefully then fix it for them! I'd better buy one right now!
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy to fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More uses for 770 (Score:3, Insightful)
This is worth looking at:
http://linuxadvocate.org/projects/roadster [linuxadvocate.org]
Re:"Review" misses the point. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:youu dont know how to use one (Score:1, Insightful)
Doesn't that defeat the whole portability thing?
crashing? dont load mega-websites on a machine with sixty-four megs of ram. lots of sites work fine.
You have to be kidding me. If this were a review for a pc running windoze, you'd be all "that os sucks". How about the manufacturer creating a device that can gracefully handle situations that exceed it's capacity. Not loading (or fully loading) web pages is one thing, crashing and locking up are totally unacceptable when you are using the device for it's main purpose.
does little? there are tons of emerging third party apps emerging...
That's nice, one day it may have useful stuff. I hear M$ has tons of security enhancements to Windoze emerging too.
most useful third party app on the seven-seventy is fbreader.
That's great if you want, yet another, portable ebook reader. Pretty useless if not.
another useful app is the xterminal.
Now there is something that is useful. Though with the lack of kb, it's true usefulness is lacking. That and other products do the exact same thing.
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:1, Insightful)
I realize they do this so people can find the keys (and so their product will be more likely to be adopted) but since this is all software anyway, surely it would not be difficult to provide the new design and offer a QWERTY layout as an option.
Re:Tiny tablets with keyboards (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, the Toshiba is an example of a big tablet, not a tiny one!
Re:they need to stick with it (Score:3, Insightful)
The bad thing is that Nokia had access to a perfectly fine platform: Familiar Handhelds.org Linux. The good thing is that Nokia has hired the team that did Familiar in the first place, so hopefully there will be a merge between Familiar and Maemo in the future.
VUI (Score:4, Insightful)
I so much agree on the tiny, I detest having to go get new cell phones, it has gotten to the point I can barely use them they have gotten so small. All this new really small stuff is designed with young humans with tiny fingers and great eyes in mind it appears. It doesn't matter how tiny the device is if you just can't use the thing, doesn't matter how many features it has if you can't see the screen or manipulate the buttons.
Note to hardware companies-look around the western world, the population with a lot of disposable income is neither real young nor do they have great eyes. Stiff fingers/arthritis and bifocals are *common*. You want those folks business, keep that in mind when you are designing stuff. These companies are telling folks who think nothing of dropping 100 grand on an RV that their market segment isn't worth releasing products designed with them in mind. Pretty much a huge missed business opportunity there near as I can see..with my bifocals. Keep saying FU to that market and it will reply in kind. Cater to it, you *might* get some bizznezz...
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. (Score:1, Insightful)
This guy's a genius, debunking Mac fanboi trolls. He should be an editor.
--
Trolling all trolls since 2001.
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:2, Insightful)
Good for tinkerers (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, then what's an alternative???? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Review" misses the point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to nit pick or to even suggest a defense of Win98, but it was fairly stable for the OS it was, not having a kernel like NT.
Win98 and mainstream applications is pretty crash free. The problem with Win98 is that it, even more than Win2k or WinXP lets third party software screw with the system, and due to the nature of the Win9X kernel technology, there is no protect from bad applications, from protecting system files to not fully controlling errant memory allocation in the driver mechanism.
If you have a Win98 machine and it is crashing, you have crap third party apps, or a crap driver.
Now for WinME, it was just bad software and is one of the few mainstream OSes our labs ever worked with that could drop to a crawl and crash from a base installation using MS controlled drivers and MS applications. (WinME tried to jam in some new stuff and didn't take time to work it out, nor did MS have the foresight to rip some of these features when they realized the Win9X kernel could not efficiently handle the new features. - A feature like system restore just did not work well when it wasn't sitting on a solid NT kernel, and in WinXP is an elegant feature in comparison.)
Now in regard to the article, people shouldn't take it either way, it is not a bash of Linux nor a bash of portable PCs. Believe it or not Linux is not perfect, and on a non well tested port, there are going to be bugs, it happens. Just like WinCE was a variant of the NT kernel, yet the early versions crashed.
Consider this growing pains for Linux, and see it as a good thing. Also consider this as growing pains for the small PC format. Even the new WindowsXP based systems will show the same complaints and even if it was 100% crash free, apps are going to crash, there will be hardware failures, it will be too warm for some people, the screen will be too tiny for a lot of people.
You can't please everyone with products like this, it is just Linux is the name on it taking part of the wrap.
I noticed posts above that talked about the need for keyboards and how they won't ever work in these formats, etc etc... There are a LOT of portable technologies that are still not cost effective, but out there and being refinded. From a projected keyboard with motion and video sensors to see what the person is typing, to gloves, etc.
Display technologies are also getting there, and the screen on these unit will come to a point they disappear. Look for low power projectors to display the device on a wall or seat, and we all know about LCD glasses, and even Retinal Laser Displays that will let use use glasses or a peep hole into super tiny devices.
The current units DO fit the CURRENT needs, and as the technology continues to mature, will disappear into wearable full blown computing. PDAs with lower powered OSes are over, and we will continue to see some growing pains, but we have pretty much made the jump as this product and others are demonstrating.