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 The reviewer complains about the lack of keyboard, poor WiFi implementation, outdated software, non-standard memory card, and almost as many crashes as an unpatched Win98 install."
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:2, Interesting)
Inputs like this? Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard [thinkgeek.com].
I have to agree (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Windows user reviews Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
"The Nokia 770 takes longer to boot up than some desktop computers (nearly a minute) and offers battery life no longer than that of many laptops (4 1/4 hours of nearly continuous browsing). In two weeks of testing, it locked up and spontaneously rebooted more often than any computer I've used in that time."
The "unpatched Windows 98" jab must be from some Linux fanboy who inserted that. It doesn't appear in the article. The only mention of Windows Media Player is in a one sentence paragraph:
"You won't have much better luck with streaming media online because of the lack of playback software for Windows Media and QuickTime formats."
He also mentions the lack of a decent Flash player and comments that it won't play a lot of Flash content that's commonly out there. Maybe it is a good device for geeks who don't mind overlooking its myriad problems and coping with the challenges, incompatibilities, and crashes. And maybe some kernel developer will take a look at the code and work out the reliability issues. However, for the intended audience of that article -- consumers -- the review was spot on.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
My Nokia 770 is great (Score:5, Interesting)
What the Nokia 770 *is* - it's an internet tablet with an very high-resolution 800 pixel wide display, with a basic email client, RSS reader, multimedia support and some apps thrown in. It does come with expandable memory, and there are other apps you can load onto it for free.
It *isn't* a laptop replacement, nor a PDA, nor a phone, nor is it a games machine or a personal multimedia player although it can do all of these to an extent. Primarily, it's designed to give you a much better web experience than you would get from a cellphone while it fits in your pocket. If you choose to extend it with keyboards, new applications and even things like GPS then it's up to you.
Two words of warning - I bought mine directly from Nokia (I had one of the first) and the first unit was faulty, at which point I discovered that Nokia's customer service is not great. And to get the best out of the N770, some work is required in terms of patching and loading on apps.
One last thing - it's great value. In the UK it works out as £250 including tax and shipping which is cheaper than many mobile phones.
I have to agree (Score:3, Interesting)
He doesn't get it, which isn't a surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)
I use it *constantly*, because it's has a real web browser (Opera w/Flash) and is pretty easy to connect over WiFi. It fits nicely in my coat pocket, and has a glorious, bright display. And it's an open and well-supported platform for development.
The reviewer makes some good points for his world. It doesn't play well with Microsoft. That's not a factor in my world. Sure, it doesn't play WMV9. But it does play MPEG-4.
It could use some additional memory. I moved the root fs onto a card to deal with that, and it's much more stable now.
The network messages are a little obtuse. Basically if any connection has reached a timeout (why there's a timeout for WiFi I'll never know), it says "Network Connection Error" when you try to send a packet. So you click 'Connect', pick a network, and you're off.
It uses RS-MMC because that's what the rest of Nokia's products use now.
It works flawlessly with my RAZR on Cingular, and the thought of EV-DO has me looking at the Sprint/Samsung RAZR clone.
Make no mistake, this is a 1.0 product, and not really ready for prime time. But it *is* ready for the
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't even know about that -- there's definitely a non-trivial market for cellphones with big, big buttons, for example, which implies that cellphones haven't exactly nailed the UI thing even for single task devices. Nokia has even started making this an explicit part of their marketing; see their new "Buttons for Humans" campaign [nokia.com] for an example.
You are blind (Score:2, Interesting)
Not everyone that says MS products are good or Linux sucks are posting flamebait/trolling . Plenty of people actually hold this opinion .
"unpatched win 98" . Oh no ! He said MS doesnt suck enough ! OMG ! Kill him !111!!!!11!!one!
Re:"Review" misses the point. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is what the article did say: "In two weeks of testing, it locked up and spontaneously rebooted more often than any computer I've used in that time."
In my opinion, if a computer locks up, or spontaneously reboots, or crashes, it is indeed the fault of the operating system.
Saying that it is not the fault of the O/S is like Microsoft saying that bluescreens aren't the fault of the O/S, they are the fault of those nasty third party applications and drivers.
A good O/S shouldn't dump or hang, no matter what the applications do. It should just allow the application to blow up, and protect other running applications.
Re:It still is pretty kewl (Score:3, Interesting)
The price point is actually decent. If Sharp had only priced their newest Zauruses (the C1000/C3xxx series) at the same price point and actually sold them in the US, they'd sell like hotcakes. Pretty much every complaint about the Nokia is gone with the newest Zaurus series. Sharp missed the boat on that one.
Kudos to Nokia for actually selling and supporting such a device to the Western market.
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:3, Interesting)
We did.
The Pepper Pad [pepper.com] has an 8.4", 800x600 screen, a 624Mhz Xscale CPU, a 20GB disk, Wi-Fi, bluetooth, USB, and a full keyboard for about $800. It runs Linux and includes both Firefox 1.5 and Flash 7.
Great - for what it is (Score:2, Interesting)
All that said - I love it. I can pick it up and check the news, turn the internet access on or off for my kids or even VNC into a server if I really feel I must. Would I spend $350 of food money on it? No. But - if you can affort $350 for a cool toy - this is one.
Citrix? (Score:3, Interesting)
Has anyone tried to get something like this up and running?
I've been deploying tablet PC's in an industrial enviornment that are essentially expensive thin clients, it would be nice to find a replacement at almost a 10th of the price.
Re:Windows user reviews Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, we could probably load onto it a more stable kernel version, and better apps, but what consumer would do that? Linux advocates should be pissed that this device gives such a bad impression of the platform.
In other words ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Input/Output Hurdle (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Easy to fix (Score:1, Interesting)