Our Nokia friends were very generous to send us over their newest Internet Tablet, the N800, for a review. Read more below about our experience with this Linux-based mobile gem.
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The BT works with Nokia's BT keyboard (many reports online show this). I have two BT keyboards here, but they don't use the normal BT profile, so I can't test them.
Regarding word processor, no, you will have to wait for a port of AbiWord for the N800 (currently, only an alpha version for the N770 exists). There is a "notes" application though if you want to write stuff. And there is the GPE TODO to manually install if you want a to-do list.
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vim runs on the 770, but you probably wouldn't want to use it (or any other text-entry application) for taking notes.
instead, consider Xournal, which was ported to the 770 (should be available on 800 too, soon) and is a great note taking application. I'm addicted to it.
Andrew
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No, it is not. The libraries used are mostly LGPL (which allows such linking). Please don't turn this forum into another license spree. This is the last comment I allow on licensing. Please reply only if you have something to say or ask about the device and its apps.
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The N770 was darn tempting but the weak processor always held me back from diving in.
The N800 seems to be a little more modern on that side, I just hope somebody from Nokia's payroll would take a week to work on porting MPlayer to the platform and make it use the CPU's DSP. I would be all over this in a sec if it could play 640*480 Divx.
I already have a PocketPc that I only use now for GPS navigation. nokia please make good use of your hardware and have TomTom or Route66 port some commercial GPS software to yoru platform, I will pay for my copy.
And no Maemo Mapper is definitely not the kind of thing I can use everyday to drive around.
Anybody know if Gnumeric is on its way to this platform?
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Nokia sell their own GPS software for the N800, called the nokia navigation kit. According to arstechnica "The interface was very impressive, comparable with standalone GPS devices like the Garmin Nuvi 660". Although they didn't test it extensivly.
More info here
http://www.europe.nokia.com/accessorieslink?s=N800NavigationKit
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The only thing holding me back from buying one is battery life. If they could get it to last 6-10 hours (without turning the backlight down all the way), I'd buy in a second. I'd love to use this to read Safari/Gutenberg ebooks, but the 3 hour battery life Nokia mentions is just too short.
Edited 2007-01-24 20:46
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Very interesting. I was going off the info here:
http://www.nokiausa.com/N800/1,9008,feat:1,00.html
Where it says "* Browsing time: up to 3 hours." I guess that's referring to constant use of the wifi? I'd really love to have this thing for remote ssh/vim access. If the battery life is really a bit higher, I'll have to pick one up soon.
Edited 2007-01-24 20:56
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The nice thing about the N800 is that it uses a standard nokia mobile phone battery. This means the spare batteries are both cheap (more so if you buy a 3rd party battery), readily available at any phone store and small. So getting a second battery isn't a problem.
Not perfect, but a reasonable workaround
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I don't understand how Nokia expects to keep developpers interested in porting their apps to Maemo if they break compatibility with each new device! First 1.0, then 2.0 and now 3.0. One of the strengths of the N800 is the Linux-based platform that has the potential for thousands of apps, and yet we're left with only a handful. That was a mistake, IMO. I hope the developpers don't give up. I want the N800 but will hold off until at least AbiWord or another wordpro is ported to it.
And really they should put in a faster CPU so folks can watch YouTube on it. Why else do people want to wireless connect to the internet anyway? ;-)
PS. It may not be as bad as I thought. I was just going by what you wrote in the article, Eugenia. But checking out the Maemo site, it says:
Most applications developed with maemo 2.1 for Nokia 770 will work as such also with Nokia N800 device.
Some existing Nokia 770 open source applications have been shortly tested with Nokia N800 device. Test results are available from maemo wiki. http://maemo.org/maemowiki/OS2007_Tested_Applications
In some exceptional cases where porting applications from maemo 2.1 to maemo 3.0 is required porting will typically be simple.
Unfortunately, AbiWord, mplayer and evince are not on the list.
Edited 2007-01-24 21:05
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While a few apps remain compatible with 2.0, the point remains that about 90% of the 2.0 apps don't work in the 3.0 N800 version. I agree with you, breaking compatibility is a very bad thing for both the users and the *third party* developers. It only serves the system developers.
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I don't mean to argue with you, but the Maemo site DOES say that "most" N770 apps will work with the N800:
Most applications developed with maemo 2.1 for Nokia 770 will work as such also with Nokia N800 device.
http://www.maemo.org//downloads/maemo_3_compatibility.html
But perhaps it means only those 770 apps developped with 2.1 and not 2.0.
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>And really they should put in a faster CPU so folks can
>watch YouTube on it. Why else do people want to wireless
>connect to the internet anyway? ;-)
As has been said before, you can stream the video from YouTube via Orb into Real format and watch it fine. Thus, the problem isn't the processor, but that the Flash plugin is in dire need of optimisation. Of course Nokia can do nothing here, it's entirely up to Adobe.
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I saw a demo and there is a one client that works with video and google talk. This is trunk gossip which uses telepathy. In the demo gossip was able to show video from the nokia n800. By the way telepathy is used inside the n800 for google talk/jabber...
What I thought with 2.0 -> 3.0 there were only a few apps that didn't work in 3.0.
Also the battery life of the 770 was always much more than 3 hours for me (with wifi on, and using it). Although from the review it looks like the n800 has better battery life 
.
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Thanks Eugenia!
Excellent review. The best I've seen for the N800. Most of the other review are "I like it, it's better than the older version" and no technical details at all.
I was really excited with the N800 (and the N770 before it), but unfortunately I won't be buying one as it doesn't support USB Recharging. Why? Because there's NO reason to a portable device that requires carrying an aardvark recharger. Also, I don't want to buy proprietary batteries that I don't need to.
Too bad... besides that (and some codec issues) N800 was great...
...the worst of all? It's that they didn't learn from their mistakes with N770 and implemented USB recharging and some more linux-friendly codecs.
well... waiting the next-generation NXXX... =]
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http://flickr.com/photos/konstantin/355032055/in/pool-nokiatablets/
Looks like a charger to me. I've been using this since I had the 770.
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It comes with a wall charger. USB does not supply enough mA to fast-charge the device. Unfortunately battery capacities are outgrowing the 500mA limits of the USB bus. No manufacturer in their right mind would support USB charging as default. There are just too many variables involved vs. a simple UL wall wart produced in mass quantities for less than the price of the fused USB charger cable with zero support required (and used across your entire CE device line). So this is really a moot point.
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You're talking about USB wall chargers. Well, they're great too, but the point is, it should not matter if you're using a USB wall charger or charging the device while it's hooked to your PC, USB recharging is NEEDED for a portable device... a USB to charge connector converter does not count to call N770 and N800 a USB chargeable device as you still need a proper converter, not just a standard USB cable and a USB power supply (PC/MAC/Wall USB charger... make your choice).
Why should you depend on proprietary and bulky devices to hold any important data?
It doesn't matter if USB recharging isn't fast as the a proper AC charger, you need options and you don't need to carry all the bulky for a portable device... just take you PC with you in your baggage them.
There's nothing wrong with the AC charger, we just need USB charging as well, out of the box, without carrying (and buying) useless stuff. It won't be the primary recharging method, but will make this device really portable.
Edited 2007-01-25 12:34
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>USB does not supply enough mA to fast-charge the device.
Konfoo, you are mistaken. PocketPCs do charge via USB, and I can tell you, some of these use higher speed CPUs and hardware than the N800 (e.g. the Dell x50v). So, no, your argument is not correct. USB-charging *is* feasible (if a bit slower to charge) and it is used by other similar devices today, and people want that. That's the real issue here.
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after 2 years (or is it more?) the only sip client for this thing is in command line.
meanwhile, every retarded proprietary VOIP service, (gtalk, gizmo, soon skype) has flocked to this platform.
is nokia paying off developers to NOT write a SIP client?
it's frustrating. this device would make a perfect wifi sip phone.
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gizmo is not sip. it's "sip-based" and proprietary. they now permit to connect to a normal SIP server with the 2nd account once you register with gizmo on the first account. and this is only true for the n800 as nokia's still grappling with the concept of platform vs "small plastic object i throw in trash every 12 months". my understanding anyways. i don't want gizmo, just something like minisip or ekiga without extra junk. i want a sip client like an ftp client, without tie-ins or ulterior motives.
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I was this too, but to be honest with you, except the XTEN Windows client, all other clients are problematic and difficult to work behind *all* firewalls or routers. I have tried pretty much everything and except the XTEN client (and the gizmo client, only because they control both the server and the client) nothing really pleases me. Ekiga has problems too btw.
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Is there any information on how many they sold of the 770?
I bought one hoping that it would make for a nice PDF reader on the commute. But it sucked at that. It was slow, did not remember where I was when I closed the app and the screen was too small for that purpose.
I am afraid not much seems to have changed as regards that.
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You said:
Personally, I would prefer Nokia to move away from Real Player (or just use it only for RA/RAM) and instead use mplayer and also port the mplayer-plugin for use with the Opera browser. This only only will allow for broader codec support (after licensing them of course) but for WMV/QT support inside web pages that currently is not possible. This is an internet tablet after all.
If you can show me where I can download licensed ARM-compiled mplayer plugins for both WMV and QT (I presume you mean MPEG4 or Sorenson, as QT is a container format), then you deserve a medal. MPlayer manages to play these formats on the typical desktop by (generally) illegally re-using the Windows codecs. These will not work on the N800 as it doesn't have an x86 compatible processor.
A better solution would be for Nokia to license more of the Fluendo GStreamer plugins for WMV, MPEG4, and so on. They don't have Sorenson though.
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That would be great... but still, all these codecs and the GStreamer need to be optimized and also modified to be able to use the media hardware acceleration that N770 and N800 uses...
...too bad they had a lot of time since N770 to do that and the situation still the same... = (I'd love to be wrong.)
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And that is why you pay Fluendo for the plugins. They have ARM builds already, the N800 uses the DSP if you use XVideo, so all that remains is to potentially use the DSP in decoding the actual frame data. However with the YUV to RGB conversion and scaling happening in the DSP already, it may be fast enough already.
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>If there was one thing you wanted to do with your tablet but couldn't, what was it?
For me, the backwards compatibility problem is the biggest one. Here I am, got this brand new tablet, and only about 15 apps are available for it, while there are about 200-300 for the N770.
Apart from that, I want optimized Flash support and more (and optimized) video/audio codec support.
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I will be keeping the tablet and I will be continue writing for it and its related services. For example, today I am preparing a VoIP article for later today and the N800 will be mentioned among the best devices. But there is not a single feed that will give you all the articles I will be writing for the N800. This feed is possibly the most appropriate http://osnews.com/feed.php?t=17 but stories won't always be posted under this topic...
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