I just published a review of the Nokia 770 Linux-based internet tablet over at TuxTops.com. For the past week I got to fully test the hardware and software supplied and then evaluate the strongs and weak points of the product.
Nokia 770 Linux Internet Tablet Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I know, Nokia 770 is a cool gadget based on TI OMAP 1710, the one of the most stable and well tested ARM-based development boards. I would like to get it but still have no chance for it — Nokia 770 will not be on sale in Russia.
Edited 2006-01-16 10:30
This is very inconvenient as it takes 55 seconds to fully boot!
…
About 3 hours with WiFi ON and about 6 hours with WiFi OFF. This is as good as most PalmOS and Win2003/SE PDAs.
That kills it for me right there. The limited power life does it too. If I’m buying one of these I want something to kick the ass of my current powertoy, a Zire 72s that I mostly use for reading these days.
There is hardly anything going for it if you don’t spend a lot of time out of the office. And proper standby is essential.
I might get interested if they address 3rd party sofware install possibilities and add a beefy harddrive.
It’s an open platform with tons of people porting software to it. What needs addressing?
My biggest beef is the lack of a keyboard. This machine is begging for one, seeing the webbrowsing. email and soon-to-come IM functionailty. Of course you coold hook up a BT keyboard– but then I might as well get my 2.2kg !2.1″ iBook.
Handwriting recognition sucks butt everywhere, and a pickboard is like typing with two hands tied up your back wearing a blindfold– rendering this device close to useless for me.
Wouldn’t the bluetooth interface be the logical place to integrate a keyboard?
My big question, for the North American market, is WTF the T-Mobile HotSpot connection?
>Wouldn’t the bluetooth interface be the
>logical place to integrate a keyboard?
It would, but as you would read on my review, the device does not come with such drivers. The only usable bluetooth profile in the device is dial-up networking (and even that has major incompatibility problems with phones). There is a third party effort to bring these drivers to the device, but not all keyboards are supported atm, neither is that driver stable.
My biggest beef is the lack of a keyboard. This machine is begging for one, seeing the webbrowsing. email and soon-to-come IM functionailty. Of course you coold hook up a BT keyboard– but then I might as well get my 2.2kg !2.1″ iBook.
Handwriting recognition sucks butt everywhere, and a pickboard is like typing with two hands tied up your back wearing a blindfold– rendering this device close to useless for me.
Having used a handspring for years, I would have agreed with you, but the recognition on the 770 is actually really good. I have terrible handwriting, but the only mistakes the device makes for me is in capitilization. I still have no idea how it confuses my uppercase T’s and M’s with lowercase ones, but there’s a switch-case button on the screen for fixing that sort of error. I can write on the 770 at a third my typing speed, which makes the device usable, if not great, for messaging. Using vim with handwriting recognition sucks, but it’s pretty usable other than that.
Also, IM isn’t soon-to-come. You can install Gaim already. I did
> but the recognition on the 770 is actually really good
That’s just not true. If you don’t believe me, read ALL the other N770 reviews out there and see which one is their No1 gripe: handwritting recognition. And we are talking about reviewers who are reviewing PDAs every week and with vast experience on such gadgets.
What’s with all useless crap that’s taking about 30% of the screen? I’m talking about the web browser screenshot. Seriously, they could’ve thought of a better method to switch tasks…
There is a full-screen mode for every app that hides everything on the screen but the app, triggered by a small button. It does make it even better to read sites on.
They need to either add a stanby, or drastically lower the boot time on this thing. No way am I waiting a minute for something that’s a little more than a cool PDA to start up.
I also think that 64MB of flash memory is a bit low. Maybe up it to 512MB or 1GB for installing 3rd party apps.
I hope this thing gets popular, so that by the time I’m in the market for one of these, it’s successors will have these issues ironed out.
Edited for spelling
Edited 2006-01-16 15:19
Eugenia’s comments about power management are simply incorrect. I have no idea what was wrong with her unit, but I charge mine twice or three times a week, and use it daily for checking traffic reports, etc. It doesn’t have more than three hours of browsing time, but it can easily sleep a week if it’s not used much. I just wanted to clear that up before eveyone decides the unit is worthless.
I also have the 770 and my power management is just fine. Also, you can turn the display off by sliding the cover over it.
I have no idea what was wrong with her unit, but I charge mine twice or three times a week
My Palm Tungsten E2 only needs recharging about once a month, and I use it daily.
Yeah, it’s not a palm pilot. Eugenia’s review made it sound like one has to constantly turn it on and off, which isn’t the case (at least for me). I doubt that the memory has a low-power setting, and I’m sure there are plenty of other tricks Palm has learned in its ten+ years of experience that Nokia didn’t figure out in its first handheld of this type.
Heh. The biggest gripe I’ve seen is battery life (and rightfully so, although I personally hate the PDF viewer). I’ve been reading about the 770 since it was announced last June or so, and I’ve never noticed any complaints about the recognition. In Ari Jaaksi’s request for feedback, only two of the 36 replies complained about the handwriting. Did it work for you?