This article reviews the Debian Linux-based Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. The basics of the internet tablet are covered as well as the new features available after the latest July firmware updates. Most notable new features would be a full fledged Skype client and SDHC support.
Review: Nokia N800 with Skype
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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The article lists the 800×400 resolution as a “Con” in this review. He must be joking.
The iPhone, which came out later and costs more, has a screen resolution of 480×320. The devices are similar form factors. I don’t think you’d even want screen resolution >800×400 on the screen size of the Nokia Tablets. (Trust me — I have one: I spend more time upping the font size than complaining about scroll.)
If you want 1024×768 or higher there are a whole slew of devices that will suit you — they’re called NOTEBOOKS 🙂
p.s. he also complains about “No portrait view.” This is a limitation of some software, not the device. Opera doesn’t provide portrait probably because it would make browsing “yet more cramped.” But FBReader (a text/plucker ebook reader) does have a portrait mode that works quite nicely. In fact, FBReader + Nokia N770/800 is the best modern ebook reader on the market.
he didn’t mean that, he said it’s too crammed. The UI could have been better in order to not give the feeling of “cramminess”.
Do you have a source for that statement?
The only time he mentions the UI in relation to screen real estate is here:
“The vertical taskbar that resides on the left side of the desktop took up an unnecessary amount of screen real estate.”
Of course, the vertical taskbar goes away when you hit the “full screen” button in any Hildion app.
As for his complaints about screen resolution, here are my sources:
“As nice as the 800×400 touchscreen looked, I did find the screen real estate to feel cramped and wished the screen could display a larger 1024×600 resolution (to minimize scrolling). You can enable the web browser to go in fullscreen mode which makes text easier to read, but doesn’t cut down on the need to scroll. Although the screen felt cramped, image quality was always excellent on the N800.”
…
“While the Nokia N800 is billed as an “internet tablet” the screen’s rather cramped 800×400 resolution made browsing the internet not ideal for long term use. This is because a lot of websites use larger 1024 resolution and the end result would be a lot of scrolling for the user. With that that said, for brief instant web use (say Google Maps / Webmail / Wikipedia) the device workeed remarkably well.”
…
“Cons:
LCD touchscreen felt cramped with its 800×400 resolution.“
Sure, but he didn’t mention the iPhone at all in the review 😉 – maybe he would have listed the same “Con” for it? OTOH, perhaps iPhone’s “drag to scroll” vs using scrollbars, plus its ability to smoothly zoom in and out of page sections (columns, paragraphs) is a better choice than smaller text/higher res. so everything fits, particularly considering that the iPhone can’t be too large, being after all a cellphone.
Little size comparison:
http://www.sizeasy.com/page/size_comparison/833-Nokia-N800-vs-Apple…
last time i checked, i think i read something about N800 (and 770 before that) supported drag to scroll in the browser…
Drag to scroll works just as well on the N800. The scrollbars are pretty much optional to use. Zooming seems more nicely done on the iphone. But it looks like you need to scroll and zoom a lot more on the iphone with its low resolution. Most websites fit their main content within 800 pixels. You may not see the sidebars, but you can read the main content without scrolling or zooming. That is a big plus IMO.
Not exactly a fair comparison because the Sony VGN-UX390N costs about 4x more than the Nokia N800, but that device has a similar screen size (4.5 inches vs N800’s 4.13 inches )and does 1024×600.
I guess I was a little spoiled by the resolution on that test unit. But yes I did find myself scrolling more than I wanted with the 800×400 resolution on the Nokia.
The iPhone may have an even lower resolution but its primary function isn’t web browsing like the Nokia N800’s “internet tablet.”
Besides that and a few other minor complaints, I loved the N800.
Edited 2007-07-23 23:46
Skype ported to Hildon and GTK+? where can I download it?
Not sure about a “generic” Hildon version, but http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/download/skype/mobile/n800/ for the N800 app.
hey thanks, I checked deb, skype-ui depends on Hildon and GNOME library like gtk+ glib dbus and so
There is a tool to downsize video especially for N800. After such preprocessing movies looks nicely on its wide-screen display, but video uses CPU intensively and can quickly empty your battery.
You probably know this but you can use the MediaConverter
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=26
on your desktop. Works pretty well. Or why not ssh to your desktop and do the convertion there and then download the resulting low-res video? 🙂
The N800 is really a small linux computer with a great community:
http://maemo.org/
Top apps:
*ssh
*xterm
*mplayer
*maemo mapper (can DL google-maps for offline use)
*SIP-support
*Skype
Edit: Thought you meant that media convertion on the N800 depleted the battery, not video playback. My bad.
Edited 2007-07-24 08:41
My top apps are evince and fbreader. I like putting some chms and pdfs on my n800 to read on the train. The high dpi of the screen makes it pretty comfy to read.
There is a mozilla-based backend available in beta for the browser. It is a lot better what compatibility is concerned (google reader and such). You can also for example drag the map around with your finger in maps.google.com.
If you let youtube buffer the entire flash video before hitting play, it is smooth as butter with the latest update.
As an aside, intel is working on software for similar devices (based on the same software stack as nokia), and in the mockups there are no stupid sidebars anymore. http://www.moblin.org/ I hope (and guess) that it is going to be backported to the nokia n800 eventually.
there is also someone thats working on using hildon as a desktop UI. as in, as a replacement for kde or gnome.
Is the hackerdom finished?
I mean, half a decade ago, people tore open the iPod and wrote their own OS and UI for that (rockbox). N800’s software is almost completely open-source, which should make it easier to replace everything.
Is anyone doing this?
it only works with wifi. While most people say the EDGE on the iPhone is a weak point, it is good enough for maps and most browsing and (duh) coverage is much better.
I’d go as far as to say that maps and Internet are useless without that kind of coverage.
But this is Nokia. Who says they can’t put all that in a phone?
I think Nokia expects everybody who buys this to already have a phone with bluetooth that this device can use as a modem. The advantage of this approach is that you can use EDGE, GPRS, 3G or whatever else your phone and current network supports. Chances are if you’re out and about, you’ll have your phone on you.
This was never intended to replace your mobile phone, but to complement it.
Most of his cons are true only with the default software. You can take still pictures with the camera if you install the Camera app and watch Youtube smoothly in fullscreen if you install UKTube app. Don’t know why he listed the resolution as con, there aren’t many devices that do 800×480 resolution for this price/size. For me the best feature this update brought was the fixed touchscreen. Now it works like it should.
Does anyone know if it’s possible to get Skype on the N700? There isn’t a huge difference between the two models, although the N800 is better, but the N700 is available for about a fifth of the price.
http://maemo.org/news/view/1183720952.html
http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/german-court-convicted-sky…
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