Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Review
Introduction
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is a new brand device, aimed at putting the Internet and an excellent web browsing experience in the palm of your hand. Larger than a PDA and sharing the same touch screen experience, the Nokia 770 doesn't aim to replace the PDA nor your mobile phone. In fact the device has no mobile phone radio, a first for a Nokia device. Instead it relies on its Wi-Fi 802.11g connectivity or you may use a Bluetooth-enabled phone as a wireless modem for the Nokia when you're not in range of a Wi-Fi network. A device that's intended to access the web anywhere in your wireless-enabled home or business but lacks the power of a full-blown computer. Nokia has smartly evaded the web pad's shortcomings: a high price, Windows' high maintenance requirements and large size (bigger and heavier than a medium format book).Description
Rather
than saying what the Nokia 770 is not, let's start with what it is: an
extremely compact handheld device designed for Internet addicts and everyday
folks who wish to access the web instantly and easily from places other than
their desk in front of a PC. It has a bright and sharp 800 x 480 pixel four inch display reminiscent
of the Samsung Nexio
S160. The device measures 5.5"
wide by 3" high by .75" thick with its metal slip
cover on. It weighs 8.1 ounces, is
pretty easy on the hands, and the included easel stand, similar to that
included with the short-lived Nokia 7710 smart
phone means you can sit it on the table if you prefer. The device has Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 1.2 (you can use
your Bluetooth enabled-phone as a modem for the Nokia 770 when Wi-Fi isn't
available). The unit has a touch screen like a PDA and two styli are included.
The device is geared toward those who don't want to sit with a laptop on the
couch or wait for a PC to boot up just too quickly check something online. It's
geared to those who want to listen to streaming radio anywhere a Wi-Fi or
Bluetooth connection is available. It's geared to those who live for RSS news
feeds and email.
it
is not a phone or PDA. It doesn't come pre-loaded with standalone PIM apps such
as contacts and calendar nor does it sync to desktops. It has no mobile phone
radio inside, just Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It's a new kind of lifestyle device or
techno-appliance: a portable Internet machine. Is it useful? Yes! Why do you
need one if you already own a PDA? That's a harder sell, but Nokia believes
that the much higher resolution display which allows you to see more of a web
page on screen (without horizontal scrolling in many cases) and the superior
browser (Opera 8) which offers a more desktop-like browsing experience will
sell you. The 770 runs Linux, though you need not know a hair about Linux to
use the device. Given the active open source Linux developer community and
early interest from developers, Nokia hopes that we'll see lots and lots of
free and shareware apps for the 770 in the coming year. Nokia hosts a developer web site to aid in
that development and to spotlight some of the software currently available for
the device.
Design and Ergonomics
The
Internet tablet comes with a silver hard cover that slips onto the handheld.
Slide it on to completely cover the display for safe transit. When you do so,
the Nokia automatically goes to sleep, so there's no need to turn it off before
covering it. When you're using the 770, you can slide the cover on so it covers
the back of the unit, adding just a bit to the device's in-hand dimensions; or
you can stick it in your bag, pocket or wherever you wish. The cover blocks the
stylus silo in both front and rear covering positions, so you won't lose it.
Slide the 770 a half inch up to remove the stylus.
All
front facing controls are located on the left side. The speaker, 5-way
directional pad, back button, menu activator and home buttons. Buttons to turn
full screen mode on and off as well as zoom in and out are located on the top
edge. The power button is also up top, and you can use that to fully power off
the device when you know you won't be using it for a day or more. The device
uses little power in sleep mode and no power when turned completely off using
the power button. You'll have to wait about 20 seconds for it to boot up from
complete power off, and it turns on instantly when waking from sleep. The mini
USB sync port (cable included), charger port and standard 3.5mm stereo
headphone jack are located on the bottom edge. The user replaceable battery
lives under a door on the back, and the hot-swappable RS-MMC memory card slot
is under a door on the bottom edge of the 770.
Horsepower and Performance
The
Nokia 770 has a 250 MHz Texas
Instruments OMAP 1710 ARM compatible CPU with 64 megs of available internal
flash memory and an RS-MMC slot (same as used on recent Nokia phones) with a 64
meg card included. Both 3v and dual voltage 1.8/3v RS-MMC cards are supported.
The CPU does bog down if you've got several browser windows open and low memory
warnings pop up if you've got the MP3 player going along with a few browser
windows or if you're visiting a site with some honking Macromedia Flash action
going on. Since Opera supports multiple windows and many sites open links in
new windows, you'd be surprised how easy it is to get 5 windows going. Keep an
eye on those and close down windows you no longer need or the 770 will slow
down markedly.
Operating system and user interface
Nokia
created their own operating system and user interface for the 770, and named it
Internet Tablet 2005 edition software. The OS is Linux and it's based on Debian
(Kernel 2.6, Debian for ARM). The desktop is intuitive with the RSS reader,
Internet radio player and a clock showing by default. It has elements of
Nokia's Series 80 and 90 GUI with drop down menus embedded in the top window
tabs and a quick launch icon bar on the left side. On the left you'll see
shortcuts to the web browser, email and a third for other applications. When
you tap on the other applications icon, you'll see a cascading menu listing all
available programs, similar to the graphical start menus under Linux and the
Windows Start Menu.
The
toolbar up top has icons to show you battery and volume status among other
things, a screen shot utility shortcut and a shortcut to your mobile phone
connection (should you use one as a wireless modem for the 770). The device is
intuitive and stylus-centric. While you can accomplish several tasks using the
front buttons, most are best done using the touch screen and stylus. When you
need to enter web site URLs or other text, you'll use an on-screen keyboard or
handwriting recognition which gives mixed results. The Nokia 770 Control Panel
is where you'll install new applications, backup and restore the device, work
with secure certificates, calibrate the display, view available memory,
customize the desktop, set a password if desired and more.
The
RSS reader does a good job of rendering feed items, though we wish it were a
little peppier. It's easy enough to copy an RSS feed URL from the browser and
paste it into the reader. Internet radio plays streaming stations and you can
create a list of your favorite stations. Audio quality through a set of stereo
headphones is very good and the device makes a great portable Internet radio.
Other apps include a PDF viewer, image viewer, video player, audio player, file
manager, notes, sketching (draw using colors), calculator, clock, chess,
Mahjong and Marbles. The video player supports locally stored and streaming
media in MPEG1, MPEG4, Real Video, H.263, AVI and 3GP formats. The image viewer
displays JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, Animated GIF format,SVG-tiny and ICO files.
The audio player can handle MP3, MPEG4-AAC, WAV, AMR and MP2 music.
Web Browsing
The 770 comes with a customized version of the excellent Opera
browser which supports multiple windows and some plug-in such as Flash 6 which
is included. The browser does a great job of rendering web sites and is much
closer to the desktop experience than PDAs or phones. Opera handles JavaScript, dHTML, SSL, cookies, bookmarks,
caching, zooming and has regular, optimized and full screen viewing modes. The
many sites we visited looked great and worked well, even JavaScript menus that
generally baffle PDA browsers. The display is wide enough that side-to-side
scrolling is kept to a minimum. Excellent! Our one complaint is Flash support:
yes it's there, but visiting a page with Flash really slowed the browser down.
Like
the email client on some Nokia phones, the 770's email application supports
multiple accounts, referred to as "mailboxes". The app supports both
POP3 and IMAP email, along with SSL, signatures, HTML and plain text emails,
SMTP authentication, user-specified incoming and outgoing mail ports, email
encryption and more. You can tell the app to leave email on the server and you
can specify the maximum downloaded message size and whether it should download
headers only. This is a strong email client for those using POP3 and IMAP mail.
Though there's no standalone contacts application, the email client has its own
address book with a few preset fields.
Display and Multimedia
The
Nokia 770 has an 800 x 480 touch screen
that's capable of displaying 65,536
colors. While not super-saturated, the display is very bright
and its anti-glare coating reduces eye-fatigue. Given the high resolution and
small screen size, text is small, though sharp. Use the zoom feature if your
eyes become tired.
The
Nokia 770 has a speaker and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack which pumps out good
quality music. Though the device has a mic at the bottom, no application
currently makes use of it. However, it should come in handy when the next
version of the OS is released with support for VoIP.
Photo viewing
Photo
viewing is a pleasure thanks to the sharp, high resolution display and the
included image viewer supports a wealth of formats. Color saturation could be
higher for a better wow effect, but most folks will be pleased. Likewise video
playback is great on the large screen, though given the device's horsepower,
keep encodings under 600 kbps for smooth playback.
Battery
The
1500 mAh Lithium Ion battery is good for 4 hours of service when online via Wi-Fi.
That's very good for a device with a large display and wireless. Should you
need to plug in, the 770's small charger is unobtrusive (it looks just like
Nokia's standard phone charger but the connector is smaller in diameter). The
device has three power modes: on, off and sleep. The Nokia will automatically
sleep after a period of inactivity and a tap on the screen will wake it up with
no delay. Sleep uses little power but it does use some power. If you plan on
using the 770 throughout the day here and there, let it go to sleep. If you
won't be using it for a day or more, turn it off using the power button. We
found that the 770 lasted about 4 days when in sleep mode and indefinitely when
turned off. The Nokia will automatically go to sleep if you slide the
protective cover on to protect the display.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
is the Nokia 770's preferred means of connecting to the Net given its high
speed and 802.11g connection that's backwards compatible with 802.11b. The
device supports WEP (40 and 128 bit), WPA, DHCP, proxies and has very good
range. You can also use a Bluetooth enabled phone as a modem, but be prepared
for slow page loads unless you're lucky enough to be in a 3G coverage area. The
connection manager is one of the least friendly pieces of software on the 770,
but it gets the job done once you've spent a few minutes to master it.
Bluetooth
The
Nokia 770's Bluetooth 1.2 radio is intended primarily for using DUN (dial up
networking) with a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone. As you'd expect, Nokia phones
are supported, along with most other phones. Windows Mobile phones aren't
compatible out of the box, but with a bit of geeking, you can fix that. If
you're not a Linux geek who's happy with a command line action, you can wait
for the next OS update which will include support for Windows Mobile phones as
BT modems. The 770 doesn't ship with a Bluetooth keyboard driver, which worked well with our Think
outside Bluetooth Keyboard. The 770 supports the following profiles out of
the box: Dial-Up Networking, File Transfer/Object Exchange, Generic Access, SIM
Access and Serial Port.
Comparing the Nokia 770 to another Linux Handheld
When
using the Nokia 770, the Sharp Zaurus SL-C devices come to mind, current ones
being the SL-C3100
/ SL-C3000
and the C-1000. I have an older model, the SL-C860 which
is very similar to the current C-1000. Now, there are some major differences:
brand new Zaurus handhelds cost more than the Nokia 770 ($459 for a C-1000 and
$700 for an SL-C3100 with internal hard drive), though older ones can be hand
for less. They have integrated keyboards, PIM and office applications and
syncing software. Clearly the Zaurus is more than an Internet appliance; it's a
mini-computer and a PDA too. But there are a few striking similarities: the
Linux OS with a friendly GUI on top, open source software community support, a
great browsing experience (the Zaurus comes with a version of Net Front that's
much more capable than PDA and phone versions of that browser, and you can
install Opera), and a sharp screen with tiny fonts (but a similar hardware zoom
feature). The Zaurus models have superb 3.7" VGA 640 x 480 CG color
displays for a high res browsing experience, though less than the Nokia's in
dimensions and resolution. The Zaurus' display is more striking in terms of
brightness, color saturation and contrast which is important for photo and
video but less so for web browsing and text. The Nokia has built-in Wi-Fi and
Bluetooth while you must use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth CF cards with the Zaurus. The
Nokia is more turnkey while the Zaurus sometimes requires some geeking around.
In the end, the browsing similarities are strong but the Nokia remains a very
strong single purpose device with great ease of use while the Zaurus appeals to
those who need a mini-computer/PDA and want to spend more money for the added
features.
The Pepper was released Jan.
2006 and also runs Linux with a user-friendly graphical user interface. While
it wants to be your best buddy in the couch-surfing department as does the
Nokia, it also aims to do more. Like the Zaurus, it's not a targeted single
purpose device but rather a jack of several trades including video and MP3
playback (it has a 20 gig hard drive), AV remote control and more. Unlike the
Nokia, the Pepper is large (12" x 6.6"), heavy (2.3lbs) and costs
$800.
What I Like
1) As close to a desktop
browser experience as you can get on a mobile device.
2) High resolution display
that's sharp and doesn't glare.
3) The email client is quite
good and the RSS reader useful for feed junkies.
4) Good battery life, all
things considered.
5) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both
behave well and you can use Bluetooth to connect to keyboards and other
goodies, not just a phone (depending on available drivers).
What I Don’t Like
The
Nokia 770 easily bogs down under moderate loads: running a few apps at once,
having several web pages open at once or even updating and rendering in the RSS
news reader.
The Future
An OS upgrade forthcoming in
2006 will be free to all who purchase the current 2005 OS model and it will add
VoIP and an IM client. In the meantime you can download GAIM for instant messaging. No
office suite is included but you can download some open source apps at maemo.org/maemowiki/Application Catalog (Maemo is the name of the
Nokia 770's development platform, which you can also download). And yes,
there's a free Doom port available there, along with Sudoku, the AbiWord word
processor and a Bluetooth keyboard
driver.
Lastly I Would Say…
An interesting new kind of
device that's great for Internet users. It's very attractive, reasonably
priced and well made. If you want pocketable instant-on access to the web,
email, Internet radio and more nothing beats the 770 for the price. Unlike a
notebook, it fits in your pocket, is inexpensive and requires virtually no
maintenance. However, it can't replace a PDA or notebook given its lack of
PIM and office software.
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Specifications
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