Nokia's Linux Handheld 320
Nils Faerber writes "Today Nokia announced the introduction of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
device along with the Open Source based Maemo Development Platform. With
this new product Nokia enters several new worlds all at once. A new concept for the use of a handheld device, a new fully visible open source based development process and the explicit use of open source software in a commercial grade product. The typical use case for the Nokia 770 is to be the internet usability extension to your mobile phone or other wireless internet access equipment. It is extremely portable by its small formfactor, usable for almost all internet applications thorugh its exceptional resolution of 800x480 pixel and its multimedia capabilities by making use of a TI-OMAP CPU and a accompanying digital signal processor (DSP) core. The consequent use of open source software and technology basing on the Linux kernel 2.6, X11-server technology and the GTK+ toolkit the resulting new Hildon graphical user interface creates a fully new user interface experience for portable Linux devices."
The nokia Internet tablet (Score:5, Funny)
I can't swallow that! (Score:2, Funny)
Well then good news! It's a suppository!
Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "people" you mean the general non-computer-geek population, then I really don't think they care what OS the unit is running. Tivo is easy to use and runs on Linux. Archos media players are easy to use... The list continues.
Linux *can* be difficult to use, especially as a home OS. UIs that lay over the kernel and OS don't have to be.
Re:Good (Score:2)
And then be disappointed (Score:2)
Linux is free and customizable: companies with good designers and UI engineers can put good interfaces on top of it.
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Left-handed model? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh well, sucks to be me I guess.
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2, Funny)
These companies are obviously pregadous against left handed people. You should sue. This is discrimination. The right handers bringing down the left handers. It's must be a secret plot becuase the of the right handers in positions of power not wanting the left handers t
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:3, Insightful)
wtf?
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2)
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2)
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:3, Funny)
THus, there will soon be plenty of little left-handers about.
hawk
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2)
Pregadous (Score:3, Funny)
It's a... (Score:2)
wtf?
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2, Funny)
Are you kidding? The president of the USA has TWO left hands! Just watch him next time he tries to operate an umbrella...
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:3, Insightful)
Soko
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2)
Re:Left-handed model? (Score:2)
you're in luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Another option... (Score:2)
Not trying to state the expensive-but-obvious alternative, but have you considered a Zaurus c1000/c3000 import? They both have all hte buttons on the right side and below the keyboard. Folded, it looks to be about the same size too.
It is expensive, though. that s
No ethernet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No ethernet (Score:2)
Re:Forget ethernet, no bluetooth??!!! (Score:3, Informative)
(Straight from the site:)
Connectivity:
* WLAN: 802.11b/g
* Bluetooth specification: 1.2
GStreamer (Score:5, Informative)
... but shame on you, Nokia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:... but shame on you, Nokia... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd wish they'd just make up their mind and vouch for FOSS
Some good signs though (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:... but shame on you, Nokia... (Score:3, Insightful)
A future with EU software patents is a future where tech companies have more lawyers employed than developers. My guess is that the people in charge of Nokia's stance on patents... are lawyers.
Battery Life (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose you could charge it in your car...
Re:Battery Life (Score:2)
Exceedingly useless. Great idea, but the battery kills it.
Re:Battery Life (Score:2)
Come on, nothing has a working battery life of much more than 3 hours. Look at the screen on this thing. If a 3 hour battery life is the best gripe you can come up with, this thing will sell like hotcakes.
Me, I'm griping about the storage. What, no 20GB harddrive? Where will I keep my movies?
Re:Battery Life (Score:4, Interesting)
It's only 1500 mAh, your average NiMH AA is at 2300 mAh each. This battery must be puny.
An external battery pack would be a cool option. 2 AA's in a small tube with wire could provide nearly 10 hours.
Re:Battery Life (Score:3, Informative)
10 hours IF AND ONLY IF the pad runs on 1.25VDC, and you parallel the 2 AAs to get 1.25VDC @ 4600mAh.
If, as is more likely, the device runs on about 7VDC, you would need 12 2300mAh AAs running series/parallel (2 parallel strings of 6 batteries in series) to give you that time.
Remember - amp-hours ARE N
Wrong wrong wrong (Score:2)
So yes you get 4600mAh with two AA batteries but only at 1.5V (or more precisely 1.2V which is the electric potential for Ni-MH).
Or you get 2300mAh at 1.2V*2 (2.4V).
You should think in terms of power by having a simple U*I
So if the battery in the tablet rated for 1500mAh @ 4V, then power = 6W
Power for a couple of Ni-MH at 2300mAh each is 2*(2.3*1.2)=5.52
Re:Battery Life (Score:2)
Stylus (Score:3, Interesting)
In regards to the Nokia 770, the stylus seems to be the primary form of input and command for this device. Unless Nokia has changed the feel of stylus, this might hurt adopters of what looks like a neat PDA/tablet hybrid. Indeed, implementing a small keyboard similiar to the Sharp Zaurus PDA's would be very nice.
Re:Stylus (Score:2)
Input methods and battery life have been the two major reasons I haven't purchased a PDA since the Palm V. You could go weeks between recharging your Palm, while you're lucky to get through a day with the latest crop. I got sick of grafitti after a while, too. Sony's Clie looked promising but the ones with the keyboards were inevitably more than I wante
Re:Stylus (Score:2)
Nobody says you have to use the stylus that comes with. They sell multifunction pen/stylus devices the size of a regular ballpoint pen for about US$10 - $20.
Better picture (Score:3, Informative)
I've seen $350 quoted as a price point - once more and more devices start offering control access over TCP/IP (think TiVoweb, Xbox Media Centre etc) I think we've got a good candidate for the much-trumpeted "terminal" device that everyone uses around the home. I had the PSP pegged as a good place to start, providing a vibrant homebrew community springs up around it. This Nokia device offers that sort of functionality and development possibilites right out the box.
PDA please! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:PDA please! (Score:2, Informative)
what about KDE/Qt? (Score:2)
No it won't (Score:2, Informative)
should work (Score:2)
Furthermore, deriving a KDE handheld environment from the KDE desktop software should not be much work.
This is the way handheld Linux software should be done. Qt/Embedded and Qtopia's approach is unnecessarily exclusionary: with Qt/Embedded, you cannot realistically use any non-Qt GUI applications on the handheld.
A phone? (Score:2)
High-res images on Nokia press site (Score:2)
Nokia's press site has some high-resolution images [nokia.com].
It will fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It will fail (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It will fail (Score:2)
There is no reason that this device should be solely for browsing the web or checking email. In fact, they make a big deal about all the media formats it supports:
I have an MP3 player from a while back, 64mb built in with 128mb card -- 192 mbs is really not adequate. You have to carefully select and predict what you want to listen to w
Maybe not (Score:2)
Would be a great picture viewer.
Re:Maybe not (Score:2)
If you were stuck at the airport all night and all you had were a few movies on compact flash and a decent pair of headphones, you'd understand this more.
Never underestimate the processing power bored people need with their PDA's.
I don't (Score:2)
Re:It will fail (Score:3, Interesting)
That is, there might be broadband everywhere in a few years, just don't count on using it.
Re:It will fail (Score:2)
Battery life is more of an issue.
Re:USB (Score:2)
A 1.8" drive pulls ~1.5W at full load, 3.3V. Simple math says that that's under 500uA - for 3.3V, so less for 5V.
However, I think that the real problem is that the USB port is most likely a USB client, not a USB host. If it's a client, and USB OTG isn't supported, then forget about hooking anything up, unless it's a USB host.
AP says it runs Opera (Score:3, Informative)
Limited until... (Score:2)
Re:Limited until... (Score:2)
That should not be necessary. I am a big fan of Familiar and GPE, having installed them on several iPAQs. You will recognize that Maemo and GPE have a lot of things in common such as GTK+, Matchbox and many other parts of their respective platforms (check the Maemo SDK for more info about the platform).
With Maemo, Nokia has done a great job in polishing the user interface and cleaning
Re:Limited until... (Score:2)
Re:Limited until... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, ipkg is nice. It is derived from Debian's dpkg. The good news for you is that maemo uses dpkg directly.
See for example the sections "Creating debian/ directory" and "Creating package" near the end of the howto for creating a new application [maemo.org]. Another example can be found in the howto for porting an existing application [maemo.org].
Maemo is probably more open than you think...
Re:Limited until... (Score:2)
Maemo is probably more open than you think...
I hope so, it's a point I where I gladly stand corrected. But AFAIR maemo is only the development platform? Hopefully much of this openness will remain in the end user product.
Could be perfect for CarPCs (Score:2, Interesting)
maemo - its all 'open' (Score:3, Interesting)
Screenshots! (Score:5, Informative)
I want one! (Score:2)
Great device, but from Nokia???? (Score:2)
Remember the NGage? While Nokia makes very good mobile phones, they almost always seem to lack a feeling of just how gadgets and devices should be used. For instance, if the screen is too sma
Re:Great device, but from Nokia???? (Score:2)
To be useful, it needs exactly two things: a normal aspect-ratio screen, so that it can function like a sheet of paper (e.g. letter size scaled 50%, or A4), and either a hard drive or a CF slot for more storage. So yeah, your comment about the screen size and storage amount was right on the mark.
Th
Nokia chooses Opera, not Firefox, for browser (Score:2)
I think this device looks great, especially when it is closed.
No 3G/GSM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No 3G/GSM? (Score:2)
And it allows the platform to be more open than if you have to adhere to the strict rules for mobile phones.
For me the inclusion of a phone would have ment no-sale. This way it seems interesting.
The uses cases (Score:2)
Sounds like what most people use their Treos for, but why would i want to carry around this large device that can only connect to the net if I happen to be in area with open wifi? For instance the Airport use case, if I wanted to do a quick e-mail check using airport wifi it would be ~$8/hr in most Airports. With a smartphone, most users would alre
Almost there... (Score:2)
Keep trying Palm and Nokia, you've almost got it!
Newton II where are you?
Re:Almost there... (Score:2)
The screen resolution makes it much nicer, for me, than the LifeDrive, but having to buy mini-sd cards for storage is a negative that you don't have with the LifeDrive.
When you say Outlook sync, I assume you mean calendar and task syncing, right? I'm sure, if it doesn't come with that out of the box, someone will create an application that does it. It's probably one of the most common use cases currently for such a device.
Two negatives ab
Archos did it before. (Score:2, Interesting)
See, for example, the PMA400 [archos.com].
It is open source, linux based, has a 30gb hd, and has many other goodies.
But it is still nice to see that a large company like nokia is offering such a product. It will definitely help to spread linux :)
Re:Archos did it before. (Score:2)
Agh! (Score:2)
Re:Agh! (Score:2)
2) How would you talk into that in any case? It would make people using the Ngage look hip and cool in comparison.
Re:Agh! (Score:2)
2. Bluetooth handsfree from jabra (duh?)
I'm still okay with it not being a phone, but I don't see why it couldn't also be that. I'd accept a slightly larger form (perhaps in width or height rather than depth) to include the antenna and whatever else the phone would need. Perhaps some larger battery capacity? Surely the keypad could be put on screen when dialing and hidden when, for example, the user is taking notes during the conversation.
This is almost the "one true device"
Amazing! (Score:2)
it still sucks.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Take a Maemo (Score:2)
The major milestone here is Nokia developing for mobile devices that runs on Linux (it's a tweaked GNU GTK+, in fact). That means that the premiere organization bringing mobile computing to the masses is figuring out the presentation layer. Which Linux programmers can then use to deliver apps to those mobile masses. Hildon transcends just this phone, just Nokia, and even just "phones". When someo [maemo.org]
Can you say... (Score:2)
I want one.
This is the same Nokia... (Score:2)
I realize Nokio is a big company with many more or less independent departments; but this strikes me as "riding the horse both ways".
Bluetooth keyboard and this... maybe... (Score:3, Interesting)
IF the CPU ( uh, I don't see that in the spec, that makes me worry, folks... ) is powerful enough, and you could pack on external batteries to keep it going for 3 hours *while* actually using your Bluetooth keyboard, it looks like it could *almost* work as a more-portable laptop replacement. Something to type up notes on while sitting in the park or coffee shop, that kind of thing.
Not that I'm going to run out and get one. I still look at this and think "but... maybe I just want a laptop..". On the other hand, if you could use a BT keyboard with it, it might be sort of like a low-power, extremely small laptop with a keyboard you can ditch when you're not entering lots of data... that does have a certain appeal.
It's $350 (Score:5, Informative)
Jolyon
Re:It's $350 (Score:2)
Compared To? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish it had a sim card, and I hope that they offer a keyboard tray of some sort.
Re:Compared To? (Score:2)
Re:Compared To? (Score:2)
Re:Seen it already... (Score:4, Informative)
nor can it read emails, play streaming radio and at least 60 other things.
the PSP is a neat portable game but a webpad it CERTIANLY is not.
so how do you click on a fricking link because the PSP lacks a touchscreen? and when is FLASH going to be released for the PSP?
*cough*
Re:Seen it already... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seen it already... (Score:2)
Not out of the box it can't. You need to get a game that uses the browser. Then fake it out with your own DNS.
Apps (Score:2)
Re:How much? (Score:2)
Re:How do I type on this thing? (Score:2)
Um, no. Most password protected sites work just fine with other browsers.
Re:No CF slot? (Score:3, Informative)
Because CF is based on the ancient ISA parallel bus interface - too many pins, too much overhead. The newer formats use a serial (eg. SPI) interface, more easily supported by microsontrollers, saving a lot of wiring and board space/complexity.
Re:Ogg vorbis support? (Score:4, Interesting)
I talked to Uraeus about this a bit. The machine has combined ARM9/TI DSP cores. The idea is that you want the codecs running on the DSP, and apparently the free Xiph codecs we're included in the launch because there's no DSP port of the reference implementations. (There's no GCC back end for the dsp, although some folks [berlios.de] are working on a related series.) This includes Ogg Theora, Speex and FLAC as well as Ogg Vorbis.
Whether the ARM is too slow (or battery consumptive) to run the decoders on its own, I'm not clear but with everything open source it will be easy to check.
I'll be a Guadec, where they are apparently also doing a demo, so hopefully will know more next week.
In the long term though we need help with the DSP gcc port and someone to do hand-optimized asm for the xiph codecs. If anyone's interested, please let us know.