Linux Based Nokia N800 Internet Tablet Reviewed 127
HHL3T writes "CoolTechZone.com has published a review of the Linux-based Nokia N800 Internet Tablet that was announced at CES 2007 back in January. The review concludes, "As it currently stands, the N800 is an absolutely amazing product for web browsing. However, it's targeted at a very exclusive market: pure technology admirers who must have the latest and greatest, regardless of its real world functionality. We wouldn't recommend you place all of your critical information on the N800, due to its limited online connectivity options and lack of a portable form factor, especially if you are a professional. But if you must have the N800, we would recommend only using it as a digital newspaper to stay abreast on the latest news, and get work done online. It's just too much of an independent platform to be able to replace anything else, such as a notebook, a smartphone or a cell phone."
Awesome book reader! (Score:5, Informative)
Instantly working bluetooth data connections with most carriers (I was amazed how easy it was to setup - select your carrier, turn on bluetooth on your mobile and off you go, instead of windows where you have to know setting XX ZZ and YY before you have a chance of getting connected through your mobile phone).
Wifi with as good a range as my Thinkpad T60p.
The ability to surf the web easily on a display that's *readable* everywhere you want to.
Way better battery performance than my PDA which features a screen half the size...
Did I mention it runs linux? You can run VNC, ssh etc. on it and install these apps with just a few clicks... VNC actually works quite decent (over WIFI, it blows using bluetooth, mainly due to bandwidth limitation).
All in all, I definitely don't regret buying one.
-pug
Re:Awesome book reader! (Score:4, Informative)
Abandonware (Score:5, Informative)
not a cell phone, but also, not just a "newspaper" (Score:5, Informative)
It's definitely a lot more than just a web tablet though. GPE PDA software is being ported, it's got gpg and ssh and the gnumeric spreadsheet and GPS software and interfaces to online digital maps and mp3 player SW. It's got a ton of other stuff like that, coupled to a device with a best-in-class screen, built in 802.11, and around ~5 DAYS of battery life under my normal use.
It's really a nice little multifunction device and slips in my shirt pocket. The closest Sony x86 based ultraportables are about 3X the weight and volume of this thing. This won't replace a real laptop with a keyboard and so forth, but it's still a great thing to augment your laptop and you can carry it with you everywhere.
Bad sides: the case that comes with it sucks. The included mp3 player only works with tagged files, not with simple directory-sorted files. Couple of others, some of which can be fixed with SW.
That's my impression of it. I've got one with 8 Gb (2x4), but an upcoming kernel patch will allow use of high capacity SD cards for more storage.
There is not much on the market I'd trade mine for, and it's not all locked down crap that wants you to pay for each little feature you want to use like many competitors' offerings.
Re:Function (Score:2, Informative)
Developers seem to speak well of OpenStep APIs (Mac OS X/GNUstep), so if myStep is refined enough, maybe it could be a good avenue for introducing apps for mobile devices as you were suggesting.
Be Careful if you buy one of these (Score:5, Informative)
Nokia will not reimburse you for the shipping cost, and has a very broken tracking mechanism. As several users at the Internet Table Talk forum [internettablettalk.com] have documented, this means that your $400 device goes back to Nokia, and you don't know when/if you'll get it back.
Lots more reviews in the wiki article. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Awesome book reader! (Score:4, Informative)
It has to be very bright before the screen suffers (which isn't happening yet in Denmark, not sure about full Summer sun). The screen is easily the second best part of that tablet from my point of view.
Had one since it came out (Score:2, Informative)
Re:While media access is nice, apps are key (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Kismet? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:While media access is nice, apps are key (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Awesome book reader! (Score:3, Informative)
My mini-review (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Kismet? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Be Careful if you buy one of these (Score:1, Informative)
first, you need an application open, if you don't have one:
01. tap menu.
02. tap the down arrow four times (applet settings may or may not be disabled, but the specs for the platform say that keyboard behavior shouldn't wrap at the end) - this takes to you tools
03. tap right
04. tap down three times - this takes you to help
05. tap the hardware select key - this opens help
ok, now you need to run another application
11. press the home key - this brings up an overflow switcher menu of sorts it's not particularly important, just an unfortunate requirement for the next step
12. press the left key - this focuses the overflow widget (that you enabled in step 05)
13. press up seven times (as mentioned earlier, things don't wrap, if you had no apps open earlier, then 2 taps would take you to others, but to be safe, we're going to the top) - this takes you to the top of the task navigator (again, it's guaranteed)
14. if you want to open the first task navigator item (typically "web", but it could be "chat" or some third party thing - this is configurable in control panel under "navigation"), go to step 21.
15. press the down arrow - this will select the second task navigator item (typically "chat"
16. if you want to open this item, go to step 21.
17. press the down arrow - this will select the others item
18. if you want to open this item, go to step 21.
19. if you reached this point, you could have saved yourself a lot of time by just tapping right earlier on your way up.
to open something...
21. press the right key - this will open a menu if the item is big, or if there are multiple windows associated with it - or if it's just a single app window, it'll bring that app window to the front.
22. if the item you've selected is a menu, you can walk it using the arrows
23. right would open the nested menu
24. left would close the deepest open menu
25. up would take you up the current menu (when possible)
26. down would take you down the current menu (when possible)
27. hardware select will activate the current menu item.
The average user has: Bluetooth, presence, Display, Sound, Connectivity, and Power. Of them, Bluetooth, Display and Sound are accessible via the Control panel. Connectivity is accessible via both Control panel and Connection manager (don't ask why, I have no idea). Power is not to my knowledge accessible (sorry). Presence is accessible via "Chat">Set Presence (yes, that's strange, but it is).
If you know of some other portion of the system which is not usefully accessible, please complain somewhere. (Note: complaining that screen calibration isn't accessible is uninteresting. Warning: do not try to configure bluetooth keyboard with a broken touch screen, no keyboard and aggressive use of hardware navigation keys, you will get stuck...)
As for sketching without a working touch screen, yeah, that could be a problem. I know that paintbrush/mspaint have dealt with this from the beginning of time, I'm sure some enterprising individual will introduce a way to do mouse emulation using the hardware keys.
Re:While media access is nice, apps are key (Score:2, Informative)
Link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Awesome book reader! (Score:2, Informative)