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Linux Business Hardware

Nokia delays Linux-based tablet 140

Posted by Hemos from the working-towards dept.
prostoalex writes "Nokia delayed its Linux-based tablet product, the first one to use open-source Maemo tablet. The official site still optimistically promises delivery by Q3 2005, but the word is that Nokia is trying to improve the quality of the product and push the product before Christmas."
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Nokia delays Linux-based tablet More

Nokia delays Linux-based tablet

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  • Shock horror (Score:5, Funny)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:50AM (#13705281)
    Delaying a product's release. That's obviously because they're using Linux. I mean, product delays never happen in the Windows world.

    • Re:Shock horror (Score:2, Insightful)

      by minginqunt ( 225413 )
      It does when the software is manifestly nowhere near ready for release. You can go and download Maemo and see for yourself. I wouldn't expect to see it until early 2006 at least.

      I always suspected their Q3 predictions were woefully optimistic and/or a deliberately misleading way to get GNOME developers to hawk Nokia's vapourware free of charge during the conference season.
      • [...]way to get GNOME developers to hawk Nokia's vapourware[...]

        <mod type="flamebait">That's what they get for not using QTopia instead</mod>

        (insert smiley here for the humor-impaired...)

      • Re:Shock horror (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ultrabot ( 200914 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:09PM (#13705485)
        I always suspected their Q3 predictions were woefully optimistic and/or a deliberately misleading way to get GNOME developers to hawk Nokia's vapourware free of charge during the conference season.

        Uh, it's not vaporware, prototype hardware has been distributed to developers, the Maemo platform has been published and can be downloaded for free, etc. etc.

        I'm actually delighted that Nokia finally went "public" with Maemo in time, instead of keeping it under NDA forever (i.e. until the release). The tablet device is going to be a proof of concept product, so it's necessarily bound to be late.

        Why do some people *always* have to whine, even when a big corporation like Nokia does the obviously right thing that will inevitably benefit the whole Linux community?
    • Delaying product happen in Windows world too, a good example is Windows itself. Windows 95 has been delayed for many times, before it was given the name 95.
      My schoolmate always like to joke with us while we are working on IT project during college time.
      'We promise to deliver the project before the Autumn, and have mass production on next quater, as what Microsoft promise, but it just never happen'
      We laugh all the way, not just to Microsoft promise and to our own project too.

  • The UI... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Stu L Tissimus ( 873928 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:51AM (#13705293)
    The UI looks very nice, and the hardware's gotten good reviews. (I can only hope they'll let us change the color of that theme...
  • A few years back Nokia ignored the flip phone trend and as such I can't even buy a Nokia from Cingular, the largest retailer of phones in North America.

    Then Nokia tried making a gaming system (NGAGE) and that failed miserably.

    Now they're trying to make a Linux-based tablet computer. It will fail.

    What's the deal? Are they TRYING to self-destruct?

    • Re:Nokia doesn't care about phones (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Humorously_Inept ( 777630 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:05PM (#13705449) Homepage
      Are they trying to self-destruct or are they taking risks in an effort to bring interesting new technology to market? If a company doesn't try new things, then it will stagnate and die. The fact that the North American market doesn't want new things doesn't mean that companies have to stop trying. Samsung, for example, sells you silver flips but have you ever seen the crazy shit they're selling in Korea? It's the same with Nokia. America is a "developing" market insofar as mobile technology goes.

    • Re:Nokia doesn't care about phones (Score:5, Informative)

      by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:18PM (#13705575) Journal
      You realize that Nokia has something like 34% of the total worldwide market share for cellphones?

      You may not always be able to get the fanciest or most wonderful cell phone from Nokia, but they have managed to do well by making cheap phones that the average person actually wants. They have tried slowly moving away from this cheap phone image and some of their more recent phones definitely help to this end.

      • Re:Nokia doesn't care about phones (Score:5, Informative)

        by Richthofen80 ( 412488 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:37PM (#13705743) Homepage
        Nokia's first generation of cellphones that sold well (circa 1998) were built like tanks. I had a 5400 series phone and that thing STILL works, minus a battery replacement or two in its life. Granted, it can barely SMS, doesn't browse the web, or anything else. But it makes friggin phone calls seven years after it was bought.
        • I have a Nokia 2110 (circa 1996) in my junk box that would still work if phone company still had 5 volt cards. Actually have 3 of those, alltogether had 4, one died when left outside in rain for 3 days. One survivad dropping of the moving car roof (about 80kmh). Father still uses 6250 which is literally build like a tank, too bad its production is discontined.
    • ngage was(still is) a wonderful cheap series60 phone - buy it, download sdk and get programming!(and being that n-gage isn't unique by any means should have meant that it didn't cost that much for them to develope - it's basically a 3650 with different plastics and a bit more ram - minus the camera and add the mp3 chip and you have ngage classic)

      if you think nokia isn't selling any phones or has failed to do so how do you explain that they're the biggest phone seller out there? biggest smartphone seller too
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I suggest you wait until you've tried it before coming with such statements, instead of relying on your own impression of the screenshots. The user interface is (mostly) very simple to use; in most cases way easier to grasp than a Windows machine. Hell, even my parents figured out how to use it without problems.

    • Um, I guess you haven't been in a Cingular store recently.

      There's a Nokia flip. The 6102.
    • Having the latest figure of smartphone shipments with 75% of the pie to Symbian, 15% to Linux, 5% to Pocket PC, and the rest to Palm and others, and given that around 80% of the Symbian devices are using Nokia's series60 (Which is a pity, UIQ is way more advanced), i fail to see nokia as killing itself.
      That said, I too like clamshell designs, but right now I am using a Nokia 6681.
      I actually think this table can be a *HUGE* win for the linux crowd, because although they are marketing is as a web tablet, it c

    • Re:Nokia doesn't care about phones (Score:4, Informative)

      by radish ( 98371 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @01:39PM (#13706311) Homepage
      A few years back Nokia ignored the flip phone trend and as such I can't even buy a Nokia from Cingular, the largest retailer of phones in North America.

      Apart of course from the Nokia 6010, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3220, and Nokia 6102. All of which are listed on their website. Last phone I bought was a couple of months ago, from Cingular, in a store, and it's a Nokia.
    • "Then Nokia tried making a gaming system (NGAGE) and that failed miserably." My observations are that N-Gage QD is actually one of the most popular Nokia's mobile phones. It's not perhaps the best portable gaming device, but it's totally neat as a plain multimedia phone. And apart from PSP, N-Gage is actually the best attempt to date to compete Nintendo in handheld gaming device market. And it's really not the first one in that field. Little respect, please.
    • What? I just bought a Nokia 3120 from Cingular. So far it's a great phone. As for ignoring the flip phone trend, I think it wasn't such a bad idea. I work for Sprint, doing technical support, and I get a good number of customers who despise flip phones for their fragility. Admittedly, I'm one of those people, so I may be a little biased, but Nokia isn't exactly self-destructing.

    • A few years back Nokia ignored the flip phone trend and as such I can't even buy a Nokia from Cingular, the largest retailer of phones in North America.

      Wow, I have a Nokia phone I got from Cingular. In fact, I've had nothing but Nokia Phones. I only got the one I have now because I finally broke the faceplate holding snap on my 6162 (yes, I got it in '97, and the same phone still works, I just didn't like the duct tape'd look anymore).

      And I'm very glad they they've skipped over the "flip phone trend".

    • Not all product will be a success, and yet you have to try, I don't like NGATE, but that is just my personal view.
      I am looking forward for the Nokia Tablet. I believe and hope Nokia will do better with the Linux platform. The maemo [maemo.org] development platform, open up many possibilities for others to join in, that is a good sign.
      The only thing that I want to complain is the size. I though the tablet size could be like a PDA, but look from some of the photos, it is much bigger in size.
      Is not my ideal device, bu

  • Great for road trips... wait... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by catbertscousin ( 770186 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:51AM (#13705299)
    But you have to have constant WiFi access. I dunno. Might be great for killing time in the coffee shop, but can it be used elsewhere?
    • can you imagine what the market for devices like this will look like once municipal wifi comes of age? Hello voip cell phone/pda/computer. Everyone will have one of these things on their hip. Something else to diddle with on the subway besides their iPods and Blackberries.

    • Re:Great for road trips... wait... (Score:5, Informative)

      by SerpentMage ( 13390 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:18PM (#13705576)
      There is blue tooth built in so then where you don't have WiFi you can use your cell phone and blue tooth to access the Internet.
    • Or use a service like EDGE (verizon?), or is it "EV-DO" -- anyways, broadband through cell phone providers. I currently have a cable modem, but I'm thinking of moving over the cellular broadband. I never watch cable T.V. and I wouldn't mind being able to use my (IBM x40) laptop wherever and whenever with high-speed connectivity. maybe the tablet will have a pcmcia card and you could enable that... would make it much more useful. the problem is that (i think) the cards for cingular's network don't work with

  • Tablet PC? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaiBLUEl.com minus berry> on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:52AM (#13705305) Homepage Journal
    1. Is this really a Tablet PC? Looks more like an oversized PDA to me.
    2. As an oversized PDA, this looks rather cool, so try to take my next question in context.
    3. Does anyone actually have a use for all these Windows "Tablet PCs"? I mean, the idea seems nice, but I haven't seen any real-world uses for them that laptops don't already meet.
    • We are implementing a solution for department of child welfare services where case workers do use tablet pcs when they go on to field to interview parents and others associated with the child. Other wise these case workers had to use paper forms to fill in the information and later comeback to office and re enter that information to have it electronically. We are also implementing a system for case workers review inspectors who also go to field and interview people to get feedback on case workers and they a

    • Re:Tablet PC? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by notthe9 ( 800486 )
      I've seen them pretty effectively used for taking notes in classes where text wouldn't do the job. Same could work with meeting notes needing math, drawings, and such.

      Better than a sheet of paper? Maybe. Cooler than a sheet of paper? Definitely.

      Microsoft put up this article [microsoft.com] articulating some of the possible uses they can serve.
      • A use that wasn't mentioned in the article that came to mind:

        A server at a sit-down restaurant could use this to take your order, and send it, via a wireless network, to a display in the kitchen, showing what orders are pending. Also, possibly, you could incorperate a small printer of some sort into the device to print off the bill for the customer (or you could just send the bill to wirelessly to a printer, doesn't matter to me).

        And, of course, there's the added little fun bits like writing an app to aut

        • A server at a sit-down restaurant could use this to take your order, and send it, via a wireless network, to a display in the kitchen, showing what orders are pending. Also, possibly, you could incorperate a small printer of some sort into the device to print off the bill for the customer (or you could just send the bill to wirelessly to a printer, doesn't matter to me).

          For the price of this tablet alone (nevermind the wireless network, kitchen-proofed display, printer, etc.), you could buy two gross of reg
          • Lots of restaurants seem to have this tech already anyway, with out the un-tethered aspect. They just have a buncha kiosks at (what I am assuming are) strategically placed locations.
      • That would be an interesting way to do things which could also increase speed. It could also have a way of notifying the server when the food is there for pickup... sometimes it sits there for a while. I've seen restaurants which have lightboards to tell the servers that their stuff is ready, but that would probably be considered tacky in some places. Also, even a call button... it might be a way to get your waiter to come over without rude yelling or having to search for them, though I think such a butt
    • "3. Does anyone actually have a use for all these Windows "Tablet PCs"? I mean, the idea seems nice, but I haven't seen any real-world uses for them that laptops don't already meet."

      You can use them while standing. On mass-transit, or in line at the grocery store, for example. Laptops are very cumbersome to use in a lot of situations.

      The advantage of a tablet PC over a PDA is a bigger, and better, display.

    • Re:Tablet PC? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Scoth ( 879800 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:10PM (#13705495)
      I currently use a tablet PC (Fujitsu Stylistic ST4120) for taking notes in my college classes. Instead of lugging around multiple notebooks filled with smeared pencil or messy ink on increasingly worn paper, I have a few directories full of files. Easy to backup so if something should happen to it, I still have all my notes and problem examples. I can do full text searches and find stuff right away rather than frantically flipping through notebook pages trying to find where I scribbled some key fact or note. If I need a hard copy, I can print it and it even looks pretty much like standard notebook paper. I can convert it to text with surprisingly decent handwriting recognition and make it a Word doc, PDF, web page, etc.

      Not to mention some of the side benefits of having everything be digital ink. We were recently doing Karnaugh maps and truth tables in my digital class, so rather than having to redraw the entire thing for each example, I just had to draw a prototype, clipboard it, and paste it whenever I needed another. Five variable truth table? Pull up my template with all the digits filled in, paste it in, and I'm ready to go.

      Tablets definitely have a way to go in lots of markets, but I'm fairly convinced they're the Way of the Future(TM) for things like class notes and such. It's been such a drastic improvement I suspect I'll be hanging onto it for the foreseeable future. I haven't personally had any durability issues, I have a stock screen protector on it I replace now and then. Otherwise I just toss it in the bookbag like the rest of my stuff and forget about it. Case has some scuffing and such but it all works fine.

      Oh, and for the obligatory "does it run Linux?", I do have Gentoo running fairly happily on it. The main reason I keep it in Windows for class is easy screen rotation and the fact that WinXP Tablet Edition really does do a nice job of integrating the tablet features. I also use the dualhead now and then which I still haven't gotten working properly with the i830 chipset.
      • How did you install both?
        My XP tablet restore CD automatically formats the hardrive into one partition.

        I'd really like to try linux but I'm not sure how to go about doing it with the tablet and the XP restore CD.
        • Use PartitionMagic to resize your partition, then just install normally.

        • Re:Tablet PC? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Scoth ( 879800 )
          Yep, PartitionMagic to resize and then install. I actually didn't have any external boot devices, which made for an interesting install. I have killed the bootloader a couple times which necessitated popping the drive into another computer. I got a USB floppy drive now which should help. I didn't realize at first it could boot off USB, now that I know that I can probably get a USB key booting. I'm actually in a bit of trouble now because my Windows is in need of a reinstall and I can no longer get the resto
      • Heya, are you willing to beta test a tablet pc application for me? The program is called FrontMotion Login Tablet PC edition, and currently a new version is in development. It enables you to login with a hand written signature. If you are interested, email me at eric@frontmotion.com. Thanks!
    • Does anyone actually have a use for all these Windows "Tablet PCs"? I mean, the idea seems nice, but I haven't seen any real-world uses for them that laptops don't already meet.

      A friend uses an older/used tablet PC in his Explorer for navigation. Using an external GPS unit and Microsoft Streets and Trips he's able to show all the geocaches and the route on a large and easily manipulated screen.

      A laptop is fine for this, and I have seen it setup in a Caravan, but interacting via the keyboard/touchpad mouse
    • "3. Does anyone actually have a use for all these Windows "Tablet PCs"? I mean, the idea seems nice, but I haven't seen any real-world uses for them that laptops don't already meet."

      Yes. I like to doodle on mine. I also like being able to use it while standing up, something you just plain cannot do with a traditional laptop. I did a project not too long ago where I had to go from office to office collecting data about the machines we have. I just carried it in, tapped in a few notes, and was done. Didn

    • Re:Tablet PC? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pxtl ( 151020 )
      A friend of mine has a tablet.

      It's his desktop. He plugs in a keyboard and mouse and uses it as such. He can also pick it up and use it while standing around. It's his work machine - he runs part of a hospital IT structure, and handles a lot of terminals. This involves running around a lot, and not necessarily wanting to set up the laptop.

      Really, a tablet is just a laptop that has replaced the keyboard/mouse with a stylus. That allows it to be used while standing up, but it doesn't make quite as good a
    • About 3.

      The physically interesting with a "Tablet PC" is that i could be used e g in the bed at morning to read (browse) the news or to sit comfortably in the sofa and look and show your photos or maybe read a book through a browser.

      But they still is too expensive to be attractive for these uses to the right customers.

      Bad marketing strategy !

    • Re:Tablet PC? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jasonmantey ( 832164 )
      My professor uses a tablet PC. It is probably the best learning tool I have seen in the classroom.

      He has a slideshow type presentation (in a lecture hall) where he will have problems written. In answering the problem, he is able to write directly on the screen - much like powerpoint's pen feature, but he is able to write much faster than anyone using powerpoint ever could. I would like to see this technology implemented in all of my classes.

      Jason
      EE Wayne State U
      • "I would like to see this technology implemented in all of my classes."

        I've had many classes that use this. It's called Over Head Projector (OHP) and when combined with little transparent pieces of a material known as "plastic" they can do such cool things as you describe.
    • My old man uses them for his small biz. He has a convertable one from Acer with a verizon wireless card in the pcmcia slot. Together, they allow him to do reports from the field. He has 1 Excel form that covers everything his clients needs and its just filled out with the tablet pen and it appears just like the old reports did. It cut his turn around time from 1-2 days to 10-30 minutes once he gets to the site.
    • People in the ebook community are eager to use this as an ebook reader. Price is still a little high, but its form factor are better suited to ebooks than the typical PDA.

      Unfortunately, the price point is still high.
    • I use a tablet PC for both my medical office and school. It's nice to have a device you can walk around with and still use at the same time.

      The OS does hae some faults (occasionally I get a digital exception error when shutting down, and connecting to wifi can be annoying), but overall I love the device. I wish apple or linux would create a fully functional tablet PC so it would puch MS to create something better.

      Anyone know of any good medical records (EMR) or SOAP note software for linux?

    • Does anyone actually have a use for all these Windows "Tablet PCs"?

      I bought a Sony Vaio U71 earlier this year. Previously, I was using an old Psion Series 3. That did good service for many years, but I was finding it was no longer good enough for what I wanted.

      I could have bought a new PDA of some sort but they don't seem to do what I want, either. My cell 'phone can handle my contacts and schedule, so if I'm going to carry around another device it needs to be able to do significantly more than that,

  • Mono (Score:5, Informative)

    by Tanaka ( 37812 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:53AM (#13705317) Homepage
    The maemo [maemo.org] guys are doing some amaizing things with this device. They have just ported over Mono [mono-project.com] amongst other things. Can't wait for mine to arrive.
    • Do you mean I can program against it in C#? If so, that'd be pretty cool...
      • The Mono support is still experimental, but I managed download the Mono package and run some simple GTK# apps on the 770. Basically Mono versions later than 1.1.9 should compile and work as-is for the 770 since ARM became a supported architecture.

        The Mono application startup time (~3sec) and VM memory footprint is a lot better than I expected even for this early version which is as of yet completely unoptimized for handheld use.

        I've also tested Python and Perl on the device and I'm happy to say they work pe

  • Calendar vs. Business Quarters? (Score:4, Informative)

    by devaldez ( 310051 ) <devaldez@@@comcast...net> on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:58AM (#13705376) Homepage Journal
    Um...Q3 2005 was over a couple of days ago...it's now Q4 2005 unless you're using a business calendar rather than a chronological calendar...

    If they're still saying Q3 2005, then I'd say they've already missed.

  • oh deity... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @11:59AM (#13705385)
    please don't rush it out to make Christmas if there's a danger of it being half-assed... if you know it's NOT gonna make Christmas, then take the time to get it right and launch it properly then...

    then again, I'm probably tilting at windmills here... marketing a product

    <sarcasm>"obviously"</sarcasm>
    comes before getting it right... they've probably got the entire marketing campaign fully booked and rolling already... must get the marketing right and damn the user experience... if it tanks, they can always point the finger at some middle level engineer who caved in and promised it would be ready.

  • Delaying (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VincenzoRomano ( 881055 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:01PM (#13705403) Homepage Journal
    Delaying a product in a company that big simply means that there is some major "product marketing" issue rather than technical.
    A Linux based device needs the same resources, efforts and care than any other one.
    Nokia could be concerned with the Symbian position or simply trying to get the most out of a product.

  • More of the same (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:02PM (#13705415) Journal
    Nokia consistently releases products late. I don't know if they are just too optimistic when calendaring product releases, or if there's good business reasons to do so.

    Interestingly enough, delays in product rollouts were forecast when Compaq and Nokia announced collaboration way back in 2000:
    http://www.wapforum.org/new/20000911158Com.htm [wapforum.org]. (The prediction is there, although there's a lot of text to scan)

    Apparently, Nokia's corporate culture still finds delayed rollouts to be just fine, as we've seen from the N90 and N91... which is odd, since Nokia's profit margins have been eroding since 2004, due to lack of available products in the face of increased competetion from Motorola, et al.

    • Apparently, Nokia's corporate culture still finds delayed rollouts to be just fine, as we've seen from the N90 and N91... which is odd, since Nokia's profit margins have been eroding since 2004, due to lack of available products in the face of increased competetion from Motorola, et al.

      In 2004, they posted 11% lower Net profits compared to 2003. However, for 2005, the profit guidance was just raised [cnn.com].

      Motorola is only a big competitor to Nokia in the US (mostly due to supporting CDMA, and their own 'standard'
    • They do actually debug their products before releasing them.

      Nokia phones are relatively quite bug-free compared to other brands.

      (I know this from people [st.com] who supply them with components.)

  • It's for geeks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03, 2005 @12:05PM (#13705452)
    Disclaimer: I haven't used the thing, but I know people who have been playing with it since it was still under wraps.

    The Nokia 770 will be a totally crappy product. It will flop. Nokia knows this, and they are going to release it only to recover some of the investment, by targeting it to the only market segment that could find a use for it: geeks. Yes, my friends, this thing will be the ultimate geek toy, and a lot of you will grab it and hack it and have fun with it. And Nokia knows that, so expect an open platform, lots of development tools, freely available specs and total support for third-party development.

    Now for the general public, they are going to have to come up with something better. For exemple, you actually have to configure networking on this thing (e.g. you must know what DHCP is and stuff like that and it won't seamlessly find new SSIDs and stuff like that) while a general-release product would require something closer to MacOS X-like networking (auto discovery, find-whatever-network-is-available-and-connect-to- it-damnit). Whether the research project the 770 is a part of will yield results for the end user (as opposed to geeks) is something only the future will tell.

    • Re:It's for geeks (Score:4, Informative)

      by tao ( 10867 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @03:09PM (#13707059) Homepage
      For exemple, you actually have to configure networking on this thing (e.g. you must know what DHCP is and stuff like that and it won't seamlessly find new SSIDs and stuff like that)

      Not even remotely true. Press the status bar globe icon. Choose "Connect..." Dialog "Select connection" opens. Select connection (signal strength and open/closed status shown for each). Very complicated. NOT.

      The 770 is not a research project. If it was, it wouldn't have been launched at all, just kept under wraps inside Nokia.

  • This will force Microsoft's hand (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This type of device is forcing Microsoft's hand.

    My organization has received strategic information that Microsoft is porting an XP-derivative to mobile level technology -- sub-tablet XScale hardware. This will compeletely replace Windows Mobile in the 18-24 month timeline.

    Microsoft's goal here is to bring the XP developer base to bear on the mobile market, primarily due to the failure to generate sufficient developer interest in Windows Mobile.

    This initiative would also have been driven by the movement of m
  • Whoa, 3 hours of browsing time? :-/

    http://europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,75023,00.html [nokia.com]

    I mean, Thats pretty lame compared to a Treo or something. Portability means alot less when you still need to be within walking distance of a power socket all day to use the damn thing.
    • From my experience with a developer device, the battery life is around 3 hours (maybe a bit more) when in constant use. But when you're not using it, the power management is in fact very good. I've noticed that I can leave the device idle for up to a week and the device will be instantly ready to use when touching the screen. So if you're using it in short bursts of web browsing (or managing your server over SSH :), you're likely to be able to go on using it all day long.

      Also note that the Nokia 770 uses st
  • for any christmas product. For example, Apple's Nano while recently unveiled must have already been discussed and purchasing planned for any retailers that matter to Apple through 12/05.

    Most of the purchasing for large retailers christmas season was done over the summer. The only thing left by now is for the product brands to make their delivery dates.

    Unless they've made some commitments they won't be able to keep to retailers, I'm not sure how getting it done before christmas helps.
  • Why haven't they included infra-red on this thing? It could have been great as a remote control...

    Anyway, I don't really see the need for this thing. It seems to be targeted for home-use, but what makes this better than a desktop computer? Portability? Who wants to surf the web on a tiny display with awkward controls? We already know the tablet PC's have no success, this is just another bad attempt at something that people don't really need.

    Sure, it might be fun to play around with, but I just don't see thi

  • needs a hard drive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @01:13PM (#13706082)
    For this thing to be anything more than a novelty--for it to be a true palmtop computer instead of a dressed-up PDA--it needs to have more storage capacity than 128MB onboard flash and a card slot for additional flash memory.

    A 20-30GB hard drive, of the type Apple uses in their standard iPods, would add 7mm to the device's thickness and $100 to the price, but would add to the thing's usefulness immeasurably.

    Nobody even wants MP3 Players with under 512MB of storage these days. Who are they going to sell this to?

    • Re:needs a hard drive (Score:3, Interesting)

      by radish ( 98371 )
      Me. What would I want a harddrive on it for exactly? It is designed to sit on a wireless network. Mine won't leave my apartment, it's a small, easy to use, handheld web client. If I need access to storage I'll point it at my fileserver. This is not a PDA, it's not a "true palmtop computer", it's not an mp3 player, it's a thing for getting on the web easily without a big hulking laptop.

    • Re:needs a hard drive (Score:3, Informative)

      by Sunspire ( 784352 )
      A hard drive would have been cool. But on the other hand, I'm using this device to listen to Shoutcast streams and read Slashdot (not some watered down mobile version either but ./ in 800px wide glory with no horizontal scrollbars) on the Bus using EDGE/GPRS. When I get to the office I continue listening to Shoutcast over Wifi. It's not an competitor to the iPod, it's something entirely different.

      Also this thing is incredibly moddable, I can't wait to see all the crazy shit people are going to come up with.

    • A hard drive would eat up the battery quite quickly, and make it at least 30-100% heavier (depends on the size of the drive).

  • I'd like to see Cahokia push *somebody* into making a trip planning/mapping client for this. Yes, *if* you have WiFi or a phone with GPRS|EDGE, you could use Google Maps.

    If.

    You.

    Like.

    To.

    Wait.

    But a local mapping client on this would be great. Granted, I somehow doubt that Cahokia could get Streets and Trips [microsoft.com] or Street Atlas [delorme.com], but if they partnered with Rand McNally [randmcnally.com] or somebody like that they could get a 1G flash drive with the map data on it.
  • Damn. I really want this thing.
  • ...and want a larger screen, you can get a Pepper Pad [pepper.com] and get it now. I'm a satisfied customer...
  • How is stale webpage content optimistic that still estimates a date that has passed?

    It sounds depressing to me for the marketing for the device to be so idle. In fact, it sounds painfully reminiscent of the defunct Motorola MPx 300 [google.com].

  • Is there a market for mini-tablets? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @03:41PM (#13707331) Homepage
    I think there is a market for mini-tablets--if not now, then for certain in the near future.

    People are really using the Internet. People buy things, check their email, look up movie times, just generally Google for things. If you are looking up movie times, you can use any public Internet access terminal... but for email and buying things, you will want a trusted computer. And a small trusted computer you carry around is a great idea.

    I have a policy of not typing in any password I care about to a public Internet terminal. There could be a keystroke logger running... especially if the terminal is a PC running Windows and IE, and thus vulnerable to attack by spyware and worms.

    To me, the perfect portable device would be small enough to carry conveniently, but big enough that the screen is usable. This implies both a minimum as well as a maximum size. For a PDA, the minimum size is much smaller. I use my PDA heavily, but as an Internet device my PDA sucks. This looks like the perfect size. (I want to try one out in real life, though; so far I have just seen this on the web.)

    This size of screen would also be great as a photo viewer and portable movie player. Unfortunately the 770 doesn't have an SD card slot (it has a mini-MMC slot) and I'm not sure how good a 200 MHz processor would be for viewing movies.

    In the not-too-distant future, people will start paying for purchases at stores using a "digital wallet". Currently, you hand a credit card to a complete stranger at a store, and hope that the stranger doesn't make a copy of the number; a digital wallet would be more secure, while being very easy to use. The store computer would send a request for payment to the wallet, and the user would accept or decline. This device would make a perfect digital wallet. A PDA would also work as a digital wallet, but I can see people buying a mini-tablet who wouldn't buy a PDA.

    This is also the perfect size for a device to use during a long airplane flight. You would want an extra battery pack for long flights. (Given that the specs say it has a 1500 mAh battery, and that's good for 3 hours, a battery pack with four NiMH AA cells could probably run it for at least another 3 hours and possibly as much as 6.)

    For the near term, I'm not really sure how many of these things they will actually sell. But in the middle to long term, I think mini-tablets will sell very well.

    steveha
    • They'll sell doubly-well if Apple brings back the true mini-tablet, the Newton. Mmm. Inkwell (Newton's 2nd-gen HWR engine, after what is now Calligrapher/Transcriber) handwriting recognition has been built into OS X since X.2, isn't it time we got a device that can put it to good use?

      PS: I doubt a device with a standard Lithium Polymer battery pack would take kindly to NiMH... :P
  • whiskey tango foxtrot? I actually saw the bloody thing for sale here in Portugal already. Unless it was just a show piece...
  • From now on I'm not buying anything that doesn't come with GPS/WAAS built in and a JAVA API to get info from that GPS for onboard applications. (Even if it's just a text only serial port API) GPS is so cheap to implement now, only companies that are making obsolete devices would create a handheld without it. Come on Nokia get with the decade/century.
    • I'm glad you had a "handheld" in the subject line there, or I'd wonder what you'd be eating and so on, heh.

      On a more serious note, that's a valid point of course ... I *think* the "quick surf at home" usecase is a big one here, and that speaks against including GPS since you're using it at home anyway. But, of course, the device is pocketable so it will hopefully be used by people moving about as well. I guess they have to use an external GPS device for their positioning needs. There are GPS receivers that

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