Jørgen Sundgot kicks back with Nokia's 770 Internet Tablet for a bit of light reading and e-mail. Will its lack of a keyboard prove too inefficient - and is the screen large enough?
Review summary of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet:
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 For the time being, the underlying concept of the 770 remains an excellent idea which has been somewhat poorly executed. Its low price tag may explain the slow processor and limited RAM, but these factors still severely hamper the most attractive aspects of the device including web browsing and media playback. Software in general is, although pretty and intuitive, a tad buggy and feature anemic - but given the use of Linux, we have no qualms about recommending this device for power users in search of a laptop extender. Release: November 2005. Price: $350.
Pros: Luscious screen; stellar wireless reception; impressive battery life
Cons: Slow performance; pre-installed applications somewhat buggy and feature anemic
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Full Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Review:
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Something of an unusual beast, Nokia's 770 Internet Tablet isn't a perfect fit for any established niche. It's the size of a large handheld, but has no Personal Information Management (PIM) applications. It also bears more than a passing resemblance to the Nokia 7710 business phone with which it shares numerous user interface traits, but doesn't include cellular connectivity. So, what exactly does it do?
The wild wild web
Appropriately dubbed a tablet, the 770 is a thin and sleek slate of a device, cleverly residing in an aluminum sleeve which can be worn either with the display facing out- or inwards, the latter of which protects its screen. Said screen is the main attraction of the device, delivering a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels across 4.1-inch of bright and crisp real estate which lets users interact with its Linux-powered operating system by way of stylus.
As it name belies, the 770 Internet Tablet is all about connectivity. A range of applications exploit its Wi-Fi 802.11g and Bluetooth connectivity capabilities, of which the Opera 8-based web browser is the jewel in the crown. Through its comprehensive support for standards including JavaScript and Flash 6, it allows for the viewing of virtually any web site, and also includes an optimization feature which adapts web sites created for larger resolutions to the display of the 770.
Unfortunately, several aspects impair the web browsing experience, of which the most notable is slow page loading and navigation due to the rather lax 250 MHz processor - particularly if Flash ads are running rampant. Also, large pages can exhaust the somewhat limited 64 MB of RAM, requiring users to close browser tabs and even other applications in order to continue viewing.
Furthermore, most web sites are designed with higher resolutions in mind, and although optimization and zooming capabilities to some extent address this issue, the added problem of bothersomely small fonts renders reading a merely acceptable excercise.
Beyond the obvious
Other applications are, unfortunately, somewhat anemic. The e-mail client performed with aplomb, but supports only POP and IMAP - the latter of which exhibited slight synchronization issues. The RSS reader is similarly snappy and supports scheduled retrieval, but for some reason refuses to load images. The PDF reader, meanwhile, allowed for rapid navigation once a document was loaded, but took ages to move from one zoom level to another.
Moving to multimedia, the image viewer made light work of our test batch of 5 Megapixel photos in JPEG format, also supporting PNG, TIF and SVG files. The audio player, meanwhile, not only plays back MP3 and AAC formats but also supports M3U playlists, even though its remaining feature set is rather limited. Should you run out of music, there's even support for Shoutcast streaming Internet radio, and audio quality in fact proved quite good. Lastly, the video player chalks up MPG, MPEG-4 SP and RealVideo 8/9/10 support, but struggles to maintain smooth playback due to the underpowered processor.
There's also a collection of general utilities which come in handy, including a file manager, calculator, clock, note taking application and a sketchpad - nice for jotting down directions and basic illustrations, or for when the handwriting recognition can't keep up.
What lies beneath
More general aspects of the device include the specifics of its user interface, which is rather futuristic-looking yet easily navigated. Text input proved less of a chore than expected given the excellent predictive text capabilities of both the virtual keyboard and handwriting options, while the ability to use a Bluetooth keyboard accessory via an easily configured plug-in tremendously increases usefulness.
Speaking of Bluetooth, signal reception for both this and Wi-Fi proved to be absolutely incredible, whereas battery life hovered impressively in the three hour range for browsing and up to seven hours for standby. Also, for those who find the onboard memory limited, RS-MMC cards can be utilized for expansion - and USB 2.0 connectivity is always nice to have; sadly, sans charging support.
Availability
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is at the time of press shipping in the US and Europe, selling for $350 USD and €350 EUR, respectively.
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