Enthusiast technology news site ArsTechnica runs a review of Nokia 770 today:
After spending a few days using the 770 intensely, I feel conflicted about it. I want to love it, and some aspects of it exceeded my expectations. At the same time, the 770 has some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed in v2.0 of the 770 (or in the 771) if it is going to have wide success.Performance can be sluggish. It is capable of multitasking, but as you might surmise from the hardware specs, that comes at a price. As I noted earlier, some web pages suck up so much of the 770’s resources that you can’t even open another window without closing the page you’re working on. Waiting 15 seconds for the bookmark manager to load or to view an e-mail message is an eternity for someone accustomed to a modern OS and not-quite-modern hardware. In that regard, it’s significantly slower than my Audiovox XV6600 at some tasks.
I totally agree! When this guy is working up to speed it is great!
I have trouble getting cartoons to stream from GUBA.com, and aol.com just doesn’t work after it is loaded.
Is there a way to use the extra memory on the MMC card?
Steve
Comment by Steve 12.12.05 @ 11:44 pmI am in the same boat. I have an Axim x30 w/ 624MHz X-Scale processor with 64K of internal memory and it is super fast. I am also being pulled in both loving my 770 and being disappointed at the same time. So far, I am being forced to carry both devices with me.
Beside the speed issues on 770, it really needs additional software improvements. such as:
1- Full feature Bluetooth support with file transfer, networking, etc.
2- Support for BT keyboard (I know this is available indirectly but it should be part of the main feature set)
3- PIM Application (outlook sync is a plus). At minimum it should have a built-in support for Nokia’s PC-Suite application
With these three upgrades, I can put my X30 in the drawer and just show off my cool 770.
Comment by Tigan 12.13.05 @ 1:01 am“…15 seconds for the bookmark manager to load…” I hear you there. I do everything I can to avoid using that bookmark manager. If you need to use a bookmark, just put the application in ‘windowed mode’ and select the ‘internet’ icon on the top left corner. That avoids calling up the bookmark manager, and is quite a bit faster. Also, if I need to go to google.com, I just type “google” and let it autocomplete. It will search “.com, .net, .org” website suffixes which makes it easy.
Comment by Derek W. 12.13.05 @ 2:43 am“…do everything I can to avoid using that bookmark manager.”
I agree. There’s no reason for that applet to be so slow. For now, I’m using the Internet icon. I also can’t understand why it takes so long to display an email message. The whole message is stored on the 770 so it shouldn’t talk more than a second or two to display. I’m sure these are things they can tweak in upcoming releases.
Despite it’s little quirks, I love the device and I carry it with me everywhere. I don’t know how I’d feel about recommending it to a “non-geek” though. My wife and brother love the look and concept of the 770 but I don’t think they would be as forgiving as I am. I don’t mind the occasional out of memory error or browser crash. I think the average Internet user would find these quirks to be annoying and might return the device.
I think most consumers are going to expect the 770 to be able to have an email, browser, and internet radio session open without slowing down or complaining about memory.
Comment by Rick H 12.13.05 @ 5:17 amAh, slowness on displaying email messages. The reason why it’s so slow is because it’s using Opera to display the HTML. I would love it if I could put this in “text only” mode and just read my emails that way. I did find another way to make web browsing faster… just disable plugins. This will disable FLASH objects, which run terribly slow anyways. TOOLS -> SETTINGS -> Plug-ins & scripts -> uncheck ‘enable plugins’. Also, on ‘Privacy’ select “enable pop-up windows: Never”. I still think that KHTML would be a better engine than Opera.
Comment by Derek W. 12.13.05 @ 8:57 amWhat firmware upgrade would that be?
Comment by Steve 12.13.05 @ 8:46 pmPlease include the version number of the firmware you are talking about and the url of where you downloaded it from.
Thanks
the 2.2005.45.8 update (Maemo.org version is what I installed)
go here for the upgrade tools (windows only)
http://europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,79636,00.html
Maemo.org update downloads:
http://maemo.org/downloads/nokia_770
Search around a bit..
Comment by Niels 12.14.05 @ 8:48 pm