Mike Cane visited the Nokia booth at LinuxWorld Expo in New York City and wrote about his impressions of Nokia 770 Internet tablet. If you have to read just one review of N770, make it this one - with plenty of photos and analysis, Cane does an excellent job of evaluating both technological and business sides of Nokia 770. Among the interesting things that Cane notices:
- Loudspeaker is very loud.
- No hole for hardware reset.
- Putting the cover on places the unit into Suspend mode.
- The screen is bright and Mike calls it “stunning”.
- No portrait display.
- There’s a significant delay in loading programs, but otherwise it doesn’t seem too slow.
- The pre-production demo units froze occasionally.
- Video is too choppy.
Read Can’e review in full, as it does present some valuable technical points that anyone in Nokia should be considering before releasing the device, otherwise they will face a torrent of similar-sounding criticisms and consumer behavior impacted just by constantly reiterated criticisms (like the PSP and its dead pixels). Overall, however, Cane is quite upbeat:
Industry critics have cited other “Internet Appliance” failures as reasons why the 770 will also fail. I think this indicates a lack of foresight. The Newton and the first Jeff Hawkins PDA, the Casio Zoomer, didn’t create a market as they were expected to. Yet Jeff Hawkins’s second device, the Pilot, did. It offered the right size, the right price, and the right features. All of the others didn’t. So it is with the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet versus past “Internet Appliance” efforts. With the 770, Nokia has done it right.
It’s great to see something positive about it, for a change.
Bottom line is this: If it’s not too slow, it will solve the problem of having to drag your laptop out for living room connectivity. On the other hand, if it IS too slow, it will go the way of the other “Internet Appliances.”
Comment by Josh Berezin 06.28.05 @ 6:39 amBTW, I’m not the only one contradicting the sole report that made the word “slow” bounce around the net attached to this device!
>>>What I like about the device: it looks cool, seems fast enough (the devices there were newer than the ones that have been criticized before as being too slow), runs Linux, is open to additional applications, WLAN (of course), coolness factor etc.
http://www.silentpenguin.com/archives/2005/06/nokia_770_worth.html
There’s at least one blog out there that seems hostile to it. And especially now that they wound up seeing two of them that weren’t working (stifling laughter!).
Comment by Mike Cane 07.01.05 @ 1:59 am