Joaquim Azevedo ported VNC Viewer to Nokia 770.
$ wget http://ln-slack-maemo.sourceforge.net/LN-VNC-Maemo-0.1.tar.gz
[sbox-SDK_PC: ~] > fakeroot
# tar xzvf LN-VNC-Maemo-0.1.tar.gz -C /
now make a link:
[sbox-SDK_PC: ~/osso-maemopad] > ln -s /usr/share/applications/hildon/VNCviewer.desktop \
/etc/others-menu/2200_tana_fi_extras/0113_VNCviewer.desktop
From Slashdot:
I got mine Friday too (dev program)… The first thing I did was install xterm and get ssh running. After that, I spent most of my time squinting at the screen trying to read websites. I’ve had no problems connecting to my cheap Fry’s access point with WPA/PSK.
The device itself is pretty interesting. It doesn’t actually turn off (unless you explictly tell it to). It doesn’t even sleep in the traditional laptop way… it just turns off the screen and wireless (and sends the CPU into a type of sleep mode). That makes turning it back “on” instantaneous… and I like that.
However, I have a few gripes with it. The screen (beautiful as it is), I think is actually too small. The screen is too small to hold the device at a comfortable distance away and actually read a website. You have to zoom the browser just to be able to read the text (at a comfortable distance). (Disclaimer: I am under 30 and wear glasses, so my vision isn’t the problem). Also, there is no scroll wheel. This means that in order to scroll in Opera, you have to take the stylus (which is uncomfortable in and of itself) and click and drag the screen. With only a limited screen height, reading slashdot can be painful… more so than usual. The main buttons are also a little small, and force your hand into an awkward angle to use them. The directional pad is also blocked by the screen cover, so that makes clicking the left arrow a little difficult to use.
Also, there is not enough RAM on the device. Reading a website like ESPN (lots of flash and graphics) will cause the device to slow down and display “Low memory” warnings. However, GMail works like a charm…
I would have also liked to have seen a CF slot. My digital camera uses CF cards, and this would have made a great platform for viewing pictures. But this also goes back to the size… they went small and didn’t have room for anything more than an RS-MMC.
Final gripe: wireless is great for one location, but there is no easy way to configure the device to work in multiple locations. You can define wireless networks and wep/wsa-psk codes for each network, but there is no way to easy switch between them. For example, I have it configured to auto-connect to my home network. When I go to work, it has to try to connect to my home network, fail, and then I can select which access point I’d like to try to connect to. Also, there isn’t support for VPN connections, which makes my campus wireless access (PPTP) impossible.
Overall, the 770 is a good little device. In fact, I have to steal it back from my wife at times (it includes a Mahjong game)… It has a good interface (modified gnome/gtk), and connectivity is good. However, it is too small to be useful as a good internet tablet at home. The size is a bonus in that it is easily portable, but the difficulty in switching between networks makes travelling (and using 802.11 connectivity) harder than it should be. I also like the fact that you can attach the 770 to your main computer and it appear as a usb flash drive… this definitely makes getting files onto the device easy.
There is a lot to like, and a lot to not like. If you get one, just know the limitations and you’ll be happy. After playing with mine for a few days, I’m not sure I would not have bought one at retail price… to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I would have paid the developer’s price either… This is a good first effort by Nokia, and their software deisgn is actually very good. They just need to work on the hardware design… I hope that the 2006 software update fixes the problems with configuration, but that isn’t going to change the hardware issues.
I’d give it a 6/10.
A good review from Slashdot discussion yesterday:
I’ve had one for a week now. It’s great.. except it doesn’t reliably connect to my Netgear router at home, and everything else does including a Nokia 9500 Communicator.
Sure, there’s a lot of other traffic going on in the same frequency band with thing like the neighbour’s wireless access points, DECT phones and the like but NOTHING seems to make this connect reliably.
At work, with less interference I can connect just fine to a bog standard access point. Also, no problem with any Bluetooth phones (I use a Sharp).
Despire the wireless connectivity issues - the 770 ROCKS. The 800 pixel wide screen is actually smaller than you’d think though, it’s just very high resolution. The screen clarity is excellent. The web browser is excellent, plus there’s a so-so RSS reader and an email client which I haven’t used yet.
The interface is quite simple and easy to learn, although a few minutes studying the slim manuals that come with it is a good idea. Windows users shouldn’t have much trouble adapting.
When I ordered mine I got a letter explaining that I was one of the first people to get a 770, and Nokia would like to have an interview with me to find out what I think, so I’ll mention the wireless connectivity problems then. Other than that, it’s great. Good quality web access no matter where you go, and it does a (limited) range of multimedia too.
One thing I can’t figure out.. how can they make something this sophisticated for that much money? They can’t be making a profit on it!
A Slashdot user review:
I’ve had my 770 for a week now and so far I’m very happy with it!
I have seen many posts wondering why you’d want one, so here are my reasons.
- I want to have something to browse the web where a laptop is not appropriate, like in the bed or TV couch (I dont want to sit awkwardly leaning down to the coffetable or balancing the thing on my lap)
- I use it as an extra MP3 player in the kitchen, streaming music from my server. When used like this I have external speakers and the power chord plugged in. Since there are lots of wifi MP3 player I can’t be alone in having a need for this functionality.
- It can act as a pretty good divx player on the road but I haven’t really used it for that yet.
- It’s really cool!
This might not be enough for everyone but I have wanted the websurfing part of it since the term webpad was first coined somewhere in the late 1990s. And this is the first one that really delivers on the promise at a decent price point.
I never wanted the tablet pc’s becuse the ones I have seen are all laptops without keyboard which means that they are expensive, heavy and not really designed to surf the web on the go.
The fact that it runs Linux and potentially can do a lot of other things is pure bonus!
Many people have questioned the lack of a phone in the unit, but I can’t really see why I would want one.
If it had a phone, lets say a 3G one, it would need it’s own subscription or a dual subscription if possible, would be heavier and use more battery.I honestly think that it is much better to use my allready existing phone and subscription through bluetooth. Right now that is a GPRS phone but may soon be uppgraded to 3G, if it had been built in I would not have had the possibility to uppgrade it either.
I guess I should include a little min review also, so here goes…
The good.
- The build quality of the thing is excelent. Since most Nokia phones are plastic little massproduced toys that feels like they will break if you look at them funny I was suprised by this. The 770 feels like it could stop bullets
- The browser, so far it has handled most pages I have thrown at it with ease the pages have been shown in all their glory without having to slim them down to the screen. (Try that on a Palm!)
- The battery life, the stated 3 hours must be while stressing the unit hard, for normal use it lasts a looong time. The powermoding is excelent!
The bad.
- The 64Megs of RAM is a bit to little, the browser suck quite a lot of it and becaus of this it has problems with really large web pages.
- Memory handling in general is not the best, it takes a little to long to load programs.
- I expected that it would include a real dockingstation with power but it came a flimsy plastic stand a standard nokia charger.
I was just playing with one of these units (disclaimer: I work for a company making add-on software for the unit, but we’re outside of Nokia’s sphere of influence), and I was pretty impressed with the quality of the device. It’s pretty light, and the screen is readable even at the default level, but zoom buttons on the top of the unit are helpful for looking at something close up. The speed of the unit is sluggish in places–mostly when opening/closing apps–but overall is more than acceptable. It’s not Palm or PocketPC speed, in other words
We tested the browser and were able to view HomestarRunner for Flash content as well as browse Google Maps, the latter of which would be extremely handy in many situations. It also includes an audio player, and I was about to go to Digitally Imported and stream their ShoutCast stations without trouble. The “loudspeaker” is a bit tinny at higher volumes as expected, but with headphones it would make for a very nice portable music player as long as your battery life and signal strength hold out.
My biggest beef just with my initial impression of playing with it for 30 minutes is that there isn’t a microphone built-in. If some sage programmer were to get Skype running on the device…that would make for a very multi-functional device. I suppose a USB microphone could be connected to the mini-USB port on the bottom, but built-in would be much more convenient. In short, my initial impressions were favorable. It’s much better for web browsing than a PocketPC, both in terms of the technology in the browser as well as the screen size. I think the real key that would ensure the success of this device is add-on software to extend the basic functionality.
From yesterday’s Slashdot discussion:
We appreciate you interest in our new product Nokia 770. In response to your enquiry, please be advised that the release of Nokia mobile phones are market, country and region dependent. As such, the Nokia 770 will not be made available within the Asia Pacific region.
The decision on releasing Nokia products in a specific country or region is very much dependent on the survey carried out to evaluate the demand rate for this particular product.
Should you have any further enquiries, or if we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the Nokia Careline and speak to any one of our friendly Customer Service Executives on 1300 366 733 between the hours of 8am and 8pm EST, seven days a week. For online assistance, please visit ‘ASK Nokia’ at our website www.nokia.com.au
Dominique Bonte, who comments here every once in a while, posted his view of how the mobile world is changing:
The first model addresses the (slightly older, slightly less IT-knowledgeable) mobile professional who needs to be fully connected all of the time but who uses his mobile device for important but rather small/punctual events (reading or sending e-mails, looking up specific information on the web, using GPS-location to find destination,…).Ease of use is of major importance: no time can be lost in setting up or connecting devices. Performance and capabilities are balanced against integration and ease of use.
The second model is more targeted towards a younger, more consumer and family oriented target group, arguably less well defined than the first target group. This second target group has a much larger and deeper set of needs. Mobile multimedia entertainment is key: high quality imaging, video, music and gaming on the go. At home internet browsing has to be a transparent experience (large screen required). Large amounts of text input for e-mail, chatting, blogging require a full sized keyboard. According to these different modes of use either only the smartphone will be taken, or the smartphone in combination with the tablet, or only the tablet, or the tablet and the keyboard depending on the degree of mobility needed, the tasks to be executed or the comunications networks available. Customisation is key. Performance and capabilities come before anything else.
Karoliina: Which phone should accompany Nokia 770?
TeeSee is the man for posting the tip here.
Go to NokiaUSA.com/770 and add Nokia 770 to your cart. When prompted for log in, either log in, or create a new account and then move on. Turn off any popu blocker you have. That would include Google Toolbar, Yahoo! Toolbar, MSN Toolbar, A9 Toolbar or whatever, since all of them include some kind of popup-blocking functionality. In fact, turn off your toolbars and clear out IE cache. Go to the checkout page where you are prompted for the credit card information, and then close the browser.
Oh, yeah, and use IE or some other popup-friendly browser, since Firefox fights popups to death, and sometimes you won’t know what killed it. Don’t have Microsoft Internet Explorer? Get it here (can’t believe I am writing this).
A little pop up window will appear admonishing you to stick with Nokia for a complimentary $50 off coupon for this order. Two buttons - No thanks and Checkout. At this point you know what to do. The $50 off coupon code shows up in your basket, so the total price is reduced by $50, and sales tax (if applicable) applies to $319.99. Happy purchasing.
Update: See Scott’s comment below on what to do when the coupon doesn’t show up.
Though the Nokia 770 mini-tablet combines a unique set of features that includes a bright screen and easy wireless Web and e-mail access, the device cannot make calls like a cell phone, a serious flaw for many consumers, and a worrisome choice to analysts concerned that that Nokia is ignoring its core business.