Looks like all those unrealistic shipping deadlines and release slips have been caused by Nokia’s cautiousness about the 770 future. The results so far? Nokia is positively surprised at the 770 uptake. According to Yahoo! News UK & Ireland article:
The Finish firm announced on Wednesday that, against its expectations, it is to increase production of its 770 Internet Tablet handheld after achieving huge online sales since it’s launch in early November. In fact, demand for the product in Europe and the US is so great that the company has currently run out of stock and customers are facing a minimum two-week wait for the device.BrightHand reports the news as well, adding some details on N770 for those who don’t know what the device is all about.
I didn’t get to go to CES this year, but I am quite surprised Nokia doesn’t show off 770 at the event targeted to consumer electronics distributors.
This is bound to test the viability of Nokia 770 as a commercial platform for software development. Wayland Bruns wrote in to introduce DejaDesktop.
What does it do? - With DejaDesktop, your Outlook Contacts and Calendar synchronized to the 770, and any changes you make while on the device are synchronized to Outlook. DejaDesktop uses the built-in IP connection, so there is no need to connect the device to your computer.
How much is it? - DejaDesktop is provided free of charge, and the hosted IP-based sync is only $9.95 per month! You can try the sync service FREE for 14 days.
Three site visitors wrote in to say that CompUSA introduced a price drop on Nokia 770, which is $349.99 now.
Want to save even more on a CompUSA buy? Head out to FatWallet, register for an account there (which is free), then go to their Stores section and click on CompUSA page. If you click on the affiliate link from FatWallet, they will share the affiliate revenues with you. The current rate is 2% cashback payable through PayPal (get a PayPal account as well), which means $7 cashback 90 days after the purchase has been confirmed and you have not returned the product.
PepperPad issued a new press release today touting a new e-book reader from MobiPocket (an Amazon company) and photo-sharing app for Flickr (a Yahoo! company).
They seem to target the digital home concept heavily, introducing a software TV listings reader as well (although one could always browse to Yahoo! TV or numerous similar sites, one would assume):
The eBook reader from Mobipocket, an Amazon.com company, enables users to browse and download books, magazines or newspapers and read them on the Pad’s 8.4-inch SVGA TFT screen. Publications can be easily organized and stored for future reading on the portable Pad. Decisionmark’s TitanTV offers the only real-time household-level online programming guide available to consumers. It provides household-specific program listings of all sources of programming, whether off-air, cable, or satellite, with high-definition programs highlighted. TitanTV allows viewers to sort, filter, customize and search listings with unmatched ease. On the Pepper Pad, the listings information is available through the Pad’s built-in Wi-Fi. With TitanTV’s Watch Now feature, consumers can simply select the program they want to watch and via IR the Pepper Pad will select the proper channel.
There’s also a bunch of free e-books available for MobiPocket.
Now that 770 has arrived and shipping, the reviewers are taking a more critical look at the device. Neil McAllister from InfoWorld points out that while the Linux geeks might love it, the general public is likely to question the performance and capabilities at this price tag:
Geeks who have seen this device often fall in love with it, so much so that it’s been heavily back-ordered since its release. Unfortunately, however, the Nokia 770 is a disaster as a consumer product. Although designing it to do very few things was a shrewd move, sadly it doesn’t do any of them well. Opening a single browser window taxes the device’s limited resources; open the bookmarks window too and you’re likely to get an “out of memory” error. Complex pages can crash it altogether.