Nokia 770 internet tablet sees Nokia veer into non-phone territory
posted May 25th 2005 9:22AM
Props to Nokia for totally rescuing a slow news day by dropping this in our laps: the Nokia 770 looks sort of like a
tricked out 7710, but the crazy thing is, it's not a
phone. It's an internet appliance aimed squarely at your living room, designed to replace that "extra" PC you
might be tempted to pick up for basic web surfing/news reading/emailing. At an expected price of $350, it may just
succeed, at that. It's connecting to your home network via Bluetooth and WiFi and sports a nice, large screen at
4.13-inches and 800x480 pixels. It'll ship in Q3 2005 (yeah!) with the Opera browser and apps for RSS reading, internet
radio, media players, PDF reader, and Flash plug-in, with software updates planned in Q1 2006 for VoIP calling and IM
(not sure what the deal is on delaying the IM client, but whatevs). The whole thing is based on Debian Linux v2.6 and
the Gnome UI (is that the sound of thousands of *NIX geeks rejoicing we hear?) — they're calling the platform "maemo"
and are making it completely open, and will provide an SDK for developers. Smart, Nokia, very very smart. Horsepower
will be provided by an ARM based processor, the TI 1710 OMAP, and will come with 64MB DDR RAM and 128MB internal flash
memory, expandable via RS-MMC card (a 64MB card will be included stock). So color us thoroughly hot and bothered,
though we would maybe have gone with SD instead of MMC and the 3 hour battery/7 hour standby life is perhaps
sub-optimal. But hey, we can work with it, we can work with it.
[Thanks, zep and Simon]
damn this thing is sweet. i want it!!! nokia is making a strong comeback lately.
Canni Getta HELLS YEAH!!!
Canni Getta HELLS FRIKKIN' YEAH!!!
Canni Getta w00t w00t?
Canni Getta One Of These Early?
Yet another PC device ready for the scropt-kiddies to invade with their hacks and viruses!
Where is the pre sales number? $350.00 sold!!!
Just think what Hack a Day will do with the OS!
Will there be a left handed version?
I'm sold. Price is right, functions are perfect for a 2nd PC surfing the web; checking e-mail through a wi-fi connection in the home.
Battery life the only let down in my eyes. Hope the finished product lives up to expectations.
You can already download the development tools from http://www.maemo.org/ .
must figure out an actual need for this thing!
must figure out an actual need for this thing!
Sigh.
I miss side talkin.
Looks nice. I just might pick this up. I just wish it had a phone too.
Wow! Just wow.
Thats very cool.
Now make it dock into my car and play MP3's over a GOOD quality FM transmitter and give it more memory and I'm sold.
IMO Nokia has just created something COOL and the proce seems right. Maybe not a phenomen like iPOD, but somethnig that people will desire. My only concern is how simple will be the PC software side of this gadget. I don't want to have conflicts with firewall etc.
sounds like an earlier version of what microsoft is planning as a wider vision...
http://www.betanews.com/article/WinHEC_Brings_Longhorn_MiniTablet/1114445161
it sounds sweet though.
With an addition of PIM software and a note taking app, I'm sold!
"My only concern is how simple will be the PC software side of this gadget. I don't want to have conflicts with firewall etc."
There wont be any pc software. This is standalone.
Why can't this ship today!! I'm going on a cruise next week and the ship has wifi hotspots but obviously no cell phone access. This would be a perfect VoIP situation! Instead I'll probably be bringing my laptop and bluetooth headset or possibly a PocketPC and using Skype instead. This thing looks awesome and would be perfect for my family room. $350? Incredible price point and I'd probably still buy it at $500.
This is almost as good as the Zaurus..
Maybe someone will hack a email client for it.
The price , if true, is well within most readers budget.
On first glance, this device looks like an evolution of the Pogo, which was always much more of a browser tablet than a phone (with an ARM CPU and its own, non-Windows software & broswer).
I thoroughly enjoyed using the Pogo (even if few others did) for exactly the kind of use Nokia are targeting, so am glad this kind of design is getting another outing.
Same price as a Palm T5 but with 3x the resolution, Wifi+BT, and Linux OS... SOLD!
This thing needed one of those Toshiba 0.85" Hard drives... then... it.... would.... ROCK. Stick rocks though, just needs more memory :) Hm..... VoIP in 2006, nice. Wonder if it will be Skype - since its coming to S60 soon, maybe it will be one big rollout. I hope so. I wasnt digging this at first when I read it on mBurn, but now I am digging it.
nokia has been veering into "non-phone territory" for quite a while - they make a slew of media players and set-top boxes, just not for the u.s. market.
Wow! That thing is sweet. $350?! Mark me down! What would be nice if it worked with your wifi hotspots, but if it also worked to surf the web via GSM or whatever. So, when I want to take the unit with me and I'm not in any wifi area, I can still use it.
I'd gladly pay a monthly fee for one of them unlimited data only plans as long as it's not expensive.
Man, if this had a pop out keyboard it would be even sweeter.
i have been waiting for u all my life baby... come to papa... goodbye life drive...
What?! No hard drive?! That sucks. Can't store movies and stuff on a flash card.
What about IR/RF? This thing would be perfect as a whole house remote as well. I'm sure it could be hacked to do so but the lack of built in IR is a real bummer. Between that and the lack of memory I think this thing just missed being near perfect.
Instant failure. No HDD.
-C
I'm not sure. Why wouldn't I just get a full PDA with WiFi for about the same price? I would be able to do everything this does and more. Skype is already available for PocketPC, so you even get VoIP and IM right away. The only plus I see to this is it's screen.
Looks awesome! If Nokia would have put at least two buttons on the right side of the screen, it'd make a great gaming device.
I can't wait until version 2 comes out with better battery life, more storage and hopefully right side buttons.
No keyboard support?
This thing looks pretty cool technologically.
Amazingly cool in fact.
"Instant failure. No HDD."
That definitely is a drawback, what with the LifeDrive and Zaurus C-3000 out there cutting a path to expanded storage in handhelds. But it DOES have an MMC slot. 1gb will probably be sufficient for most people since it sounds like this thing isn't really meant to leave you house (though the hackers and enthusiasts will undoubtedly soon have it running kismt and ethereal and whatall...).
What gets me is the price point. $350 !?!?!?!
That is an astoundingly low price for what you get, and with Linux underpinings and a devkit already in the wild...'what you get' is actually 'anything you want'.
Aside of course from hardware tweaks/additions (HDD, CF, IR, VGA out, etc..)
This just might be a hit. I personally have used my old ROM hacked Mobilepro 780 much as this thing sounds like it's to be used. With a simple $11 wifi PCMCIA card it becomes a little internet appliance that roams effortlessly about the house, far more easily than a laptop would (not to mention 5 - 6 hours battery life). It makes looking things up on the internet while watching TV in one of the NON computered rooms, or when chillin' with friends/family in the living room or out on one of the decks, or when working on the car/project in the garage a snap.
It's a nice thing to have lying around...
But 'jb' makes a good point. One of the best features of the MP780 is it's near full size keyboard, really makes entering google search parameters and URLs much eachier than pick-boarding it. A flip out keyboard or an OQO style sliding thumboard might have been nice...but there goes that amazing price point...
In any case, this looks like a cool bit of tech at a fabulous price.
Good Job Nokia!
23: I agree with you on this one. I got really excited reading this at first, and then when I realized it wasn't a phone as well, I got kind of disappointed. Sure, it would be sweet to have a Linux powered mobile device like that, but it's missing a few key PDA features that would sell me on it. And without GSM capability and GPRS/EGPRS (EDGE), it's pretty much just a glorified PDA without some of the functionality of a PDA. I do like the screen and the RSS capability, though. Also, the idea of what could be done with it since it's running on Linux. I think it's a solid move for Nokia, but they would've had to stuff more features in it to make it truly desirable, even if it's at a higher cost.
-yem
Here where I work we have Nokia-branded Internet Gateways and Firewalls. That sounds like non-phone territory to me.
I would rather just pay $150 more and get a lifedrive. Atleast with it I could actually GET SOME WORK DONE for my money. Totally agree that it's just a PDA w/o some PDA functions. Cool little device, but $350 so that I can post in forums from my bedroom? I don't think so, I've got better things to do in there.
This is the device I need to keep in the living room. Guess what my wife is going to get for Christmas?
If they could increase the battery life, this would be awesome as a networked portable media player.
#21 - Lester:
If you have a central home automation/media server , you don't need RF/IR for this - the WiFi is perfect. If the server is running something like Lantronix SyS (or whatever it's called now that it's been bought), you can write custom interface pages in HTML. Just access the sexy interface page over wifi, and let the server do all the IR-emitting junk. Then pop back over to web surfing without a second thought :)
This is the final missing piece in a great home automation setup - the only options thus far have been windows CE-type devices and clunky ugly outdated linux panels.
I'll take two, thanks.
Something to tie everthing in my hightech abode all together...
I have some universal remote contrlng, note taking, and battery juice with it, to go please.
If the memory card can be used like hd that is good enough to me. Small nice looking device with Wifi, Linux and stereo audio out! Great!!!! And 350$? Hell yeah!!!
I just hope it supports WPA instead of just WEP. Sweet device. Love the screen and the resolution and I am already sold!!
This is gonna be killer if it works! Sign me up!
AWESOME!!!
I want one :D
Very cool! I think this will be a lot of fun to have the internet handy around the house. But the screen size is the big selling point to me. I will be trying to add an ebook reader app to mine asap.
23: Who cares about a hard-drive in such a device, you don't want to show it off in the subway, you will use it to read Engadget from your couch or Skype from your backyard.
And Nokia just got it so right with such an open approach with software. The Zaurus got a lot of community support, but this device is much more sexy, I expect it to become a bigger community success than the Zaurus.
I posted more comments on my blog:
http://www.oberle.org/blog/2005/05/25/nokia-770-it-just-feels-right/
I don't understand the big deal here. I can do everything AND MORE that this thing does on my shirt-pocket Treo650, and I can use it anywhere, and I can type on it so the Web access is actually usable, and I can have my PIM, email, photos etc.
The street price of the Tungsten 5 and the nokia 770 are about the same. So this thing has a better screen? That's it?
And another thing: don't these devices just sound great when no one has actually been able to get their hands on one:)
I'm a one-device guy, and that device is the Treo 650.
Enough said.
Almost perfect. I'll buy it anyway, but how about an IR port and two buttons on the right, you know somebody can hack this into an ubergameboy or nes.
#32 Melanie
a girl that knows about setting up home automation
i think i am in love... holla at me lordtrini@gmail.com...
i am going to setup a local home webserver and with some php to generate playlists on the fly... i will be the king of the world...
@ #41
Your treo also costs $550+ ($750 unlocked), requires cell phone service PLUS data plan, (which is at least $100 a month) has no wifi, and sucks for general browsing.
FINALLY.
i have been waiting for something like this to come out for a long time.
Browsing, checking email and reading ebooks.
I don't get why people complain when it doesn't have absolutely every feature on it. ITS NOT DESIGNED TO. It's not a media player, its not a PDA.
You dishwasher doesnt bake food.
Get over it.
Yes, it does James ;-)
http://www.salon.com/nov96/salmon961118.html
No SD ? Bummer. So close, and yet no cigar.
Frankly, I cannot even begin to understand the decision of ignoring what is essentially a market standard and going with yet-another-ill-conceived-undersized-and-incompatible-memory-card-format. Did someone on the SD org insult Nokia's CEO, or what ?
Actually, you can make a really good poached salmon in your dishwasher . . .
For sd you need to pay license fees per product. Mmc is free to use.
Am I missing something?
MMC cards are about the same price as SD. They have about the same capacity as SD. MMC cards can be used in SD slots, SD cards cant be used in MMC slots. Maybe MMC cards are slower, I dont know about that.
Otherwise, why would you need SD?
I really should read the post thoroughly before I post... I would have prefered ordinary MMC, but RS-MMC will do. Still, no big deal.
I believe the SD standard is proprietary, and therefore as mentioned it requires licensing.
But that of course means there's more money for development, and we have recently started seeing incrementaly *faster* SD cards come to market, much as what happened with CF.
Faster MMC might come out, but as you stated there's little price difference between it and SD, so there's not much money in accelerating MMC.
I might point out that the Sharp Zaurus has an MMC slot and uses emmulation to allow SD cards to be used intstead, so the compatibility of SD cards with any particular MMC slot is kind of device specific IMHO.
The general rule applies: Before you spend more money, check your documentation...
Add Windows XP and the price goes up by $2000....
!->Googling "1710 OMAP +mhz" shows a max of 220 MHz. My Linux savvy roomie tells me this is dangerously low for e.g. video rendering. This could pose "no-buy" for me, I am ongoing frustrated about my shitty Nokia 6600s performance. Nokias datasheet tells nothing about actual performance or did I overlook that fact ?? Anyone w/ a clue?
I'm surprised they didn't use Symbian in this thing. But the choice of the OMAP processor is bad. It can only go up to 220 MHz as the previous post mentioned. Not good for multi-tasking and other functions.
Currently I know of only 2 devices with the same processor:
1) HP h6300: which was plagued with so much instability bugs (mostly due to the weak processor)
2) Motorola MPx: which didn't even reach mass market because of quality problems (weak processor and less available user memory)
Of course Nokia can still pull it off with the weak processor if you don't force the system to do anything aside from surfing and email.
hmmm. Since it has wifi, you can wait for someone to make a VOIP program so you can also turn it into a phone.
looks great but the problem still remains, with any wireless device you play music from while it's sitting on your lap on the sofa:
how can you pipe the sound from the laptop/770/anything to your stereo, without a cable?
all these over complicated wifi mp3 stereo things that need servers and blah blah blah,
all i want is to be able to stream the sound output from my laptop/770 into my stereo...
Poster 59
He is the answer to your dreams
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000027024043/
Will work with 770 also!
Brilliant! I'm sold. Just what I've been looking for. It's not a PDA, I need, it's this.
$100.00 for data service + voice? I pay $65.00 + taxes for my voice and data plan. (Yah, i know it's not edge. But soon enough!)
If this thing has IR I'm in!
>I'm surprised they didn't use Symbian in this thing. But the choice of the OMAP processor is bad. It can only go up to 220 MHz as the previous post mentioned. Not good for multi-tasking and other functions.
I have an Audiovox 5600 w/a 200Mhz Arm Processor. It plays DivX movies just fine, although on a lot smaller than the screen on this. I'm guessing it would be able to play less complex codecs fine at the higher resolution like uncompressed AVI or maybe MPG. Uncompressed AVI is pretty much usless since its huge but it should work.
>Of course Nokia can still pull it off with the weak processor if you don't force the system to do anything aside from surfing and email.
>hmmm. Since it has wifi, you can wait for someone to make a VOIP program so you can also turn it into a phone.
I'm actually guessing VoIP will not happen though since the makers of Skype have said that the current mobile devices are not fast enough to do VoIP. They are working on a smartphone version of skype but it will not do voice calls, only IM and whatnot. There may be some hope since its running linux which is pretty lightweight but we need faster mobile CPU's for VoIP.
So how long before every OS X 10.4 dashboard widget becomes an app for this thing?
I can understand everyone who says "It's not as good as my Palm" or "It's not fast enough to play Doom3." I was a little irked by a lack of SD or USB-Host. But, for what the 770 does, MMC should work just fine.
I'm not hip or connected enough to need a Treo, I just want....
- Wi-Fi WebBrowsing (Firefox?)
- IRC, Instant Messaging.
And, maybe....
- PDF/Large Doc support.
- Word Processing.
- Image Viewing.
- Mp3/Streaming Audio.
- Mesh-Network Messaging.
- Remote Desktop.
- Timewasting Games.
I don't want to spend twice as much for a PDA that I still need to upgrade for wifi. I also just really don't want to pay a service plan, either. If this device can perform, I'll buy it. Hell, I'll even develop for it. :D
Okay, what I want is a cross between the N770 and a Sidekick II.
I want the N770's screen (I can live w/o the touch screen but I don't have a problem with it either; I just prefer to have a QWERTY keyboard). I also want Bluetooth because there's no way I'll hold such a big ass device to my hear for extended periods of time. (OTOH, I don't really plan to use any of those devices as my primary phone.)
But what I really want is WiFi and GPRS in the same device.
I have WiFi at home and at the office but there are also plenty of computers at both of those places. So, the N770 really wouldn't be more than a fancy, convenient remote gadget I carry around with. In fact, the only really useful application I can see is reading my emails while I am on the john.
But I also have a one-hour each way commute once a week. And unfortunately it's in the city so that pretty much leaves me with public transportation. And WiFi coverage is too spotty to do anything interesting, even in the city. So GPRS would really come in handy in those situations. Not so much for the push-email functionality but to keep me entertained.
All I really need is GPRS and IEEE 802.x (w/ WPA support - and, yes, I am looking at you, Sony) in a small, not too fancy (ie. business) device.
What this needs is just a good program that lets you remotely control your iTunes (or other) music library stored on another computer. This doesn't need to actually stream the music itself-- rather, just tell something else (like iTunes plus that magic wireless hub/audio thingy) to stream audio to your stereo. I'd get it.
Don't look at this device as just a new device from Nokia.
It is obviously a device to test the market. If an open source community develops around it who will create software, be sure that Nokia will come out with many similar products building on the 'maemo'. Support it and Nokia will most likely continue doing so..
is this going to cost a trillion dollars?
i only one trillion dollar bill to spare
This has been advertised in Dubai for the last couple of weeks - anyone else seen it advertised?
I'll have to check and see if it's been launched here yet as a tester market.
I think 770 has a nice niche. for me the wifi is the key, along the tablet aspect. I think replacing paper and joting on the 770 is really cool. Just imagine using the nokia's screen over the wifi as a mouse/touchpad/wacom equivalent? I'm totaly sold. Just wonder if possible to interface the touch screen on XP? now that would be really cool. A grafiti like (or even better ) sytem on NOKIA sould be possible no? 770 _must_ have more juice than the Zire?:) G.
Some late comments:
You should be able to use your bluetooth phone as a modem for 770 when on the go, outside Wifi.
Does it have the muscle to display DivX? With proper software it might, since OMAP ARM cpu's are quite speedy, and contain a DSP part that a codec could possibly take advantage of.
I'm gonna wait to see one of these for real, the build quality might be bad, and those pictures are just 3D renders. :P
Can't wait for VoIP to appear on this little beauty. It must be SIP based though as apposed to some closed system like Skype, please!!
one word:
wardriving.
oneword: obvious
How big can MMC cards hold? As long it breaks the 2 GIG barrier it should be good...
at least it supports H.264! getting that to worki with the psp is a BITCH gay sony i'm switching to the 770
Where can I buy the nokia 770 internet tablet in the UK
coooool phone!!!
someone needs to take a sidekick II keyboard and incorporate a better screen such as the one on this tablet and make a keyboard web appliance...
Don't worry how akward it would look... i'd use the hell out of it
Love your Podcasts!
Got the 770 yesterday. Really neat device but... A couple of thing having trouble with:
1 - The Bluetooth connectivity needs Bluetooth Spec 1.2. My Treo 650 only has 1.1 and will not connect (says device does not have enough features). Palm's website says they have no plans to support 1.2.
2 - Spent an hour at Sprint and two hours at Cingular trying to get a phone that works. Tried pairing with a Moto Razr V3, Audiovox and a Samsung, all with varying error messages but no connectivity.
3 - Called NOkia - very helpful, said the Nokia 7610, 6820, 6682 and 6230 should work. But Cingular says all these phones are discontinued. Don't know which carriers have these phones currently.
4 - Can't seem to find the MAC address on the 770 device to add that to the wireless filter on the Access Point. So had to turn off the MAC filters.
Has anyone gotten a phone to work with the 770 in the US? Help is much appreciated!