Re: [NTLK] Einstein Thoughts

From: Gopi D Flaherty (gf2e_at_andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 28 2005 - 11:19:12 PST


On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 mkow1234_at_aol.com wrote:
> I agree with L.W. Brown's excellent suggestion that we collectively
> provide Laurent(?) with a Linux PDA (such as a late-model Sharp Zaurus)!
> If the Newton OS is ever to be fully ported to another PDA hardware
> platform, the Zaurus is pretty much the only option (No smartass replies
> to the list about made-in-India dreamware, etc, please!)

The Nokia 770 is available now. Its screen is the closest to the Newton's
in size since, well, the 2100. It's got more pixels, but it's physically
smaller:
In landscape mode, the 480x320 display of the mp2k has a 9:6 aspect ratio.
The 770's 800x480 display has a 10:6 aspect ratio.

I think that the 770 is a bit too wide to be comfortably used in portrait
mode. I pretty much always use my 2100 in landscape mode, so I don't mind.

The 770 has bluetooth 1.2, 802.11g wifi, and it's very thin. It can
actually fit in most pants pockets, although it's a bit big to be
comfortable.

If you have wifi on, and backlight at max, you get 3 hours of battery
life. With wifi off, the battery lasts much longer. I generally find its
battery life to be sufficient.

The 770 ships with Linux out of the box. It uses bluez as its bluetooth
stack, it uses the standard linux wifi stuff. I mention this because some
platforms - Motorola's Linux cellphones, for example - run Linux, but with
enough weird, custom stuff that it's very hard to port anything existing
to it.

Nokia did a custom gtk-based platform for the 770, called maemo. It isn't
a Newton. It's more optimized for browsing than for editing, but that's
more a function of the apps that shipped with it rather than its
capabillities.

I think that a 770 with the Newton OS, or a re-implementation of the OS,
would be wonderful. It's the right hardware platform to replace the
MessagePad 2100, and it has the right core OS components to support an
excellent OS. All it needs is the Newton platform...

-- 
This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries
Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Dec 28 2005 - 12:30:05 PST