[NTLK] Nokia n800 user's review.

        O.K.: I'm not Kate, but I've had an n800 for a few weeks so far
(thanks Craigslist) and can give you a quick overview based on my
experiences. Sorry if you see this twice, but in the version that I
just opened in Mail all the stuff I wrote was gone...

        It's got a wonderful screen (higher resolution than my first Mac)
and is reasonably rugged: I wouldn't want to drop it on concrete but
it can easily take the knocking around you get in a pocket. The
Bluetooth and WiFi scanning capabilities seem good so far (haven't
tried the FM radio yet), and it pulls up most web pages I aim it at.
As far as interface design goes, it's not going to win over any
Newton users: it's pretty much hard-wired to horizontal only (unless
you're using the Tetris clone) and there is way too much fooling
around with menus to get where you want to go. The original browser
software caused problems with some secure sites: a new pre-alpha
version came out for download two weeks ago and works on more secure
sites than the original but it's still not prime-time yet.
        The n770 had a metal cover for protection of the screen that, when
put into place, put the device into sleep mode. Nokia decided that
since an "Internet Tablet" should be "always on" they should get rid
of the cover/sleep option for the n800 and require you to go through
two different menus to equal the no-WiFi, screen off state closing
the cover on the n770 gave you automatically or live with running
down your battery every day. They also made the three buttons on the
top of the device that control on, off, and the program your using
showing up full screen or not half the size of the buttons on the
n770, which makes former n770 users grouchy.
        There are quite a number of folks writing software for the n800
(Nokia announced the OS on the n770 will never be updated by them:
think of it as a sort of a Newton 130) that so far is both free and
pretty high quality, but the sync capabilities are primitive: the
best way to describe it would be to say you dump files on and off it
the way you'd dump files off and on a USB drive. Word processing is
worse (Nokia didn't write any printer drivers because it's an
*internet* tablet, Abiword isn't stable for the n800 yet, and while
the third party notetaking packages are O.K. the bundled one is
strictly from hunger--Notepad sleeps safe tonight), and the process
for installing software is strange: you use a separate installer
program where you put in the URL and other goodies of the file
repository you're interested in and the n800 loads in a catalog and
lets you browse it for stuff to install, or you can visit sites with
a link set up that loads the catalog and starts the installer
automatically. (It's a system that could only be accepted in Linux-
Land.)
        Basically the hardware is wonderful, but they *really* need someone
with the programming skills and interface understanding of Paul or
Adam to take an interest. Right away.

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