Our Nokia friends were very generous to send us over their newest Internet Tablet, the N800, for a review. Read more below about our experience with this Linux-based mobile gem.
The N800 is an evolutionary step above the older model, the N770. It features a (rumored, faster 320 Mhz ) TI CPU, two SD slots, 128 MB RAM, 256 MB flash storage, 4.1″ 800×480 touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphones jack and mini-USB port. On the top of the device you will find the zoom buttons, the fullscreen on/off button and the microphone while on the front of the device there is a 5-way joypad and 3 additional buttons: close application/window, application’s menu and task-switch. On the left side there is a retractable VGA video-call camera. Below the device you will find a very practical kickstand, which is very nice if you are using your N800 to watch movies.
In the box we found an SD placeholder card (miniSD 128 MB included), a USB cable (for data exchange only, recharging didn’t work), a second stylus, a power adapter (same one as in the E61), a protective pouch, a 3.5mm earphones with a VoIP call/reject button and some manuals. The stylus is very well-done, it is hefty and feels good in the fingers. The pouch is just a thick cloth to protect the device, but does not protect from accidental screen touches, which have the effect of turning the screen back on — even after having locked the keys and screen. In order for the screen to not come back ON again after having locked it, you should wait at least 30 seconds without you or anything else touching it. I would have liked this device to have a proper “hardware” slider lock like the iPods or some PocketPCs do.
The screen has seen an upgrade is terms of quality. It still has the same res/size, but the screen is more clear and easy to read. Upgrade has seen the RAM (128 MBs from 64 MBs), while there is now easy to use swap support to the SD card when running out of memory (e.g. on some huge web pages). The speed of the device is also higher than in the N770, everything feels a bit faster now. The two SD slots (reportedly) support the SDHC protocol now and this means that you should be able to go up to 16 GBs of flash storage using the N800.
The best thing about this Internet Tablet is its WiFi reception. I was absolutely amazed to see it discovering about 15 WiFi hotspots around my house, while the second strongest WiFi device I own barely manages more than 5 or 6 (my Powerbook only finds 2-3 for example). We have city-wide free WiFi in my town since last October via MetroFi, but my apartment faces in the other direction and it never gets signal from their access points. And yet, the N800 is the only device in my home that is able to “see” MetroFi.
As for getting Internet access via Bluetooth and a cellphone, this worked well with the Nokia phones I tried. It was more difficult to make it so though with PocketPC smartphones. The problems started when I tried to send some files over via the OPP profile. I was able to send two before the BT stack crashed and wouldn’t accept any other files. For the files that it did accept, speed was good, averaging at about 80 KB/sec. Using the N800 file manager you can “browse” your Bluetooth devices via the FTP profile. Unfortunately, there is no A2DP/AVRCP support to listen to music wirelessly and no HSP/HFP support for use with the VoIP applications. On the bright side, you can use a Bluetooth keyboard with the N800.
The next two great things in the N800 are the very nice, loud sound that I got using my high-quality headphones (better sound quality compared to any Nokia phone I have ever tried) and the kickstand. The kickstand has two “levels of sitting”, allowing the N800 to “sit back” and make it easy for the user to watch a movie. Initially I had my doubts, but while using it I learned to love it.
The battery life is pretty good too: it reportedly manages 10 days in always-ON standby (the device is actually ON, and with only a few hardware elements OFF), and it managed here about 5 hours of WiFi usage (screen in low backlight mode). It is my estimation (I only had the device for just a day and a half so far) that having the Gizmo or GTalk clients ON and leaving WiFi ON while in standby mode, you should get about 4-5 days of battery life which is better than the second best such device, the Nokia E61. My Nokia E61 has GSM OFF as I use it exclusively as a SIP VoIP device with GizmoProject and manages about 3-4 days of battery life (with WiFi OFF and GSM ON it can last 15 days as the E61 has one of the best battery lives out there, but WiFi is by design more power hungry than the GSM or Bluetooth antennas).
The software has seen an upgrade too, including Opera that now has Macromedia Flash support. Unfortunately, both YouTube’s and Google’s Flash videos are unwatchable because of the lower CPU power, and this is really a shame, because I bet the biggest reason why Nokia had to work with Adobe and ask them and port Flash to the N800 is because of YouTube… (update: speed is better in latest firmware) You can use a Windows server running Orb to stream Flash video in the .ram format which it plays back fine, but this is not easy to do and can not be expected from normal users to do so. Opera crashed twice while using Hotmail, but other than that it worked admirably. It allows for (legit) popups/windows to open and it has full javascript support among other well-known Opera features.
There is a GoogleTalk client in the N800, it works really well. There is also a Notes application, a Caclulator, an imap/pop3 email client, RSS reader, file manager, image viewer, world clock, PDF reader an application manager, some games and more. Unfortunately, the Maemo 3.0 platform is not fully compatible with Maemo 2.0 and so most of the 300+ applications available for the N770 do not work in the N800. So far, there are only about 10-15 applications available for the N800. I installed the GizmoProject client, a VNC client, the GPE PIM and a game. I couldn’t find a screenshot applet for it though in order to get native shots (it was reported that the older applet build was working but it was not present in the repository that was supposed to be, so I couldn’t find it). Installation is a breeze in Maemo using Nokia’s dpkg front-end, but if you want to add more “bora” repositories things get ugly with broken dependencies (e.g. GPE Calendar 2007) and it requires some understanding of what is what when setting up a new repository.
The Media Player can playback WMA, MP3, AVI, RAM, RA and 3GP files, but unfortunately, it would not playback OGG audio or standard MPEG-4 videos, similar to the ones captured by all modern cellphones (update: MP4 somewhat fixed in the new firmware). I surely hope that at least MP4-BASIC support is fixed in an update, because it is a must-have, as the Nokia N800 is meant to be used in many ways in a conjunction to a mobile phone. Currently, the Real Player-derived engine that drives the media player does not support the MP4-BASIC and MP4-IMPROVED formats (and it has the same limitation in Motorola’s touchscreen Linux phones too). Personally, I would prefer Nokia to move away from Real Player (or just use it only for RA/RAM) and instead use mplayer and also port the mplayer-plugin for use with the Opera browser. This only only will allow for broader codec support (after licensing them of course) but for WMV/QT support inside web pages that currently is not possible. This is an internet tablet after all.
The on-screen keyboard is easy to use, and it allows more than one languages to be used. I was switching between Greek and English very easily, very fast. There is also handwriting support, but I never bother with it (I have lost all hope in handwrite, no matter the platform). A nice cool thing is that if you touch an editable widget with your finger, the N800 will recognize this and it will give you a big FingerPad to type instead of the smaller virtual keyboard. Very convenient and clever.
The overall interface is interesting, cute I would say. It is very responsive and pretty stable too (I did have a random reboot today though). But I see a lot of wasted pixels when in windowed mode that they could be used to offer more real screen estate to the apps. Other usability and UI problems are addressed pretty spot-on here.
The device is really nice to hold in the hand, it feels steady, well-manufactured. It looks sexy too with this modern metal that it’s made of. However, there are two things I dislike in the design. First, the retractable/rotate-able video-call camera: It is so far away from the screen, that only 2/3s of myself appears in the picture when I hold the N800 directly in front of me. This is a problem if you are in a video chat session with someone because you have to constantly adjust yourself in an uncomfortable position so you are in the visible viewing field in your friend’s screen. Instead, the camera should have been placed directly above the joypad, and be rotate-able the same way some cellphones have it (e.g. the LG U8500 and the Samsung D820). Additionally, the camera can only be used with other N800 GTalk users for video-conferencing and no other application can use it so far.
The second thing I don’t lile is the right part of the device (currently housing only the right speaker) that makes it unnecessarily long. I much prefer the device to be a bit thicker instead of being longer as it would fit in more pockets this way. If the designers really needed the device to be that long, I would have much preferred to use that extra space (and possibly make the device a tiny bit taller) and make the screen 5.5″ ultra-widescreen at 1024×600 because more and more sites today don’t fit anymore in the current 800×480 screen (e.g. Digg, CNN, Y!, C|Net etc).
Overall, the N800 is a good evolutionary step over the N770, but not without its flaws. If you want to get one of these two babies, get the N800 if you can, and only opt for the N770 if you find it in a very low price. For the price, at $400, I think that the N800 is a good deal considering that you can browse the web in a respectable way without having to carry with you heavy laptops. Regardless, we will make sure to revisit the device in the near future after updates and patches have been released from Nokia or when Skype has released their software for it.
Pros:
* Two SD slots up to 8 or 16 GBs of storage
* Upgraded RAM capacity and CPU speed
* Always-ON responsiveness
* Crispy clear sound quality
* Amazing Wi-Fi reception
* Better quality screen
* Lovely kickstand
* Good battery life
* Cute software
Cons:
* Camera only captures 2/3s of the desired image
* Backwards incompatible with most older apps
* YouTube & GoogleVideo are unwatchable [update: somewhat fixed]
* No A2DP/AVRCP/HSP/HFP profiles
* A bit too wide for my own taste
* No hardware lock slider
* Bad MPEG-4 support [update: somewhat fixed]
* No USB recharge
Rating: 8/10
1) How is the BT keyboard support?
2) Is there a decent word processor or notes program (like AbiWord, or even Tomboy)?
The BT works with Nokia’s BT keyboard (many reports online show this). I have two BT keyboards here, but they don’t use the normal BT profile, so I can’t test them.
Regarding word processor, no, you will have to wait for a port of AbiWord for the N800 (currently, only an alpha version for the N770 exists). There is a “notes” application though if you want to write stuff. And there is the GPE TODO to manually install if you want a to-do list.
Shame there’s not a decent WP program for it yet. I wanted to get one to take notes at the university without having to lug the laptop around.
On the other hand, there’s always Vim
I just tried it for you, there is no VIM installed. Or emacs for that matter. But there is VI, so I guess that’s ok…
vim runs on the 770, but you probably wouldn’t want to use it (or any other text-entry application) for taking notes.
instead, consider Xournal, which was ported to the 770 (should be available on 800 too, soon) and is a great note taking application. I’m addicted to it.
Andrew
Xournal is not available for the N800 yet. And the 770 binary does not work, it is incompatible.
Now there’s a gadget I wouldn’t mind having… if only I had the money, that is.
In the meanwhile I’ll keep using my computer and my Siemens Me45 phone.
So this is a Linux base, yet ships with proprietary modules. I thought that was against the GPL?
No, it is not. The libraries used are mostly LGPL (which allows such linking). Please don’t turn this forum into another license spree. This is the last comment I allow on licensing. Please reply only if you have something to say or ask about the device and its apps.
The N770 was darn tempting but the weak processor always held me back from diving in.
The N800 seems to be a little more modern on that side, I just hope somebody from Nokia’s payroll would take a week to work on porting MPlayer to the platform and make it use the CPU’s DSP. I would be all over this in a sec if it could play 640*480 Divx.
I already have a PocketPc that I only use now for GPS navigation. nokia please make good use of your hardware and have TomTom or Route66 port some commercial GPS software to yoru platform, I will pay for my copy.
And no Maemo Mapper is definitely not the kind of thing I can use everyday to drive around.
Anybody know if Gnumeric is on its way to this platform?
Nokia sell their own GPS software for the N800, called the nokia navigation kit. According to arstechnica “The interface was very impressive, comparable with standalone GPS devices like the Garmin Nuvi 660”. Although they didn’t test it extensivly.
More info here
http://www.europe.nokia.com/accessorieslink?s=N800NavigationKit
The Navicore kit will be available in March 07 in North America according the press release on their website.
The only thing holding me back from buying one is battery life. If they could get it to last 6-10 hours (without turning the backlight down all the way), I’d buy in a second. I’d love to use this to read Safari/Gutenberg ebooks, but the 3 hour battery life Nokia mentions is just too short.
Edited 2007-01-24 20:46
It is not just 3 hours. It is about 5-6 hours in the N800. The 3 hours was for the N770.
Edited 2007-01-24 21:00
Very interesting. I was going off the info here:
http://www.nokiausa.com/N800/1,9008,feat:1,00.html
Where it says “* Browsing time: up to 3 hours.” I guess that’s referring to constant use of the wifi? I’d really love to have this thing for remote ssh/vim access. If the battery life is really a bit higher, I’ll have to pick one up soon.
Edited 2007-01-24 20:56
The nice thing about the N800 is that it uses a standard nokia mobile phone battery. This means the spare batteries are both cheap (more so if you buy a 3rd party battery), readily available at any phone store and small. So getting a second battery isn’t a problem.
Not perfect, but a reasonable workaround
I don’t understand how Nokia expects to keep developpers interested in porting their apps to Maemo if they break compatibility with each new device! First 1.0, then 2.0 and now 3.0. One of the strengths of the N800 is the Linux-based platform that has the potential for thousands of apps, and yet we’re left with only a handful. That was a mistake, IMO. I hope the developpers don’t give up. I want the N800 but will hold off until at least AbiWord or another wordpro is ported to it.
And really they should put in a faster CPU so folks can watch YouTube on it. Why else do people want to wireless connect to the internet anyway?
PS. It may not be as bad as I thought. I was just going by what you wrote in the article, Eugenia. But checking out the Maemo site, it says:
Most applications developed with maemo 2.1 for Nokia 770 will work as such also with Nokia N800 device.
Some existing Nokia 770 open source applications have been shortly tested with Nokia N800 device. Test results are available from maemo wiki. http://maemo.org/maemowiki/OS2007_Tested_Applications
In some exceptional cases where porting applications from maemo 2.1 to maemo 3.0 is required porting will typically be simple.
Unfortunately, AbiWord, mplayer and evince are not on the list.
Edited 2007-01-24 21:05
While a few apps remain compatible with 2.0, the point remains that about 90% of the 2.0 apps don’t work in the 3.0 N800 version. I agree with you, breaking compatibility is a very bad thing for both the users and the *third party* developers. It only serves the system developers.
Eugenia, so you’re saying that while the Maemo site says most N770 apps will work on the N800, that in reality only about 10% will?
The Maemo site does not say that “most” N770 apps will work in the N800. In fact, most of the ones I tried, didn’t. And it is a well-known knowledge that they don’t, just read their planet blog too.
I don’t mean to argue with you, but the Maemo site DOES say that “most” N770 apps will work with the N800:
Most applications developed with maemo 2.1 for Nokia 770 will work as such also with Nokia N800 device.
http://www.maemo.org//downloads/maemo_3_compatibility.html
But perhaps it means only those 770 apps developped with 2.1 and not 2.0.
>And really they should put in a faster CPU so folks can
>watch YouTube on it. Why else do people want to wireless
>connect to the internet anyway?
As has been said before, you can stream the video from YouTube via Orb into Real format and watch it fine. Thus, the problem isn’t the processor, but that the Flash plugin is in dire need of optimisation. Of course Nokia can do nothing here, it’s entirely up to Adobe.
Nokia is in the process of bringing this to the 770 in hybrid form. Most 3.0 SDK apps will work out of the box. There is more info on the dev-list. Don’t read everything you see on the Maemo site verbatim.
The N770 port of 2007 OS is simply a developer digested release, it is not intended for the large crowd as it will never be made official. The point remains, they should have never broken compatibility.
Never? Never ever ever?
Even when the API is fundamentally broken? Even when the ABI has to change?
Never is a strong word. The API isn’t that different, it’s mainly extensions. EDS-DBus, Dates, and Contacts rebuilt without a single change.
I saw a demo and there is a one client that works with video and google talk. This is trunk gossip which uses telepathy. In the demo gossip was able to show video from the nokia n800. By the way telepathy is used inside the n800 for google talk/jabber…
What I thought with 2.0 -> 3.0 there were only a few apps that didn’t work in 3.0.
Also the battery life of the 770 was always much more than 3 hours for me (with wifi on, and using it). Although from the review it looks like the n800 has better battery life
.
You probably didn’t get to keep it (but maybe you did!). All I know is if Eugenia ever has a garage sale, I want to be there!
Thanks Eugenia!
Excellent review. The best I’ve seen for the N800. Most of the other review are “I like it, it’s better than the older version” and no technical details at all.
I was really excited with the N800 (and the N770 before it), but unfortunately I won’t be buying one as it doesn’t support USB Recharging. Why? Because there’s NO reason to a portable device that requires carrying an aardvark recharger. Also, I don’t want to buy proprietary batteries that I don’t need to.
Too bad… besides that (and some codec issues) N800 was great…
…the worst of all? It’s that they didn’t learn from their mistakes with N770 and implemented USB recharging and some more linux-friendly codecs.
well… waiting the next-generation NXXX… =]
http://flickr.com/photos/konstantin/355032055/in/pool-nokiatablets/
Looks like a charger to me. I’ve been using this since I had the 770.
The point is that this adapter doesn’t come by default. People want real solutions out of the box.
It comes with a wall charger. USB does not supply enough mA to fast-charge the device. Unfortunately battery capacities are outgrowing the 500mA limits of the USB bus. No manufacturer in their right mind would support USB charging as default. There are just too many variables involved vs. a simple UL wall wart produced in mass quantities for less than the price of the fused USB charger cable with zero support required (and used across your entire CE device line). So this is really a moot point.
You’re talking about USB wall chargers. Well, they’re great too, but the point is, it should not matter if you’re using a USB wall charger or charging the device while it’s hooked to your PC, USB recharging is NEEDED for a portable device… a USB to charge connector converter does not count to call N770 and N800 a USB chargeable device as you still need a proper converter, not just a standard USB cable and a USB power supply (PC/MAC/Wall USB charger… make your choice).
Why should you depend on proprietary and bulky devices to hold any important data?
It doesn’t matter if USB recharging isn’t fast as the a proper AC charger, you need options and you don’t need to carry all the bulky for a portable device… just take you PC with you in your baggage them.
There’s nothing wrong with the AC charger, we just need USB charging as well, out of the box, without carrying (and buying) useless stuff. It won’t be the primary recharging method, but will make this device really portable.
Edited 2007-01-25 12:34
So you’re *nitpicking* over the facts that a. a third party usb charger plugs into the power receptacle and not usb port (even though you can charge it with your laptop), and b. it doesn’t come with a free one in addition to a wall charger (unlike every mobile device out there, most of which come with a wall charger and let the user pick a 3rd party accessory to charge via usb, car lighter or other means). Even if USB charging was there, it is likely a compact cable like a retractable one would not be supplied. So you have to purchase an accessory *regardless* of the physical port that is used.
I’m not disagreeing with you, I would love to have USB charging out the box as well, but this is how it is. It is cheap and inexpensive to pick up a USB charger for the device that is not bulky. I charge my 770 and 800 via my laptop all the time.
There is possibly another reason why the power is on a separate port, and that has to do with flashing the device with a new image (powered off device -> non-powered usb connection -> hotkey+power on or power cable connection -> flash). And this pretty much carries over Nokia’s entire product line.
The point is:
you’re talking about buying (and carrying) a charger just for N770/N800… I don’t need that. I should not need that as I already have standard USB mini cable with me all the time and most of the time a AC to USB converter. It works with all my devices for charging when a need it, so I didn’t need to carry (and buy) anything else IF N800 supported charging via USB port.
My other portable devices do that. N800 should do it too. Why would I need anything else than a single cable and a single AC to USB converter to charge ALL my portable devices on the road?
…of course we can still charge all our devices with proprietary AC adapter at home… all 30 of them… (count wireless mouse, camera, cellphone, plus the AC adapter for your printer, let me count the scanner… and let’s not forget the other members of the family and their cellphones and devices… wow!)
About the firmware updating it’s no excuse. Firmware flash on Nokia it outdated too. Why no just upload the new firmware file to the “FIRMWARE” folder on the device via USB MSC and them restart the device like all cautious portable device does (of course they require a battery level of X%, but it’s no problem)?
My iAudio X5 (USB MSC harddrive audio player) does like that and its design has some years of baggage… Of course this method doesn’t require proprietary software to update the device… not rocket science either.
>USB does not supply enough mA to fast-charge the device.
Konfoo, you are mistaken. PocketPCs do charge via USB, and I can tell you, some of these use higher speed CPUs and hardware than the N800 (e.g. the Dell x50v). So, no, your argument is not correct. USB-charging *is* feasible (if a bit slower to charge) and it is used by other similar devices today, and people want that. That’s the real issue here.
after 2 years (or is it more?) the only sip client for this thing is in command line.
meanwhile, every retarded proprietary VOIP service, (gtalk, gizmo, soon skype) has flocked to this platform.
is nokia paying off developers to NOT write a SIP client?
it’s frustrating. this device would make a perfect wifi sip phone.
I don’t understand what you are talking about. Gizmo is a *real* SIP client, and since v2.x you can also register to other services, aside from Gizmo itself.
gizmo is not sip. it’s “sip-based” and proprietary. they now permit to connect to a normal SIP server with the 2nd account once you register with gizmo on the first account. and this is only true for the n800 as nokia’s still grappling with the concept of platform vs “small plastic object i throw in trash every 12 months”. my understanding anyways. i don’t want gizmo, just something like minisip or ekiga without extra junk. i want a sip client like an ftp client, without tie-ins or ulterior motives.
I was this too, but to be honest with you, except the XTEN Windows client, all other clients are problematic and difficult to work behind *all* firewalls or routers. I have tried pretty much everything and except the XTEN client (and the gizmo client, only because they control both the server and the client) nothing really pleases me. Ekiga has problems too btw.
yes, but if you admin the firewall and the sip/asterisk/pbx server, then the 770 or n800 would be a nice phone replacement.
or: you subscribe to a sip or iax service and would like to connect from behind your own home or office firewall.
Hate to break it to you..but Nokia is looking to attract the “normal” end user..and for most folks Gizmo..Skype (when available) are perfect..who needs true sip? Gizmo works fine
Actually, I do need true SIP. While I use Gizmo most of the time, there are times that I want to use Ekiga or FWD. Especially FWD is extremely popular.
Is there any information on how many they sold of the 770?
I bought one hoping that it would make for a nice PDF reader on the commute. But it sucked at that. It was slow, did not remember where I was when I closed the app and the screen was too small for that purpose.
I am afraid not much seems to have changed as regards that.
There are Abiword packages. I don’t think you’ll find a better word processor that actually works on the 770/N800.
You said:
Personally, I would prefer Nokia to move away from Real Player (or just use it only for RA/RAM) and instead use mplayer and also port the mplayer-plugin for use with the Opera browser. This only only will allow for broader codec support (after licensing them of course) but for WMV/QT support inside web pages that currently is not possible. This is an internet tablet after all.
If you can show me where I can download licensed ARM-compiled mplayer plugins for both WMV and QT (I presume you mean MPEG4 or Sorenson, as QT is a container format), then you deserve a medal. MPlayer manages to play these formats on the typical desktop by (generally) illegally re-using the Windows codecs. These will not work on the N800 as it doesn’t have an x86 compatible processor.
A better solution would be for Nokia to license more of the Fluendo GStreamer plugins for WMV, MPEG4, and so on. They don’t have Sorenson though.
That would be great… but still, all these codecs and the GStreamer need to be optimized and also modified to be able to use the media hardware acceleration that N770 and N800 uses…
…too bad they had a lot of time since N770 to do that and the situation still the same… = (I’d love to be wrong.)
And that is why you pay Fluendo for the plugins. They have ARM builds already, the N800 uses the DSP if you use XVideo, so all that remains is to potentially use the DSP in decoding the actual frame data. However with the YUV to RGB conversion and scaling happening in the DSP already, it may be fast enough already.
I didn’t know they already have the ARM builds using the DSP… yeah, it would be great if they used it. =]
If there was one thing you wanted to do with your tablet but couldn’t, what was it?
>If there was one thing you wanted to do with your tablet but couldn’t, what was it?
For me, the backwards compatibility problem is the biggest one. Here I am, got this brand new tablet, and only about 15 apps are available for it, while there are about 200-300 for the N770.
Apart from that, I want optimized Flash support and more (and optimized) video/audio codec support.
Agreed on both counts. Are you keeping your tablet and will you continue to write about it? If so, what’s the best feed to which to subscribe?
I will be keeping the tablet and I will be continue writing for it and its related services. For example, today I am preparing a VoIP article for later today and the N800 will be mentioned among the best devices. But there is not a single feed that will give you all the articles I will be writing for the N800. This feed is possibly the most appropriate http://osnews.com/feed.php?t=17 but stories won’t always be posted under this topic…
Subscribed! Thanks!
This is really nice geek-stuff – I’ll take one :o)