It's just like magic...
 

a) I mount USB drives all the time, if the camera mounts like a USB drive, then go for it.

b) Yes, certain BT protocols must be available in the phone. I use a V3c Razr. Great for travelling, pairs and connects flawlessly.

c) ???

ad a) You cannot do this with a 770 out of the box, and without building a powered USB dock yourself. Even enabling USB host mode on the 770 isn't a trivial matter for the average user.

ad b) Again, hit-and-miss would be a better way to describe this method.

ad c) Don't give out solutions that don't require them to procure a 770. We need the user base. :rolleyes:

Heh, good one K. But really, as much as I like the alphabet ping pong games in the forum, "a", "b", and "c" have been taking quite a beating these days. If you're gonna knock around the pros and cons of the 770, please diversify a little and give us "d" through "z" at least.

Even with the new tablet around the corner, I think there are a few things that will remain solid attractions to the 770 for quite some time. One is that the hardware is pretty "open" as far as being able to update the firmware with the latest versions of the OS, and possibly an alternate OS that one might develop in the future. Another is that because of the two wireless connectivity options, it will continue to operate in the network ecosystem for a lot longer than earlier mobile devices that were without even one of these wireless technologies. And yet another key attraction is of course the massive support of the community, be it Open Source or just Internet Tablet Talk. Add to it the amazingly huge pool of resources dedicated to the Internet Tablet here and at Maemo.org, and there's really few reasons why the 770 would even need a successor.

That said, if Nokia continues to dedicate some of its resources to improving the OS and keeps the quality of the hardware as a top priority, then the number of users and developers will continue to grow. Strengthening the vast community ever more, and the future tablets to come will be very successful on the market.

Perhaps a little addendum is needed here: I basically have nothing against Nokia not fitting the 770 with a fully functional USB host port; it's a decision they most certainly made based on power requirements and targeted user base. Nevertheless, from the first day it was clear that the USB port could be enabled to act as a host (contrary to e.g. the USB port on the Siemens SimPad, which is categorically slave only, no matter how clever the user/hacker).

Given that, and the fact that the port is unpowered, Nokia should have provided a powered hub for the 770, either for free (which would be the neat thing to do) or as a paid accessory (which is the smart way). I admit they could not have known at product launch what kind of users the 770 would eventually attract, but by summer 2006 it must have been clear, even for the saps at Nokia marketing, that a significant percentage of them were not electronic/digital lefthanders. By now, the hub should have been available. A fully functional USB port would make the 770 so much more useful (access to card readers, portable hard drives, cameras, beer coolers, ...)

OK, so the last one is probably a pipe dream... :D

I entirely agree with you on Nokia providing a powered hub for the 770, and I still think it's not too late for them to do so. Hell, even a third party accessory maker could make a nice little stack of dough off of that accessory alone. This is like one of those neat ideas that was abandoned in the early palm days, and eventually will be revisited by some mobile maker, which would spark a renewed interest in the implementation. I have a strong feeling this was one of the factors of the Palm PDA downturn.

Didn't some users discover that certain USB hubs are appropriately powered for the 770? I could have sworn Thoughtfix for one had made that determination...

Texrat: None that I've seen. I believe every last one of them required a jumper to put 5v across the USB port going to the host device. That'd be an extremely strange product out of the box given that 99.9999% of all USB host devices provide their own power. If you tried dumping 5v into a circuit that already had it's own power supplied I suppose it would cause damage.

(If I remember correctly, you just crack open the hub, and jump a wire from the +5v lead on a slave port to the +5v lead on the host port)

Texrat is correct. The standard hub I used also had a special cable that fed +5V up the line as well as down. The post you're looking for on that is here:
http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com/2006/...st-method.html

My favorite solution, of course, is this one:
http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com/2006/...njector-2.html

Totally off topic (but it'll end with a reply, so... heh). Does the 7805 drain the battery if nothing is plugged into the USB ports? Mine seems dead but I figured since there was no complete circuit... well. :)

Greetings everyone, I'm new to the forums. I've been researching the Nokia 770 recently and I plan to buy one in the near future. From most of the things I read there are a lot of great things about the device with a not so great processor being one of the negatives. Without going too off topic I'm really just wondering if I should just go out and buy a 770 or should I wait for this new device. According to Texrat, "the wait isn't too terribly long" but that could mean months. I would appreciate it if any of you regular users could give some feedback. Thanks.