Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

You seem to misunderstand: complain all you like! Even those taking you to task complain about N800 issues-- self included (and I helped launch the darned thing). I just recommend you try a slightly less contentious approach, that's all, especially avoiding hyperbole and mockery.

And for crying out loud, don't fall back on the old "the crowd does it so it's okay" reasoning to support inflammatory verbiage! Cripes, that's sooo sophomoric. So scattered miscreants on the Internet refer to the tablet as a toy-- that automatically makes it one? And sure, I *use* mine as one on occasion, but as many have pointed out, it can enjoy a multitude of serious applications, there for anyone willing to get out of the box and look. That said, the immediate out of the box N800 experience IS lacking in many ways-- mostly fulfilled by expanding one's scope beyond the standard offerings. To that point, N800 users are far more like the old PC DOS-box pioneers than today's Windows (or even Mac) PC chair potatoes. People spoiled by being spoonfed applications should avoid the N800 like the plague. Those unafraid of expanding their horizons and (God forfend!) learn something new should, however, jump right in.

Different folks, different strokes. One size does not fit all. Your mileage may vary.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Actually, it is flamebait. If you would just dig a little deeper into those "n800 toy" search results you'll find the following:

First link:

That coming from an E90 user who mistakely thought the N800 was a PDA with full PIM functionality.
Translation: He didn't do his research before buying it.

Second Link:

Third Link:

Bunch of picture-only links...

Eighth Link down:

More picture-only links...

Tenth Link down:


If you had taken the time to actually read more than the titles on a Google search you'll see where they weren't really referring to the device itself as a "toy" with "toy-like" features.
But you didn't. You did a rapid Google search to try to justify your thread title after the fact but failed miserably.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Anyone waiting ten seconds for a webpage must:

a) be using a very heavy site
or
b) have a really shitty wireless router

Generally, unless there's flash on the page or 200 small images all over the place, I don't have to wait long at all... and even if it took ten seconds, that's a price I'll happily pay for the ability to not need to keep going back to my desktop to do the same.

Ever since I got my N800, I've been using my PC less and less. I'm now using it as a torrent/newsgroups downloader and soon, an arcade machine.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I think there's just too much misinterpretation of my reference to 'toy'

Maybe the word 'toy' implies a negative connotation, which I do not get as some articles/documentaries actually call really expensive possessions as toys. Anyone remember "Big Boys with Big Toys" on travel channel? And those were referring to Lambo's and yachts!

And I didn't say that I looked up google prior to writing this particular title, I just said that other people do use the word 'toy', and most in a non-flaming way.

Iball's links also points to people who are showing off their n800's proudly, taking pictures from every angle, but also calling them 'toys'..

Should I email them and ask them to stop flamebaiting, Texrat?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

So why did you if you didn't want to?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

If you weren't flamebaiting before, you sure are now.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Well, I have just got a N770 and I think it is great. I don't find it slow - it is a lot faster than my phone on the same sites. It is slower than my laptop obviously but then my bicycle is also slower than my car and I don't find that odd either.

What I really don't understand though, obviously criticism is fine but if you really don't like something, why not just get rid of it and get something better?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Your scoring lots of points with the continued sarcasm. Oh yes. Lots of valuable points. :rolleyes:

Just what IS your agenda here?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I'm wondering if Liam1 is related to Euchprof or whatever his name was ...

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Okay, lets end all the negative vibes.

Lets make the conversation more civil.

Is there a way to upgrade the capabilities of the n800? I'm not talking about the software, I'm talking about the hardware itself, so that in my case, I would not think of it as underpowered. I doubt there is a way, but maybe some smart guy has found a way to do something about it.

To open an application, the n800 still pauses for a few secs before it opens up, even the relatively simple mplayer application. To start an mp3, or a video, that will take up another few seconds. I have my browser home page as blank, and it still takes 3 secs to open up fully (with the mozilla engine).

The file manager takes a full 8 seconds to list my 40 songs on my external card, and maybe thats because my external card is a class 2 8 gig. But on a laptop with a card reader which reads the same card, the file list comes up instantly.

Most of you probably will not be bothered with a second here and there, but if you're used to something faster, its fairly painful to stare at the n800 in 'thinking' mode

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Here is your answer....

"It is slower than my laptop obviously but then my bicycle is also slower than my car and I don't find that odd either."

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

You're obviously not used to embedded devices with far more limited resources than the average laptop. Remember, the N800 has only 128MB of RAM (more if you use virtual memory) and the CPU probably isn't even as fast as a Pentium 3. So yeah... your laptop will pull up the full file list in a snap and yes, apps take a few seconds to launch. This is expected. Again, it's the tradeoff you make when you decide that a laptop is far too big for you and it's a tradeoff I happily make. Perhaps you would have been better off just sticking to laptops as your expectations are WAY too high.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Seriously, why do you persist in comparing apples to oranges? The internet tablet isn't positioned against laptop PCs, or even smartphones or UMPCs for that matter, but it would still make more sense if you were to compare against those two categories as they hold much more in common where hardware performance is concerned. And as someone mentioned earlier, not only would heavier duty hardware wreak havoc on battery life, but it would put the price point way out of reach for a lot of people.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

It is however fairly convenient to be the best tablet in its class, by not having a competitor in its class..

Thats why apples and oranges comparisons need to be made. Compare to PDAs, n800 is faster. Compared to laptops, it is slower...I get it.

But my question was, can it be sped up? Judging by the lack of direct response on hardware (with the exception of ZeroJay), nothing can be done on the hard ware side. What about software? Are there attempts by people to make the apps run faster, and not just with more features?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Having worked on internet tablets since 2004 I was initially interested by this thread, hoping to find some useful comments by the users of my daily work (which i consider a privilege, not many jobs give the same opportunity) but by the time i got through half of the thread i got extremely disappointed. I'm a casual reader of this website, but unfortunately, be it poor choice or bad luck, most of the times i end up in useless debates. Considering that many of the people writing on this thread are Senior Members, I would have expected something more.
Probably I'll be better sticking to the maemo.org

Pity.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

<snip>

Searching the internet for pages to prove an assertion never works well anyway, since you can find pages about anything, e.g. "water is poisonous" gets 12,000 hits on google. Even "water is made of metal" gets two hits!

N800 toy gets 307,000 results, but n800 cheese manages to get 140,000, so what is being proved, exactly?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Maybe there's something in the internettabletalk.com bylaws stating you must never defame or criticize the N800?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

For some the N800 is slow...

For others the N800 is fast...

No one really cares what someone earns...

Stop playing the "Mines Bigger Than Yours" game...

Get over yourselves and move on...

And Liam, you were bashing...

Nuf said...

Omega

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

critccritcism is always welcome. But there is no point in comparing with a laptop and
criticising then800. The lack of competitors in this price range itself is a great tribute to
the worth of the n800. Give me one other gadget in this price range which does not
have a competitor. It just shows how far ahead nokia is thinking and working in
comparision to the other hardware makers. Kudos to nokia for such an affordable
portable deviceism is always welcome. But there is no point in comparing with a laptop and criticising then800. The lack of competitors in this price range itself is a great tribute to the worth of the n800. Give me one other gadget in this price range which does not have a competitor. It just shows how far ahead nokia is thinking and working in comparision to the other hardware makers. Kudos to nokia for such an affordable portable device

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

True, but is it Nokia's fault they were first to the market with this concept? Perhaps others will appear in the future and this discussion can take on a perspective from a more even playing field.

Fair enough. And I can't answer your last question, but I have to believe that it would almost be unreasonable to think that there aren't devs out there right now trying to find ways to optimize performance on the platform. Only time will tell and I guess we will see when Chinook is eventually released into the wild.

igor - I do agree that a lot of times these things degenerate into useless debates (and believe me, I've been in my share of them having been a Linux and Mac user for many years) and are generally unproductive. Most usually take on the futility of trying to fill up the Grand Canyon by throwing one brick at a time into it. But hopefully they eventually settle into a measured and constructive debate. I'm still holding out hope for this one.

Criticism can be constructive and I generally have no issues with it as long as it is valid. But defamation (read: unfairly judging a product's merits against those of other platforms against which it was never meant to compete) is where I (and others as well, I suspect) begin to have a problem.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I took my underpowered toy (:D) downstairs to a meeting a little while ago because I didn't want or need to lug my laptop. I was asked to perform some configuration work on a corporate database and the N800 performs that task very well... even quickly. At the same time I was able to access my corporate email using the Outlook Web Client and a custom VPN tool. I could also instant message colleagues if I needed to using the sametime protocol on Pidgin.

Is this how everyone will use theirs? Nope. But the possibility is there for that and more thanks to the openness of the device. Could the N800 use some improving? Oh hell yeah. I still don't get what's going on (or not going on) with the webcam, which is as close as you can get to a useless appendage without actually being one. Do I think that improvement is in the works? Of course. And that's arrived at without the benefit of inside info. ;)

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Simple.

The Power of Cheese. :) nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna, nunna...

For 10,000 years man thought the moon was made of cheese. In 1969 we went there and proved it wasn't... we haven't been back since. :eek:


***

When I first got my N800 I compared it to a lot of things (mostly to justify the cost) I never was able to so in fairness to the OP, in my case it was an expensive toy.

What it does have over PDA's is speed, persistent storage, and battery life.

Now back to the toy thing...

When I first saw the potential for WiFi's spontaneous, portable, remote net connections 2 or 3 years ago I went out and bought the best hardware/software I could find. An iPAQ 4150 with BT and WiFi and paid close to $500 for the thing.

Talk about disappointment. Yeeeesh, the browser was crippled by MS so that it would only load their favorites easily and then it directed you to some pocket PC site that promised you great content (for a subscription fee of coarse), it couldn't load WAP pages, and JAVA script wasn't even a consideration.

It did have a PIM and MS apps however, if I wanted to sync the content with my desktop apps I needed to convert it. This sometimes required costly third party apps. After about 6 months of tweaking and another $100 in apps I had something worth carting around with me.

That is until the battery went dead...

Now everything had to be reloaded, re-tweaked, and in some cases re-registered with the software house before the app would work again. (Silly me. I used my middle initial for the owners info the second time and didn't know this change would affect the hash used to generate some licenses.)

In any event the experience was so painful that I was afraid to use the thing away from the charger for very long. This made the thing less than even a toy so for 2 years it sat and I didn't use it.

Then came the N800, woo hoo! As a toy I take it everywhere. Because of battery life when I do find a connection I have the time to configure it and download or search, load, and view what I need. Because of persistent storage I no longer have to worry about how far from a charger I am... I never get the dreaded message.

...and as far as speed goes it is a hell of a lot quicker than walking to the library, searching a catalog, selecting a book and finding the page that contains the information I need. :)

Some dude once said speed is relative or some such.

So is comparing the N800 to anything else out there.

BTW, my first home computer was a toy by my definition. I didn't need it for work because no one had them. Most couldn't imagine at the time what use would come of it...

I'm thinkin' the same goes for the IT's.

...things change. :)

Also... Because I have the N800 for what I bought the iPAQ for I now use the iPAQ more!
I loaded a navigator program to it, bought another BT GPS receiver (after seeing what Navicore could do on the N800), and have relegated it to my work vehicle where I can keep it on charge.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I'm sorry for replying only to this part of your message and taking it out of context, but N800 processor is capable of running at 400MHz, http://www.mail-archive.com/maemo-de.../msg10622.html

Maybe we will get this speedup in one of the next firmware updates :)

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

How long do the updates take to come out ?

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I don't really post that much on this forum but I do read it a lot and I was blown away by responses people said about the Internet speed. Maybe my N800 is just super-powered or something but I have never had to wait over 2 seconds for a page to load (unless its a page with a video on it or lot and lots of moving graphics / .gif images) and most the time I am connected through a cellphone that is not capable of 3g. Not to sure if people are exaggerating their load times or not but I would have to say mine just about matches my desktop when connected to any legitimate wifi network that has a good signal, and when connected to a cellphone it lags behind my desktop by about 1 to 1.5 seconds which isn't much considering that I can get the Internet wherever I am as long as I am within the At&t Network or another network it can roam on that already has Internet settings on my phone like T-mobile. And I am using the default browser that came with the newly updated Firmware.

I don't have too many complaints on my end, and the only ones I have are about certain software that I would not have even expected to run on this when I bought it like emulation speeds and such. I think its a great little device and I use it as my daily laptop. I do not carry around any other laptop anymore because this thing has bettered all of my old ones even my UMPC (which I should have never bought) And to top it all off I get 7+ hours of battery life on it which outlives almost any laptop to my knowledge (unless you get some sort of extended battery). Maybe some of you just need to update to the new firmware (which I also don't seem to be having any of the problems other people had with it in the other forum?)

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Here's an interesting comparison of recent mobile devices (Pepper Pad 3, Archos 704 WiFi, Sony mylo, Apple iPhone, Nokia N800, and Archos 604 WiFi.) on their web browsing performances:

http://www.pocketables.net/2007/08/review-website-.html

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Nice link. The N800 had a very decent showing in that comparison. It's especially interesting to see how well the devices stacked up against two "high powered" full on UMPCs. I also found this quote from the reviewer quite notable:

"The Pepper Pad 3 is the only x86-based device of the bunch, which is why it performed the best, so it's technically out of place.Regardless, although there was the occasional oddball variation in loading time, the processors actually made less of a difference than I expected."

Interesting. Have to wonder which variables made the difference on each device considering that the N800 was near the bottom as far as processor speed goes.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I think your n800 is definitely superpowered as the link provided by Yss shows that while the n800 does better than some of the competition, the only time its actually loads a website below 10 seconds in for Google news, which barely has any thing on it (text with some very small pics). For most websites as per the tester, >15 secs is the norm for the n800. Please refer to the quotation below per Yss's post

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

He tested a few sites. That's far from "most" sites. Also notice that on those sites, the N800 outperformed almost everything else. So ***** and complain about the N800 if you choose, but unless you want to carry around a clunky laptop or UMPC, you've got nothing better.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I don't think the link I posted claim to provide high accuracy data of the comparison, and moreover I can't seem to find any reference of what type of broadband connection do they use in that test. Knowing what kind of speed his desktop\notebook are getting from that connection would be useful too.

Anyway, I personally think the N800 is a very fine mobile device that seems to be in a class of its own as of now (price:size:weight:capability). I don't do heavy browsing on it, but when I do browse it exceeds my expectation for a mobile device. My mobile device list spans from the original Palm Pilot, to CLIEs to the latest Treo, pre-linux Zaurus up to a few of the latest linux Zaurus, the first PocketPC ipaq to HTC universal, WinCE based hp Jornada, and a few other things... Does having tried these many devices make me more forgiving of the mobile platform capabilities? I don't think so. Although it forces me to understand the limitations of the form factor:capability better, it also enables me to recognize a noticeably positive jump in the evolution of the mobile device.

Everyone who has seen my N800 wants one. They immediately think of 'laptop replacement for traveling'. These are people who use Treos and Nokia E90s daily. But I don't think they would be happy if they buy an N800 and try it themselves. Why? Because the N800, out of the box, does not have a very appealing software and functionailities preinstalled and preconfigured.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Again: that's not an absolute. My load times have varied, even on the same page with no changing content, depending on my wifi environment. I've been at hotels where the loads were so slow I wanted to scream. But here at home, yeah, my toy is definitely superpowered. Not too shabby at work either. 10 to 15 second load times? Pish. Not. More like 2 to 5. ;)

Oh, and nice posts, ysss. You have a way with words.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I have owned a Palm Tungsten for 4 years or so, the case is falling to bits, the second battery is on it's last legs and the screen is well scuffed.

The included software for browsing and reading docs is fine, the PIM is excellent.

I have a 2GB sd card with some music, it gets probably 2-3 hours use daily, I can SMS and control my Mythtv box with it over BT - it's great.

I had been looking at the N800 for about 6 months, delaying a purchase cos it seemed too expensive compared with replacing it with a Palm TX.

Eventually when Expansys started selling off N770 at £80 I took the plunge.

I have to say that the comparison with the Palm Tungsten is unfair, Palm's have been around for a log time so there is far more sw available.

I do like the way you ( sorry I must not speak for YOU ) I am long sighted, so being able to quickly resize text is great. What else is there ?

There are some pretty poor design features on the N770, such as :-

having the wire connectors on the long edge, so I cannot plug in my headphones and pop N770 in my pocket

no 5v out in/out on the usb port

no hot sync

kludgy Opera web browser - no where near as easy to use as the Palm one

Poor battery life if you forget to switch off Bluetooth and Wifi

Whilst Skype would be "nice", where would I use it ? not in my office - we like our network security -I can make free calls anyway, not on the train, not in my car, yep I could use it in my house, but I have 2 PCs there so why should I ?

So I would sum up and say that I feel I got a good deal at £80, but is the N800 at £250 a good piece of kit - not at the moment. Give me a decent PIM with syncing capability,a cut down version of OpenOffice and I would say we have a class leading device

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Yet more people that think the N800 is a PDA.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Flyinghigh never said that the n800 is a PDA. He said that if it had PIM capabilities, the n800 would rock his world for the price.
The n800 is not a PDA, so he's not purchasing it at the moment until it or a future version does.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

My first computer was a toy...did anyone here buy a Commodore VIC 20? I did, and I was thrilled with it! But then, I can also remember punch cards. Now, I don't have one handy but I'll bet the N800 is smaller than one of those cards and well, not the same thing as the toy I bought back in 1984!

I use my 'toy' every day at work, pulling out my tablet quietly and unobrtusively getting back to work in the few minutes I have before the meeting actually starts as my colleagues struggle with their laptops. Usually I'll have answered an email and logged in to resume a chat with someone I 'left' at my desk, all minutes before the folks around me have enjoyed the lovely Microsoft melody from the creaking behemoths aligned on the tables before them.

Ok I exaggerate but you know where I'm going. The N800 is the tool (andf toy) I've been looking for since I wasn't looking! And just think, it is going to get better!

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

You know, i've had the same thing happen with my iBook... While other college students are booting up their windows computers, I just open my mac up and start working. I have my 770 on the way and im sure that it'll be even faster of a "reconnecting" with the WWW than with my mac. In other words, I'm excited.

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

I use a Mac the majority of the time and just recently got my N800. Two indispensible apps I have found to use in conjuction with the Mac OS are the OS X version of Media Converter for video files and SyncTunes for syncing music from my iTunes playlists to my tablet. Both apps are free and you will thank yourself for downloading them after you have your 770 in hand. Here are the links:

Media Converter: http://mediaconverter.garage.maemo.o...Converter.html
SyncTunes: http://www.nesfield.co.uk/synctunes/

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

So you've decided to judge the entire Nokia internet tablet line based off of a tablet you bought that you weren't even looking for in the first place?
Hey buddy, you get what you pay for and I think that at 80 quid you got one hell of a device.
Obviously you've never bothered to search to the PalmOS emulator that runs just fine - and quick - on the N800. Then you can have your proverbial PalmOS "cake" and eat it too.
And for the record, Palm hasn't really brought anything new to the table since 2002 and the Foleo will probably wind up sinking the company.
Can you compile code directly on a Palm device? You can on the N770 or N800.

p.s. I also had a Vic-20 w/a 300-baud modem and a Compuserve account!

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Ibooks? VIC-20s? Punch cards?

You dagganit youngsters, what's wrong with good ole' slate, a chisel and a mallet? Heck, if 'twere good enough for granpah Erectus, it be good enough for you lahdidad sapiens, daggit!

Now where did I park that apatosaur again...

Re: N800 as an underpowered toy
 

Yes, on Palm you can do it as well. There is OnBoardC suite, quite nice thing. I know one brave guy who developed several full-fledged strategy games with it.