Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

*I was up in the air as to if I should put this in "general" or "competitors" so if I made the wrong decision, feel free to move this*

So I own a 2nd gen touch but I need to know if the move is right for me. I use my ipod primarily for internet browsing and from what I understand, the n810 should be better (faster) for that. Anything past internet browsing on the touch and you are cutting down to under two hours of battery life, which can truly suck (I've taken to bringing my gba with me on the go now). I've jailbroken my ipod and while that brings some extra functionality, it's still pretty limited. I am tired right now from looking up info on the n810 (I HATE finding new and exciting devices in my price range) so I'll just throw out a list and number questions as they come out

Things I don't like about the ipod touch:
itunes
restricted official 3rd party development
somewhat immature unofficial 3rd party development
official sdk uses objective c and unofficial ones aren't mature
crap battery life when doing things beyond web browsing (great battery life while listening to music, I'll give it that)
no true multitasking (backgrounder can be very unreliable)
non-replaceable battery
non-replaceable memory
thin range of codec support
target of thieves(actually have been mugged over one)

Things that entice me about the n810:
GPS
higher resolution
faster web browsing (?)
Not owned by 1 in 5 people my age
pidgin! (1. do plugins work? Can I get it working with facebook?)
multitasking (2. How much of a hit would I experience say listening to pandora in an internet browser with pidgin while doing some light browsing? How about with just pidgin and pandora?)
Full linux distributions! (3. I read through the thread about the most recent attempts at getting Jaunty working and while someone posted a video of KDE 4 being slow, no mention of a basic Gnome or even xfce. What can I expect?)
Micro SD cards! (with adapter)
Replaceable batteries (4. what can I expect from the masses of 5 dollar batteries on ebay?)
Bluetooth - yes I know 3.0 will allegedly allow 2nd gen touch owners to use it (5. sync-able with a dumb-phone? Can I transfer pictures to a n810 from my phone?)
I can develop for it (6. How hard is it to? I've made some small things for the DS but never took off due to sdk unreliability.)
con - no video output :(

General Questions
7. How long can I expect to wait for a GPS lock? (This is coming from someone who owns a gps which on a good day finds its position in 10 minutes) I'm still not 100% on how GPS works on the n810, can maps be stored on the device or do I need to be next to a wifi hotspot each time I change my destination? Are turn by turn directions supported (outside of the 130 dollar app)?
8. How matured are emulators for the device? (Save states, 2 player, full speed, etc)
9. Is the community dieing? Will full linux distro support save it? What is the likely hood of n810 users being able to upgrade to n900 software to keep with the community?
10. Wardiving is a no-go, correct? (oh who am I kidding: closed source wifi drivers = no WEP cracking, right?)
10.5 Wifi strength? better/ worse then an ipod touch?
11. Where could I feasibly go to a store to try one out?

Now I feel awful bombarding all of you with these questions, so as an owner of an ipod touch for over half a year I'm sure there are some questions I can answer to help those on the same fence looking the opposite direction; feel free to ask away. edit - (although videos of the ipod touch are much easier to come by)

Also, I've noticed the lack of good comparisons out there (Especially in the video department), if someone wanted to lend me (a total stranger :P - in the US) one, I would happily spend a day or two learning the software so that I can attempt at making a fair comparison video review -I do not work for nokia-.

Edit: Should probably add that this is to fill the niche between pen/paper and my netbook, a pocketable internet browser with a dictionary

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Ok...
7(?) The GPS in the N810 varies between sucky and downright useless, and the general consensus is that you are better off with a £20 bluetooth one off amazon or something. I use one with my N800, and it's brilliant. It depends on the mapping program as to storage - maemomapper requires you to either download on the go or download the maps for where you want to be before you get there (they are large as they are based off google maps etc) and you need to download routes, but the built in mapping program downloads full maps and shows you where you are, though you have to have a license for route planning.
8) Emulators? If you mean gameboy etc, I use the gameboy pocket one and it hasn't crashed on me once. Seriously. I thought it did, but it turned out I was mashing the back button by accident when I got to an exciting bit in Mario, which is the quit button. Garnet, the Palm emulator, has some mixed reviews - it's good for some things but not all.
9) Community seems good, but that's not really for me to judge. Chances are high that Fremantle (next Maemo) will run on N800/N810s in some form (both units share the same internals, with the N800 having 2x full size SD slots and the N810 having a keyboard and 1 micro-sd slot. You can quite happily run full distros on it. I run emulated debian on mine (called Turbo-Easy-Debian) and can happily use Openoffice and the Gimp if I have to. Android is also rapidly maturing on the device.
10) Wardriving works after a fashion - you can passively break WEP, but no active injection attacks. You need some linux system familiarity for this one, because it requires the command line. Try looking up Kismet and aircrack-ng.
10.5) Wifi strength is a major plus on my N800 - it's better than my laptop.
11) No idea, UK. You can however download the Maemo SDK (scratchbox) and run it in there on your PC (linux required methinks).

Video support is brilliant once Mplayer in install, playing probably any codec you can think of and then some. I use Knots, which allows me to stream videos to the N800 over my network from a media PC downstairs, and it works brilliantly - I can even watch Blackadder DVD isos.
This thing is effectively a small form-factor netbook without a proper keyboard. A bluetooth or USB keyboard (and a bit of squinting) and it's perfectly usable for 99% of tasks. It's unfair to compare it to the ipod, which is an embedded device designed to do a few tasks and do them well. It's in a different league in terms of functionality.
I would however consider getting an N800 instead of N810. You can use the money saved to get a keyboard and bluetooth GPS (which you'll probably need anyway) and you can expand the storage space to 32GB (2x SD cards).

Hope this helps, I've had mine since christmas and couldn't do without it, was considering a netbook but went for this instead for £100. Haven't wanted a netbook since.
(I have fairly good experience with Iphones/touchs and they are good but only for the limited number of tasks they are designed for. I'm also fairly linux experienced - if you get an N8~ it helps when doing some of the seriously advanced stuff this thing was never designed for (wardriving, running web servers, repeatedly rebooting housemate's Ipod touch via SSH), but is by no means a requirement. It's just there if you want it).

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

7) GPS works fine in my N810. It takes between 20 and 60 seconds to get a lock while I am driving at 100 km/h. I have A-GPS installed and I think it helps.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

7) I second notnarb here, GPS works fine in my N810 these days. Not have those nightmares people describe

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Sorry, my bad on the gps! Bit out of date, nice to know its improved!

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

If price isn't a huge issue (think ~$500 instead of ~$220 for the N810), I'd recommend waiting for the new tablets as both the N810 and the iPod Touch are really out of date at this point.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

There is 3rd party GPS available for iPod touch, rendering you similar application as Maemo Mapper. You can also wait for BlueTooth and use 3rd party GPS over BlueTooth. The N8x0 GPS is crap in my experience, but using the one from phone (exported with ExtGPS) works fine. You can wardrive with 3rd party WiFi USB or use your laptop to crack the WEP. Pidgin works on N8x0, Nimbuzz works on iPod touch. You can download (Google) maps and save them on both devices, you can do this live over 3G etc as well.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

@allnameswereout
Just curious: have you used your N810 gps with A-GPS (or AGPS) installed?

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Yeah, I tried tons of things to fix it including removing certain files from /var and clean firmware. It remains just as **** (long time to get lock, and losing the lock) maybe a little bit better to get lock initially; still takes various minutes if I can get one at all. I think some GPS chips in N810 are just b0rked.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

2. multitasking is fine, as long as you don't use too much memory (if you do swapping will stop the device to a crawl)
3. linux distributions: I use easydebian and it works great, only problem is that those distros are not adapted to tiny touchscreens. Mer, on the other hand, is.
4. forget about ultracheap ebay batteries, you'll get what wou pay for. mugen batteries are cheap enough and have been reported to work fine.
5. bluetooth works fine for whatever you want to use it.
6. developing is quite easy if you use python. Of course, you can use almost whatever you want (c, c++, vala...)
7. How long can I expect to wait for a GPS lock? (This is coming from someone who owns a gps which on a good day finds its position in 10 minutes)
[/quote]
Usually 1-3 min once agps is installed. Some people do not get this results, but I think their device is faulty.
Maps are stored in the device, even with maemo mapper (you have to download them, though)
Turn by turn directions are supported by navit (but you may not find good maps for navit)
That depends on what you want to emulate, the device is not very powerful so you can't emulate fast machines. Those which I've tested worked nicely.
The community is the best thing about these devices.
promiscuous mode works fine, no packet injection. A free driver is in the works, but it is alpha quality and development seems to have stagnated last couple of months.
No idea, don't have an ipod touch.
No idea, try a Nokia store. I bought mine in ebay.
About battery life, it is 7 hours playing music/video. Playing streamed music it is down to 3 hours. Playing streamed video, down to 2 hours.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

You seem like the kind of person who will enjoy the N810. But you might want to wait a few months for a new device...

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

I think some of what you're being told on the Mapping programs is not quite right, like the (probably unintended) implication that Maemo Mapper doesn't provide turn-by-turn directions. (It does, but you have to download the route ahead-of-time -- it can't do it on the fly and it can't correct for detours or wrong turns. OTOH, it has certain advantages over a typical stand-alone GPS. E.g., you can download maps for free for anywhere in the world. If you're a traveler, that's really cool. Or, you can be on the street and superimpose a satellite photo map over your street map. Etc.) So I would say, see this How-To if you really want to know about Maemo Mapper navigation. For other mapping programs, see the Wiki, which might answer other questions you have, too.

I agree that you sound like a Tablet kinda guy. As for new versus old, you can pick up an N800 or N810 cheaply now on eBay and, if you want to jump on the new device when it comes out, you'll probably be able to re-sell the old one without suffering too steep a loss.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Unfortunately for the time being i'm close to broke, I would be essentially trading in my touch and like 30 dollars. If the n900 seems awesome enough I can always just resell the n810 and sell my netbook and I will have acquired a little more disposable income by then.

The two towns which I am going to frequent regularly are both covered well by openstreetmaps, so I should be good, right?

I probably would if I wasn't intending on taking it everywhere with me, making size a big issue

edit:
haha, we had the same thought on the issue, I didn't catch your post when originally writing my response

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Hate to say this because the screen on 810 is simply beautiful... but that's it, unless you have pretty good linux knowlege (don't know if i spelled that right) it's gonna be a pain for you. I just got both nokia 770 and 810 (i own an ipod touch too) and all i can tell besides the beautiful screen and long-lasting battery is really inmature software and a slower device when compared to the ipod touch.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

I agree to a certain extent (well minus the pretty good Linux knowledge). If your willing to learn somewhat (or at least willing to read and follow instructions) then the device can do alot. Most of the software isn't really made easy for the user, having the user have to add extras to their list of repositories is already a step to much for most people.

But otherwise the device's hardware has gotten quite dated so it's no surprise it's slower when compared to the iPod Touch. If we were to compare the next Maemo device to the iPhone / iPod Touch it'd be more interesting. Though then you could argue that it's unfair for the iPod touch since the hardware might be in favor for the Maemo device.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

i thought that extras was available, but disabled, by default these days.

also, adding something from tabletter or maemo.org will bring in extras anyways.

the buggest problem imo is that app manager do not inform the user of new software that the user do not already have a version of installed.

nor do the software section of maemo.org list everything available...

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

You are right, i didnt' realize at this point how old are the nokia tablets compared the ipod touch (by the way, somewhere i read that the n810 has a powervr chip somewehat similar to the one found in the ipod touch but in the initial os release didnt have any driver to take advantage of it when it was released... is there a driver now?)

If adding repositories and choosing applications was the only thing i needed to do i would have declared the 810 the ultimate winner over the ipod. Most of the time i have spent with my tablet so far have been looking for information in the forums or google-searching about setting up this toy.

I might sound frustraded right now ... maybe because i spent the day fighting with the device, but don't think it's a waste, come think of it ... it's an INTERNET TABLET and:

1) browsing the web in such a screen is awesome

2) the battery lasting time is mind-blowing (bought my device in a ebay-type site so it's not new and still i cant believe i can stay for hours browsing the web and watch the battery metter still over 75% XDDD)

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

the N810 is basically the N800 with a keyboard and GPS chip...

and i think the N800 had been on market a while when apple launched the original iphone and ipod touch (basically a iphone without the GSM radio).

as for the powervr chip, no drivers available, and unlikely there will be...

edit:
got to love wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Touch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N800
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N810

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

now that's strange. what would you have to set up (besides your mail accounts), what information would you need to google for... if you only plan to use the device? (=surf, mail, rss, internet radio, chat,...)

i know there's situations when you need to dig deep, deep down and turn the whole Maemo thingie upside down in order to get things to work. but these things are hacks in the first place, so the frustration about them being difficult shouldn't outweigh the joy about the fact that they're possible at all.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

The ipod is a thing that does just a few things Steve wants it to do.
The N8x0 are things that do (almost) anything you want them to do.
And that, my little grasshopper, is the difference.
About software inmaturity... I find openoffice.org quite mature :P
Tonge in cheek jokes appart, some software is very mature, and some is not, it depends on what you need to do.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

I would definitely find some way to try one out before purchasing and dumping the touch, because everyone has their opinion and you might love it or hate it. I liked my n810 overall, because it was a fun piece of technology to hack around on. I had issues though that eventually caused me to end up with an iphone...

1) Music player options: They were varied and functional...even nice. But I found them slow, especially on startup.
2) Video streaming: I was streaming from TVersity...rencoding on the fly. It worked well enough if you started it and let it go, but if I paused more than a couple of times it would end up crapping out. This was both with the build in player and MediaStreamer. Then I couldn't resume where I left off since it wouldn't seek in the streams. I tried to just play off a share with mplayer and a big buffer, but that didn't work either because...
3)...the wireless performace was not up to snuff. I've read it's a driver issue put in place to conserve power...but wireless transfers were slow. USB didn't work correctly for me(probably because of the way I had formatted my cards), so to transfer any large files to the device, I would have to just start it an leave it to transfer while I was away...
4) To me the web browsing experience was lackluster. The screen is beautiful, no denying that. But the microB browser has to load the entire page before you can begin using it. The webkit replacements work better, but (again just my opinion) do not offer a better experience than iphone Safari...even with the larger screen.
5) Gaming: Do not buy this device if gaming is a priority for you...at least in regards to emulators. IMO, they are not in a playable state(at least with sound). Controls are an obvious issue also. However, if you are a fan of ScummVm, you will find yourself in heaven as it does Scumm very well. Numpty physics is also awesome and I miss having a portable Wesnoth very, very much.

Okay, I feel like that list became way too negative as I really do like the device, but for me the iphone was a better fit. The hardware keyboard was very nice as you could keep the entire screen in view as you were typing, great for xterm and note taking. I find I can actually type faster on the iphone keyboard with it's predictive keysizing and error correction(when it gets it right). Compared to the touch, the ability to tether to your cell phone is very nice. Battery life is a tossup for me...but I'm actually averaging 5-6 hours with my iphone in regular usage(net, streaming video, music...uh and as a phone occasionally :D), which is about the same as I saw with the tablet. I really like the OSS nature of the tablet and the singular community, there's a really good group of folks here.

Anyway, just another set of opinions...again try to get your hands on one before making a decision...

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

They both have their positive and negative sides.

There are a lot of things you can (easily) do with the iPod touch, and some things are pretty hard to set up. The out of box experience is quite good if you ask me; ie. you can immediately use the browser, e-mail, music, and so on.

On the tablet you'd have to install something like Tear.

My preference for mobile browsers is, for now: S60browser (build-in RSS reader and quick, easily to do some simple browsing), MobileSafari (complete control over experience). The NIT browsers all require stylus or are buggy (Fennec).

Which brings me to another point. The way you use the devices is different. For example, one device is meant to be used only by fingers while the other device is used by hardware keyboard and stylus.

If I read the first post by topic starter I conclude that he/she likes stylus (does not prefer finger), likes to fiddle around with the hardware and software, and doesn't mind to modify a lot, so the out of box experience is less important while ability to modify the device is important. Software wise, after jailbreak a lot is possible on the iPod touch, but hardware wise far less compared to tablet. Still, they both have their issues: lack of BlueTooth (iPod touch), lack of hardware 2D/3D rendering (tablet), and so on, and so on. If you can get a good deal right now it might be good choice to buy either one of these. Or wait till new revisions of both hardware are coming out this summer and autumn. The old devices will be cheaper then.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

sounds like a potential access point/router with a power save issue. potential fix is to tap the wifi icon -> connnectivity settings -> connections -> name of AP -> edit -> next -> next -> next -> advanced -> other tab -> and set the power saving option other either on (intermediate) or off.

or install wifiinfo, connect to AP, fire up wifiinfo and tap the off button next to power saving. this however will only last until disconnected.

as for USB, i think its only 1.1 or something.

i found that for large file transfers i got a cheap card reader that have a slot in one end and a usb port in the other, just insert card and then insert reader.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

1) dont plan to use it as a dedicated media player, maybe in-car.
4) this is what really concerns me, is the web browser really that bad? Even disabling java / flash?

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Gotta admit what nokia promised was working out of the box (web browsing, mail accounting, google talk and 'simple' media capabilities), maybe the fact that the device runs linux and to know that it can virtually do anything we want it to do (with the obvious hardware-power limitations) made me want to take it to the limit =P

Too bad no driver for the powervr chip is aviable, that could give the tablet a huge boost... bad nokia *pokes nokia* :D

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

just liket codertimt said, try to get your hands on the device first, we all may have diferent opinions based on how we use the device and how we compare it with our previous tiny-shiny-gadgets.

and browsing isnt 'that' bad, actually you will find most sites load fast enough (usually limited only by your internet connetion speed) and even the most loaded ones won't have a problem at all.

one thing i think you will love about the nokia tablets is the fact that they don't depend on your main pc (like the ipod touch, itunes and the media library sync-ing)

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

It's really not very good. There is no kinetic panning, zooming in and out is not the smoothest experience, it can be slow, etc. The worst part IMO is that often it will not pan if you drag over the website but select text instead (this happens e.g. on CNN.com).

On the upside, there are replacement browsers you can install, and from what I hear, they are not so bad... Still, Safari probably has better usability.

You do sound like someone who could enjoy the tablet, but switching from an iPod touch might be a shock. Imagine going from Mac OS X to Windows 95, something like that. You may have more power on the hardware and more capabilities, but the out of the box experience won't be nearly as pleasant.

The new device will be considerably different though in some ways, so if you like the idea of the tablets as they are, it might be a good idea to get one now to get a better idea of whether you will like the new device or not.

If you are only interested in a truly polished user experience, I would recommend to wait for the new device and then base your decision on what you learn about it.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

never understood the apparent "need" for kinetic interfaces. so far i have only ended up with runaway scrolling and accidental link taps when trying to stop said runaway page on any browser i have tried with said feature.

maybe the apple interface is smarter by ignoring links unless the page is stationary or something, dont know, and do not feel like getting a device just to find out...

so far for me, kinetic interface systems have been to much of a fad and not that useful...

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

There is no need, it's just more comfortable (if properly implemented, that much should go without saying).

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

i cant see the comfort in it...

sure, scrolling a long page by hand gets tiresome, but thats what the dpad is for, imo ;)

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

kinetic scrolling is an absolute need for a device with a touchscreen the size of NIT/ipod/iphone.
This I tell you, when the first time I've used kinetic scrolling is in microb webkit addon and tear.
The problem you have (and so do I), is an implementation "bug" in tear (remember myself to file a bug), link action should only happen after confirming there wasn't a drag action.

About the dpad, it is unusable in the n810 (damned designers playing games with keyboard alignment)

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

ah yes, i keep forgetting about them moving that dpad. another reason to hang on to my N800 ;)

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

I perceive kinetic scrolling as a sort of page-up/page-down. Some people don't use PgUp/PgDn, others do it all the time. Same for kinetic scrolling. From a usability standpoint I would prefer drag-zooming (<shameless plug>like in pyqtoreader</shameless plug>), but hey, kinetic looks cool, and if it's cool it must be good.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

ah, yes, the rule of cool. that somehow explains the whole concept of apples marketing...

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

in fact: that's what a scrollbar is for. no matter how long a page is, you'll always get to any part of it with one single gesture in no time. no holding down the d-pad forever, no kinetic scrolling... again... again... still not there....ooops! too far.

it's efficient. that's even better than "cool". ;)

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

It is not cool, it is ergonomic. Kinetic makes very easy and efficient to move through a page bigger than the screen, by using a very natural hand/wrist movement.
Methods like pushing buttons on those tiny devices force the fingers to adopt non natural positions or angles while applying force, which in turn causes tendon strain, and pain in the end.
Non kinetic scrolling with the stylus like microb is very suboptimal, since moving through a big page takes a very long number of strokes (and microb scrolling responsivity is far from good). It also implies some tendon stress, since those prolonged strokes are done with more strength than quick strokes, and more strength is required to grip the device.
Finally, kinetic scrolling allows more feedback because the user sees a continuous flow of the page, with a speed response similar to what is expected in the "physical" world (that is why it seems "cool")

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

Not a huge fan of Kinetic scrolling. Half the time (from using it in Tear, Canola, Mediabox, or my cousin's iPhone) I have trouble getting it to go where I want. It's useful for long movements, but for short movements I prefer a scrollbar. But the ones in Maemo are to small so I used a finger friendly theme which makes scrollbars bigger.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

It is cool. There is no need for the image to 'coast'. You could land at the extrapolated end position immediately, just as page up or page down does not need to animate the scroll. Kinetic, as in animated method of scrolling, is meant to be cool.

This is plain wrong. You cannot compare two specific implementations and draw conclusions about the physical interfaces in general. If it has a button, it must cause strain and if it's a stylus/finger it never does that ? Doesn't sound plausible to me at all.

Again, there are not just two ways of scrolling content. See pyqtoreader - it's faster and more precise than kinetic scrolling. Kinetic is just hero of the day, there are plenty other methods of scrolling (stylus based or other) that can replace it one day (given apple does a fancy implementation of them ;) )

Umm, and you cannot do continuous 'flow' scrolling with scrollbars, buttons, drag-zooms, or other methods ? I'm afraid I don't get it.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

That's nonsense. Without actually seeing what happens, it would be extremely hard to learn the amount of force required to land at the desired position. Moreover, regularly you have no idea where you want to scroll to, so you want to see the contents while they pass by. Last but not least, the animation allows you to stop the scrolling, when you see that you arrived at the desired position.

Like most animations in modern GUIs, the "wow factor" is merely a byproduct. Useless animations don't impress anybody anymore. But some people regard every animation as useless, and that's just plain wrong. Fortunately, not everybody is a UI designer. :)


Be that as it may, that doesn't change the fact that panning in the Diablo browser is not as ergonomic as kinetic panning. In a sense, kinetic panning is nothing but a refinement to normal page panning, as it gives you more options while still allowing you to "drag pan" only.

I can't install pyqtoreader right now, so that is not telling me anything. It would certainly be interesting to discuss alternative methods of scrolling, and especially which of them may be as universally useful and intuitive as kinetic panning.

Re: Ipod touch owner on the fence
 

No way. Kinetic is meant to be usable. With page up/down you move the page by big integer units, so the extrapolated end position may easily end too up or too down, then you'll have to scroll more (key up/key down) at constant speed to center the content. It is very easy not to get to the desired position if you don't know where it is, too, leading to repeated searches up and down.

You are wrong, but may be I haven't expressed myself clearly enough.
By buttons here, I mean physical buttons, as n810 keys/dpad/etc, where the size, position and stiffness of those buttons is of great importance. What is more, we are talking here in the context of some particular devices, so I'm not going all general. The case of the n810 is a clear example, trying to use its keyboard, given the way the device must be hold and the fingers posture over the keyboard, will cause trouble after a relatively short time.
The use of GUI "buttons" is a different matter, since the strength needed in a touchscreen is lower. Here prolonged postural issues may be more relevant, depending on how the device is/must be hold and if/how the stylus is/must be used, influenced by usability issues like GUI element size, device/GUI responsiveness, repetitivity, etc.
May be there aren't just two ways, but of those I actually could test in the NIT/ipod/iphone, kinetic is the better. That is not saying it is just alone the best, since for example in very large pages it is more efficient to use other GUI method for coarse positioning, for example moving a box over a zoom-out view, and then kinetic scrolling/drag for fine positioning.
So, if a more usable/ergonomic method replaces it, I'll welcome it.

Have I said that? I'm afraid not. What I said is a quite different thing, read the sentence as a whole.
About scrollbars, on a device like NITs/ipod/iphone it is imprecise and jerky (stylus positioning, long pages), takes screen real state, and element size and/or position may make them really difficult to use. GUI buttons have some of those issues too. Hard buttons, see issues about tendon strain.
About "drag-zooms" (drawing a box by clicking and then dragging the opposite vertex and zooming the box content), I fail to see how it relates to scrolling.

About your pyqtoreader, unfortunately I'm not able to install it (some issue with python-qt4-* package versions that apt-get doesn't like), so I cannot comment on the scrolling methods you have implemented.