The itT Nokia 770 First Impressions Thread
 

Now that more and more people have started receiving their Nokia 770, it might be a good time to share your first impressions!

Suggested Format:

Country:
Purchased From:
Purchase/Arrival Date:

Likes:

Dislikes:

Favorite apps:

Country: USA
Purchased From: CompUSA
Purchase/Arrival Date: Dec 4th

Likes:

• Hardware quality is top-notch and the size is just right (I carry it in my pants' pocket everyday)

• The screen is awesome

• The buttons are very functional and really enhance the browsing experience.

• Opera web browser

• Very easy to setup. The connection manager software is awesome.

Dislikes:

• Took a couple of hours of playing around with the device to really "get it". So it could be discouraging for non-technical users. But once you get it, you won't be able to live without it.

• UI response is a little bit slow.

• Loading heavy website like www.ign.com could crash the browser

• Websites with frames cause 770 to display "low memory" message

• It reboots itself sometimes while browsing

• Holding the device with one hand for a long period of time is not very good for your wrist.

Favorite apps: web browser

A few more ideas
 

I would add some other, optional categories:
- Discoveries -- unexpected operating shortcuts
- Tips -- any how-to's an even newer user than you should know about
- What you would add without increasing the price -- real wants, not wishes

Country: Germany
Purchased From: Nokia Online
Purchase/Arrival Date: Nov 4th/Dec 1st

Likes:

• Solid case and perfect design.

• The screen is awesome (have you heard this one before?)

• Linux based system: xterm in my pocket - yesss!

• Open source.

• It flawlessly plays my VDR recordings after converting with MediaConverter (A Big Thank You to Urho Konttori!)

• Nice games.

• Network setup is pretty easy.

Dislikes:

• Screen has awesome resolution but is very small. Take your credit card and you have a clue of the size.

• Give it more RAM!

• Reading PDF is not comfortable. If you choose a readable font the text is not centered. In full screen mode you can't page down only pan the current page.

Country: USA
Purchased From: CompUSA
Purchase/Arrival Date: (canceled web order from nov14) Dec 3, 2005/Dec 3, 2005

Likes:

1. Excellent screen
2. Good UI design
3. opera browser
4. Multitasking/IO are smooth
5. Connection manager works well.
6. Wifi RF sensitivity is much better than any other
handheld - it is actually comparable to some laptops.
7. easy porting of existing unix/linux apps
8. Good battery life
9. easy data entry - virtual key board auto activation and use are pretty slick
on the nice big screen.
10. excellent form factor and weight
11. build quality appears to be quite good


Dislikes:
1. email client is really slow and is missing several imap features.
Anyone used to a good mobile email program like snappermail,
will absolutely hate it.
2. 802.11g with WPA-PSK seems to be broken.
3. opera uses more memory than it should per page
4. device needs more ram for applications. Even another 32MB would
make a lot of difference.


Favorite apps:

1. PDF viewer
2. Opera
3. audio player

Country: US
Purchased From: CompUSA
Purchase/Arrival Date: 12/4/05

Overall I really love my new Nokia 770! The rough edges can be dealt with in software updates, so I'm not worrying.

Likes:

Linux!!! - When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!
Great form-factor
Excellent Screen
Super-long battery life (it's waaay more than 3 hours, folks)
Built-in WiFi and Bluetooth
Great user interface and applications, with more coming all the time

Dislikes:

Memory Problems

Opera runs out of RAM
Having to reboot from time to time as memory fills.

Bluetooth problems

Setting up a connection with my cell phone was cumbersome, and I still haven't gotten an Internetl connection this way yet.

Why isn't there a simple way to "put it to sleep" other than closing the cover?
Keys on the onscreen keyboard are pooly spaced/designed for fast input.

Favorite apps:

Opera
Video Player (I watch shows from my Myth PVR)
Marbles
GAIM v1.5-dk-1
load-plugin v 0.2.3-1

Wishlist:

A really good Jewelbox port (this is an old tetris-like game with jewels)

Check out my blog for a comparison with my old Linux PDA.

Country: Finland
Purchased From: Nokia Online
Purchase/Arrival Date: Nov 4th/Nov 9th

Likes:
- Opera browser (zoom + optimized view mode is really nice)
- Display
- Small & light (fits nicely to my pocket)
- Easy to use data connection with my 3G phone
- WLAN connectivity
- It's open source (you can basically have anything for this device)

Dislikes:
- Yep, it seems to lack memory (but you get used to it)
- RSS reader was a big disappointment (I prefer Bloglines.com)

Favorite apps:
- Opera Browser (still waiting for the mozilla browser though)
- Video player (convert videos with MediaConverter and enjoy)
- Doom (or course ;))

And I really can't wait to get the VoIP functionalities Nokia has promised for the next big OS upgrade.

Comp USA Dec. 6th (I was the first one of course)
California


Overall impression: Awesome first version. Had it connected wirelessly in 5 mintues and via my bluetooth cellphone/cingular in 15 minutes. Love it.

Needs significant improvement in processor speed and browser speed and stability. Really too slow. But I would buy it again in a second. Software update will correct some of this, some will require hardware upgrades in a version 2 product.

Still, there is nothing like it out there, and it fills a void that IMO has been vacant far too long.

I fully expect internet tablets to be the next big thing in portable devices.

A pleasant surprise, internet radio rocks!

Just bought mine in a store, tired of waiting for direct sales to send me mine though probably l was quite near the top of the queue(17/11). Costed more (20 euros) but I was getting tired of not knowing when I was getting it. So far so good, just some browsers errors. Written input not great, but I may be also responsile for that.
On a side note, I'm left handed, and I would appreciate having the browsers' vertical scrollbar on tthe left, that way I don't have to get to the other side of the screen to scroll pages.

Just got my 770! Here's what it can do, here's what it can't, yet.
 

I just got my nokia 770. Sharp graphics! I've installed a number of
apps, gotta have xterm! I didn't have luck with dropbear ssh, All I
want is the client to work. Has anyone had any luck? Also if mpeg2 format gets added to the video player that would be cool, if not maybe I'l work on getting mplayer over. I know what website not to hit with the web browser... don't go to www.atomicfilms.com... it's not going to work. But that's ok.... I can hit my ntop monitors for my network anda customers, no problem! I installed the maemo development kit on
my linux desktop, maybe I'll try porting over some of the zaurus programs that I have source to. All that needs to be done is convert the qte stuff over to maemo. That should not be too hard. I've got the pim installed.

Has anyone got vpn running yet?

hopefully I will have kismit installed and running soon.
The connection manager is pretty good at finding access points though.


telnet would be good to port over. I'm going to get that from my
zaurus source. it should be easy enough to run through xterm.

So what you can't do... you can't go to atomfilms or you will run out of memory and reboot. That's ok though... you can go to slashdot,
space.com, google, yahoo, and many other site. streamcast.com works great! The email client didn't like my large IMAP4 mailbox. No problem, I can hit my webmail client just fine. Now it's time to save up for a 1GB memory card!

Now it's time to write apps for this puppy!
:D

I received mine yesterday from Nokia USA (ordered online on November 15). I have barely had a chance to play around with it, but so far --

Likes:

• It feels sturdy, well-made ... not particularly attractive, but it feels like it might survive an accidental drop or two.
• The screen really is pretty nice... if you've got good eyes. The browser is capable of displaying truly tiny type legibly, if you're able to focus on it.
• The UI is, for the most part, very intuitive and usable.
• The included accessories seem just right ... pretty decent AC adapter, a USB cable, an extra stylus, and the handy stand (once you figure out what you're supposed to do to set it up).
• I installed XTerm and it was totally painless and easy. I'll get some more stuff on there later.

Dislikes:

• It does feel buggy. I've noticed various weird things, like the Shift key sticking when you try to enter text into Web forms. I had one apparent crash where the device rebooted itself, just from pushing one of the buttons while Web browsing. Presumably these things will go away over time, as new firmware releases emerge.
• Worst of all, the WiFi is buggy. The device can't connect to the WLAN at my work, even when I give it the WEP key. It gets on the network but fails to get a valid DHCP lease, even when I'm standing right next to the AP. Too early to say whether this could be fixed with firmware updates or it's a deficiency of the internal WiFi hardware.
• I didn't realize that there would be no way to get an IP address into the device other than using DHCP. This has not been talked about much, but presumably it makes this a device a non-starter for some people.
• It does feel a little sluggish, which sort of surprises me. I know there are PDAs out there with 600MHz CPUs, but it's baffling that they would need that kind of power. I remember owning a 200MHz Pentium Pro with 64MB of RAM, sometime around 1996. Why can't this machine run like that one?
• Text input really takes some getting used to. Picking at the onscreen keyboard isn't really my cup of tea, but the handwriting recognition is really more akin to Palm's Grafitti ... your normal writing will not work. You'll need to train yourself in new habits to accommodate what the 770 expects. Neither the keyboard nor the handwriting mode seems to be any faster than the other, unfortunately.

So far I'm pleased, and for the price I paid (something like $334, including tax and shipping) it seems like it's worth sticking with it to see the bugs get ironed out and new applications emerge. I'd love to see a CBR/CBZ reader for this thing, maybe with a drag-scrolling capability.

"I didn't realize that there would be no way to get an IP address into the device other than using DHCP. This has not been talked about much, but presumably it makes this a device a non-starter for some people."

You can specify an IP, it's just non-obvious:

Control Panel... Connectivity... Connections... <choose connection> & hit Edit... hit Next until you can hit the 'Advanced' button... second tab lets you specify IP & DNS.

Which AP are you using ? Which WEP encryption (I mean key length) ? Also, make sure that you entered the WEP key in HEX if your AP does so.

Country: Canada
Purchased From: CompUSA, Troy Michigan
Purchase/Arrival Date: 12-17-2005 / 12-17-2005

Likes:
- I can't even begin to adequately describe how crisp the screen is. Fonts 1/2 a millimeter tall are clear enough to read at arm's length.

- The sound is decent providing you're not in a loud area

- .DEB packages are a snap to install (So far so good on the control guys!)

- The protective case and overall design of the unit is great, very useable

- Charging time is excellent! A friend (who also bought one) and I braved a Krispy Kreme (yech!) and plugged in for 20 minutes - - the charge lasted the whole way back to Toronto (3 hours) with me scanning for networks every few minutes in between Mahjongg games.

Dislikes:
- With protective case in "in use" position, pressing the directional button left isn't unobstructed.

- WLAN seemed a little but flakey but it appears as though the device is holding onto APs that I had just scanned for 30 seconds previous even though they were nowhere near us (30 seconds at highway speeds = 2-3 Kilometers)

- 770 unable to see RSMMC card while connected to the PC (access violation prevention? Heh!) Same with the computer not being able to see the 770 or vice versa.

- Handwriting recognition. I'm a sloppy writer, seems like people with "mommy writing" would excel at using this. Not me.

- Virtual KB: People use the colon a lot. It shouldn't be on the CAPS alternate layout. (I got used to this in 3 seconds though.)

Favorite apps:
Thus far I've installed GAIM, Xterm, and LXDoom. All of them installed without a hitch. GAIM is a little bit buggy in that if I try to browse for a display pic, crash. I can hit the home button to minimize most of the other open windows but 2 GAIM ones stick around. Shutdown's the only option. Display pics aren't important anyway, MSN chat worked fine.

Comments:
This is my new favourite toy. I can't wait to slip the 770 into my pocket and use it every chance I get. Browsing is exactly what it should be on a handheld. (So far anyway).

After I finally got some hands on use, I really think people need to guage their expectations. This isn't a laptop. Nokia chose their terminology carefully when they dubbed it an internet appliance. Lying in bed and browsing, streaming the sole punk radio feed I've found (it's bad), and installing some new apps all while reclined is the niche this thing will fill.

So. Will they port Open Office to it? No. That's what your lappy's for.

I wish this review was more coherent, but I'm still awestruck at this little thing. The pictures do the actual size no justice. People have small hands it seems.

Cheers,
Hedge!

owa works great. even attaching files through outlook web access works as designed.

pairing with my nokia 6820 is flawless. wifi works great.

being a crackberry addict, i do miss a scrollwheel on the 770.

Likes:

Browser is cool.

Dislikes:

They claim it has IMAP - HAHAHAHAHHAHAH joke
They claim it is bluetooth compatable. I have tried paring 7 yes SEVEN different phones and no dice. - SUX

If they wanted to compete with other internet tablets, they should have went back to the drawing board. For 400 bucks there is MUCH better out there and this will be going back!

I'm just wondering what bluetooth phones you tried to pair it with, your carrier, and if you have a data plan.

Phones
 

Treo 650 - Unlocked - Using Cingular
Blackberry 7100g - Tmobile
Blackberry 7250 - Nextel
Moto Rokr - Cingular
Treo 600 - Sprint
Samsung - Forget the model - Verizon
and One other

All with full unlimited data plans. I can connect every other BT device to these phones other than the 770 IE keyboards, mice, headsets, etc.

All I get from Nokia support is "uhhhhhh buy a nokia phone" Horrible tech support

From that list I think you can only use the Treo 650. The Treo 600 doesn't have bluetooth so it just wouldn't work. I'm not sure though if the Rokr has Dial up Networking support. Try the steps I created in reply to you post here:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...=4728#post4728

Thanks Reggie,

I did to no avail. I give up

I will try to find a Cingular SIM soon so I can try it on my Treo 650. I will report back what I find out.

Country: Denmark
Purchased From: Nokia Web
Purchase/Arrival Date: 17. Nov. - 20. Dec.

Likes:
1) It's the size that makes you not mind carrying it with you all the time.
2) The screen resolution, perfect for web browsing, I got tired of my pda wery fast.
3) It runs linux, that means a lot of 3. party appl.
4) Video and mp3 playback, works perfect.
5) blutooth paring with my phone worked like a carme (k600i)
6-?) had only been using it for a day, so more is probaly still comming.

Dislikes:
1) when using browser on wi-fi, I get disconnected at random, but when using streaming radio it keeps the connection fine. (Strange)
2) There should have been a dockin station for charging
3) The cover is blocking for the stylus pen when in operation mode.
4) A infrared port woud have been nice. (use it as a remote control)


That is for now, had only had it for one day, and sofar very happy about it, also happy that I got it befor chrismas. :p

Here's a solution to that problem.

I don't mind that part of the design personally. I push on the bottom of the case/770 combo (where the headphone jack is) to slide it up a few millimeters, pop the stylus out, and slide it back into place. For eBook reading and other non-stylus activities, I like knowing that it's not going to fall out once the internal method of holding it in place wears out. (Yay friction!)

BigDaddy:

Your Blackberry's won't sync because they only link to headsets via bluetooth.

The 770 is bluetooth 1.2 compliant. You have to look carefully to see what bluetooth profiles the phone supports and make sure they match up (i.e. dial-up networking, file transfer, generic access, SIM access, and serial port profiles).

Good luck. Sorry you've been having troubles. You can always wait 6 months for a better version to come out with less bugs and with more phones that support it.

Live from the 770
 

The screen is great, am dying for screen gaurd..

One thing that is annoying is that there is no button to advance pages in pdf reader; you must access a menu.

Also the pdf reader wont rotate the screen.

There is no button for ff or rw web pages.

But the device is still pimp and I look forward to better software.

Likes:

- Nearly everything! It's the handiest device ever.
- Setup of connectivity is beautifully easy.
- Great bright, detailed, high-res screen (my photos look fantastic on it)
- Small enough to be pocketable (in a jacket at least)
- Integrated screen cover is a joy

Dislikes:

- Video player is... awful. My phones (Samsung A900 and A800 on Sprint) will play nearly any format I throw at it, while my 770 sputters with a low-res 3GP file (yes, it is properly encoded). This needs MAJOR work - what normal consumer is going to go looking for the MediaConverter app? Or know that the res needs to be multiples of 16? And it may be hardware-limited, but hopefully they can do something so that the player can playback higher-res files in general (say, 640px width at max, even!)

- Needs SyncML support via Bluetooth along with a basic PIM suite (hell, just port the Symbian apps over and call it a 'feature-add' - they dont even have to advertise it on the box, so they can keep marketing it as an internet tablet and not a PDA)

- Gah, handwriting recognition is crap.

Whatevers:

- I'm dying for an integrated thumbboard. In fact I'd be in love if they took a Hiptop/Sidekick-like form factor and used the smaller but higher-res screen.
- While I love the large screen, I probably would have settled for a smaller screen - that way they could have made the device even smaller and lighter, meaning it would be more suited to a pants pocket. I want to take this bad boy everywhere but when summer comes along, not sure how I'll fit it into my shorts...

Overall though, it's probably one of the best gadget purchases I've made in a long time - the fact that I don't want to leave home without it says it all!

Just got it!
 

It finally arrived down here in NZ mailed by my friend in the US. Since he'd 'tested' it for me the battery was already charged and the web browser opened to a page reminding me I owe him $350 real (i.e not $NZ) money. Goes without saying I am writing this on it now. Been using it for an hour or so now. Couple of things that haven't been mentioned. There are no New Zealand cities at all in the clock! I can't set my timezone. Maybe a firmware update adds some? Haven't tried the handwriting yet and the first thing I had to do was turn off the word completion. The internet radio works great. Never used it before but am amazed how well it works. Need to upgrade to the latest firmware still. Oh, and the 1GB Sandisk RS MMC card I have worked fine in it right away. Right, going to try out Doom on it now :)

Simon: There's no equivalent lattitude line for ya? I can't imagine them excluding a timezone.

Country: USA
Purchased From: Nevada
Purchase/Arrival Date:01/06/06

Likes:
Web browsing; I wanted something like this for years. been using a laptop to surf the web while I wacthed TV in bed. got a PDA about two years ago to tryed to use it to surf but it was a pain. I was about to buy tablet pc when I fond the 770.
Touch screen
The OS
The WiFi
The 3rd party apps (that are already made and the ones that should come later)

Dislikes:
no network printing
memory size

Favorite apps:
Web browser

I am just so happy to have wireless websurfing in my hand that I do not have to page right and left to read

Capeezi

Country: Finland
Purchased from: Nokia Online
Purchase/Arrival: NOV-16-05/JAN-05-06

Likes:
- The screen. For its size it's incredibly crisp! I actually enjoy reading news on this rather than on the laptop.
- The size. I can finally do what I've always wanted to do but just couldn't on my laptop --surf the web while lying in bed or on the couch. Did I mention that the display is so crisp? You have to see it to believe it.
- Wi-fi. It just works!
- Linux. xterm! vim! This little baby rocks! The app installers work flawlessly -so far.
- Battery life. This puts the Energizer bunnies to shame, this thing just keeps going and going.
- Stylus input. For some reason I feel less stressed surfing the web using the stylus input. I feel like I don't have to hurry or something.
- This baby looks slick & sexy. It's easy to use too.

Dislikes:
- It's kinda sluggish. But I'm getting used to it, this isn't a desktop machine after all.
- Memory is dismal. I've experienced a couple of 'out of memory' errors. On the other hand, the solution seems to be putting a swap file on the RS-mmc. It makes the apps load/run faster too.
- Can't scroll smoothly using the scroll buttons. It would really rock if the webpages or pdfs scroll smoothly (using the scroll buttons).
- Handwriting recognition. Teehee :-P

Fave apps:
- xterm
- vim
- opera
- calendar/to-do-list

All-in-all, I'm really impressed. It's solid and easy to use. Its shortcomings is more than compensated by its strengths. I'm so happy I got this.

I just bought my second 770, having purchased & returned one earlier. I haven't had enough time to play with it yet to figure out my likes & dislikes so I'll post that later :)

Hey Vidge! Nice to see you here! Congrats on your 770. What was wrong with the first one?

I have already used my 770 for 2 months now and realized that my work hours of 770 is more than my PCs' (1 desktop, 1 portable). Let's go to basics with all those "millions" of detailed opinions.

One basic but essential feature with the 770 has caught too little attention: the physical size and shape of the 770, they are exactly right. The 770 sits in my hand perfectly and does not strain my hands almost at all. It is very easy to hold it without the fear to drop it. (I have Nokia phone 6600 which is round and slippery, it creates a lot of strain to my hands when preventing to drop.) Have you looked at
those 2 edges along the upper side of the 770 - holding the 770 is easy.
All together: simple, effective but important - splendid!

There is a limitation too, just because of the small physical size only, despite of the luxurious 800x480 screen. Many individuals, to whom I have showed the 770, claim that they cannot read the very small 770's text of most Internet sites which, luckily, can be improved with zooming and optimation. But, too many Internet sites are horizontally heavily (=stupidly!) loaded with text boxes etc, so that the 770's
nice zoom capability has no use.
No free luncheons!

Hey Reggie! Good to be here. As far as what was wrong - well, call it OE (operator error). I couldn't get my WEP key to go into the unit. And support was no help. (Gotta admit I didn't know about this forum) Turns out it was a HEX key instead of ASCII and I never even saw the drop down box. Like I said, Nokia support was no help.

Expect a lot of newbie questions from me as I know nothing about Linux.

Vidge! Vidge! Vidge!

Finally!

Welcome! Don't forget to slog through my "blog" here.

Hey Mike! I started reading thru the blog last night - gonna take me some time to get thru it all :) since I've been reading other posts here on how to use this thing.

Live via 770:

It's not hard to.use unless you want to be all Linuxy (geeks reading that just had strokes!) -- or do something sensible, like try to use any USB device!

Get Week 51 on it, though.

Actually, *Vidge* only got another Nokia 770 because of me :)

tnkgrl: You know I know that! You rescue all of us! (But you ride a bus? tnk in the shop? Must run Windows!)