Mossberg's Bum 770 Review in the Wall St. J
 

In my opinion...an ill-informed hackjob.

Here's what I e-mailed him (he actually reads them and has reacted angrily ):

Too bad you missed many of the wonderful and useful features of the Nokia 770. The "Internet Radio" is an amazing rendition of internet radios now kaput. The little speaker is the best, bar none, of any handheld or phone, and plugged into any powered speaker, rare and wonderful stations from all over the place come streaming into your wifi umbrella area (aka home). I love getting NY Public radio at any time (AM or FM), and the group of indie college stations are amazing. Just click the button.

Then there's the clearest book reading available...in a tiny...light form... It is like holding a very light paperback...crystal clear text, easy page flipping...topnotch. Missed.

It downloads at wifi speed (crazy for a handheld) and music, books and even video are all available for direct download and play.

A useful program or two and full movies are playable with wonderful sound while using earphones.

I've never had the e-mail problems you mention...either on my ISP's mail or Gmail.

Did you mention the new virtual keyboard...how it fits the fingers and allows passable e-mailing? new on the new OS available to all since early July. Missed it? And the availability of simple drivers that make the unit work just fine with Bluetooth keyboards....

And..the fact that you can bluetooth you way into internet browsing wherever you are...I use mine easily with the Treo 650.

But, of course...you again missed the bota...on all these...

Worse yet, you put the Mossberg curse on a perfectly wonderful piece of equipment.

Are these harsh comments? You bet....but they are deserved.

Readers deserve better! I pay for WSJ on-line.

We've had this conversation before...I don't read you anymore, and found this article only because Google News dredged it up on a South African financial news site.

Sorry...but it's true. Also sorry you crunched this fine little piece of equipment.

A. Karel

P.S.

By the way...if you bothered to ask...Nokia would tell you that the reduced size MMC card is the same card used in most Nokia camera phones and was a convenience to Nokia owners...giving them a wonderful place to show their pix.

And...the same icon is NOT used for Web Browser and Wifi Connection...check the wifi connection at the top...
but maybe you had a 770 with the old OS...I hope not. The new one has Google Talk telephone service and full, fast Chat...great on the new virtual keyboard...I didn't see a mention...B

Hey, grab a beer and relax :) I understand where you are coming from though. It's a great device but the average joe isn't going to realise because a) it's not a phone and b) it's not a laptop. People basically haven't been shown why they need such a device, so they won't understand it. It's sold well to us geeks but to penetrate the market further will take a LOT more effort.

Good comments. And spot on. What pains me is that these clowns post ill-informed reviews which people read and make decisions from. It's quite sad actually. You would think that reviewers these days would lift their finger to type 'nokia 770' into google search and do some *shock horror* research.

Albert are you a fellow south african? :-P

Actually, the true beauty of the 770 only shines through gradually, in my opinion. I mean, when I bought mine with the 2005 OS on it it was slow, and after I had installed Privoxy and FBReader on it I was hit by this feeling of "Uh... was that all?"

Mind you, I bought this as a surf-board and for that it was fantastic once I got Privoxy on there so I was happy anyway, but I didn't feel it was nearly as useful to me otherwise as was the Pocket PC I came from. The lack of calendaring software and to-do especially hurt the device in my eyes, but there were other issues as well.

Of course, now with the 2006 OS out, that is changing fast. New apps coming out all the time including the GPE calendar stuff, the new OS is considerably more responsive and good looking, it has great new features in it, etc... it is already a better device than when I bought mine and getting better all the time as applications arrive but let's face it - Joe Average, when handed a 770, will be stumped when it comes to using it to its full potential; just adding software to it will be tough unless he/she actively seeks out the fan sites and maemo.org and really studies up on what is available and adds the repositories etc.

Again, for a Linuxhead, using repositories and apt is a fantastic functionality, but for the average Windows user? I think about trying to explain repositories and how to set them up in a 770 to, say, my mother and cringe. Compare that to a Pocket PC where you just put the device in the cradle, download the program from the web and double-click to install it over the USB line, no muss no fuss, just like you do with a desktop Windows.

Yes, in many ways that is inferior to using a repository, especially when it comes to upgrading with ease and all that stuff, and it relegates the mobile device to a complete slave of the desktop, but the point is it requires far less of the user.

The 770 is still not slick enough yet to make it truly consumer friendly. It's getting there, and I think Nokia have done a great job on making a Linux device really slick, but it still requires one more OS upgrade (IMHO) to do it right - or better yet, another OS release and a 770 MK II that has a snappier ARM chip in it, 128MB of memory - and a screen with a touch-senstive layer that doesn't make the screen look like crap, preferrably. The ARM chips can be throttled down for when they don't need to run full tilt, keeping battery life reasonable anyway, and still be able to power up to 600+ mhz when needed.

I love my 770, and for enthusiasts its killer, but for Joe Average or a reviewer serving Joe Average, like Mossberg, it's still not quite slick enough.

2006 OS is a great improvement but Opera still randomly disappears and occassionally locks up which is something they really have to address (and no I am not using the beta version). Also, to be taken seriously, it NEEDS opera 9.

I have to admit, I agreed with a lot of Mossberg's comments. For example, the connectivity icon and the web browser icon really are the same, and although I get the point behind grouping all "contact" related programs together, it doesn't follow any existing interface model I know of, and it took me a few minutes to grok it and learn to use it. The email program is still unusable, in my opinion. As we all know, it's too slow a lot of the time. At first, I was surprised that he totally ignored the amazing e-book capabilities of the 770, but since Nokia doesn't include FBReader pre-installed, maybe it was fair of him to leave it out--everything else he mentioned came pre-installed or as part of the operating system. (And maybe Nokia should take the hint and start including it as a given, so that they really start to promote this feature.)

As kimmoj states earlier in this thread, Mossberg is reviewing this device for Joe Average, not a tech geek. I would not be able to argue, in good faith, that the 770 would be a better tool for my 50-ish friend who uses a LifeDrive. The fact is, Palm (and Windows/Apple of course) all manage the user experience in a far more controlled way than any open source project I've ever seen, and that includes super-sexy Ubuntu. The 770 provides more freedom and usefulness than a LifeDrive, and nobody can beat that screen--but it also requires a bigger investment of time and mental effort from the user. It is simply not yet a consumer device. It is a gadget.

A lot of reviews of the 770 are badly written by clueless product reviewers who approach it with preconceived notions of what a portable device is supposed to do. I think these reviewers lack imagination or analytical prowess (or are working under a harsh deadline, ha ha). I just ignore them, because the people who look to them for guidance aren't the kinds of people who will ever "get" the 770 in its current state anyway. But I actually welcome reviews like Mossberg's, because he neither overpraises nor hacks at the 770. We all KNOW that it's got problems, despite all its wonderful features and potential. It's good for the press to remind both the public and, more importantly, Nokia, that none of us thinks this is anything more than a (very awesome) work in progress in its current state.

Here's the article, btw: Crisp But Slow

Mossberg's mailbox repy
 

Here's a posted reply to some of the feedback Mossberg received for his 770 review in WSJ:

July 27, 2006
Reviewing the Nokia 770
By Walter S. Mossberg

There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about the Nokia 770, hard-drive storage and Jumbles programs for Windows Mobile.

Q: In your review of the Nokia 770 hand-held computer last week, you said it was very slow. I can only assume that you were using the old operating system, not the new 2006 version, which is much improved. Is that true?

A: No. I was using the new 2006 operating system, and also was using virtual memory, which is supposed to speed things up. I got the unit directly from Nokia, which configured it. Even so, I found that, with the notable exception of the very nice Web browser, the 770 ran many programs, especially its email program, so slowly as to be dysfunctional. I can only assume it needs a more powerful processor, or a software rewrite, or both.

I have heard from a handful of enthusiastic 770 users who were disappointed or angry about my review. These folks are either gadget geeks; or fans of small, mobile computers in general; or fans of the open-source Linux operating system, which the 770 uses. Some wish I had reviewed the product from their perspective. But, as with everything I review, I try and take the perspective of a mainstream, non-techie, non-enthusiast consumer who just wants digital products to work well. That's my mission, and I'm sticking to it.

Well, he can stick his mission allright. :)