Hi,

I'm new to this board, and I am replacing an old PDA. I have narrowed in on the following three devices: Nokia 770, Palm TX, and T-Mobile MDA. My previous device was Windows Mobile 2003 based.

My needs are, in this order:

1) A good word processor. TextMaker for Windows Mobile has been great for me.

2) Internet browsing via WiFi. This is why I am including the Nokia 770.

3) Contact and calendar management.

My main questions: Is the port of Abiword stable enough to be used to take notes in classes? Does it underline misspelled words like its desktop counterpart does? I prefer the larger resolution of the 770's screen, but don't want to make a mistake if Abiword is not stable enough for me.

I welcome any comments you have on making my decision.

Unfortunately the 770 doesn't seem right for you in its present form.
Officially it only does 2) - albeit very well.
3) it doesn't do at all OOTB, and not well at all with the available third-party apps.
1) is either with the built-in Notes (very limited and seems to have stability problems) or with a port of Abiword that is somewhat behind its current state on other platforms. I don't think it will deliver what you need.

Actually the best fit I can think of would be a Sharp Zaurus, if you can get your hands on one. The screen is "only" VGA, but it has a keyboard, is very stable, has decent PIM and word processing options, and can do Wifi with a CF card.

The answer to all of your abiword questions is no. It is not stable and has almost none of the features that its desktop counterpart has. That may change in the future, but don't count on it. In theory if you had a lot of time to waste you could perhaps hack away at it and build it yourself to get more stability and features that you want. But most of us who want to use it to get work done don't have the knowledge or time for that.

fpp and Cloud8,

Thank you for your honest input. It's clear to me that unfortunately the Nokia 770 is not what I need in my particular case. It seems like an exciting device category and I will still drop in from time to time to see where Nokia takes this platform.

Thanks,

Countolaf

I agree with fpp -- you should consider a clamshell zaurus. Replacing the Japanese ROM (if purchased new) is easy. Buying new is simple (pricejapan.com). You can run textmaker on a qt-embedded ROM or go with Abiword on an X-based ROM (or via a changerooted debian XQt). Although, if you are willing to pay for textmaker, I think it works better than abiword. An older version of Open Office seems to work, albeit very slowly.

The built-in keyboard works great for thumbtyping, a USB keyboard can be added with the more recent clamshells.


PIM apps work great too. Drop by oesf.org if interested.

The Nokia 770 is a different animal and is built around the usually connected paradigm, whereas the zaurus is usually standalone. Coming from a zaurus background, I am still working on getting my mind around the new paradigm (for me).

Anyway, HTH.

Thanks fpp and Mars, the Zaurus does sound like it'll do what I need. I am currently trying to sift through the oesf.org forums like you suggested; it looks like the C1000 may be my best bet, pending compatibility with a bluetooth keyboard or usb keyboard, which I'm reading up on.

That's very true. Myself I have solved that quandary in a very low-tech way : instead of trying to adapt I have kept both - I use the Zaurus in the "old" way with one part of my brain and the 770 in the "new" way with another...
The hardest part is remembering to keep them both charged :-)

One last question... Has anyone tried an online word processor, like the free www.goffice.com? I'm curious if the buttons & scripts work, and all the features, like spell checking, on the 770. That might be all I need.

Nice try, but no dice. I registered out of curiosity and :

- predictably, like many other "advanced" ajax apps (Netvibes, Tiddlywiki etc.) this stuff doesn't work under Opera, at least the one on the 770. Actually the word processor displays quite well and at first I thought it was going to be OK - unfortunately the place where you would type your text is not recognized as an input area by Opera. The onscreen keyboard doesn't come up, and even after plugging in a USB keyboard and "clicking" inside the text area I did not succeed in typing anything inside it...

- more disturbingly, I had the exact same result with the latest version of Manaos. This is a very early port of Minimo (think Firefox for PDAs) ; although it is still very slow and buggy, it does usually display ajax-heavy pages that Opera chokes on. Not this time : no input either.

So unless goffice.com amends their javascript engine to be less demanding on browsers, and/or Manaos improves a lot fast, this isn't going to solve your problem, sorry.

I just wanted to confirm the sentiment that Abiword for Maemo is not stable.

I have used it to take notes for a weeklong conference. It ended up corrupting several of my documents.

Most recently, when I convinced myself it was a fluke, I wrote a short document being careful to hit the right buttons.

It lost the files I created. I created a bug.