I have been researching the Nokia 770 for a couple of days and started wonder about a few things. I read alot of reviews about the 770 and most of them say things like it runs slow, doesn't load flash well, doesn't multitask well, takes a VERY long time to load Adobe files with images, other tasks take a long time, WiFi connection isn't stable, reboots sometimes, video doesn't play smothly, you hear poping sounds when playing music from an RS-MMC card, handwriting recognition is horrible, etc.
The thing is, all of the reviews that I have read were written from May to December. Since there were updates since then, I was wondering if these problems have been fixed. If you guys can help me I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

- Other than those flaws the 770 seems wonderfull. I can't wait for Nokia to make a newer version.
Also, I heard that the protective cover cover's the stylus when you slide it on the back. Is this annoying or insignificat?

The 770 is a low end model and is very cheap for this kind of a device. This explains some of the performance issues. You also have to cut Nokia some extra slack as they have just introduced the first version of this very new platform and product line. Of course they are working hard to improve it and soon there will be a software upgrade that might fix some of the above issues. FWIW, I've tried mp3 playback a few times, also from the mem card and I've heard no popping sounds.

Depends. I think it's a great feature. The stylus stays securely in place. But it's still very easy to remove if you would like to do that.

As mentioned, it's a lower end machine. While it's not exactly the snappiest device in the world, I don't feel it's much slower than the PPC phone I have.

Video with a bunch of motion can be a bit jerky, or that's my experience anyway with creating some video files for the device.

What is the intent of buying the device?

I'm sure future firmware updates will resolve some issues as well as Nokia fix issues and continue to optimize the code.

Just my two cents for what it's worth. (Maybe not even worth that much)

I was thinking the same thing that you can't be to judgemental of it because it is the first of a new line of handhelds. Of course there are going to be some problems. I just want to know if the problems that do exist are annoying and repiticious. I don't want it if every time I go to a site like www.digg.com (a very large site) that the 770 is going to reboot or take forever to load. Or if I can't listen to music and read an ebook at the same time. What's the point of having it if my internet connection is unstable or if some tasks take several minutes to execute? If this is so, I will just wait to the 2006 OS comes out (I think I saw on egadget that it's coming out in Q2 2006) and see what happens.

If the 770 is just going to cause me a headache, then I would rather wait for a better version. Maybe i'll get a PSP of a Palm Lifedrive? Both can play video and music, have WiFi, the psp has great games and would save me a hundred bucks, lifedrive cost an extra hundred but comes with alot of great programs, and neither are known to have these kinds of problems. The truth is I would rather have the 770 because of the screen resolution and 3rd party programs, but not if it will be to fustrating to use.

Generally I think the problems are overblown. Perhaps it was the case with the first Maemo releases, but I really experience very little of these problems. I certainly have no Wi-Fi connectivity problems or any issues with the browser. I also have crammed in a lot of community supplied applications, and have had minimal problems with those. Overall I'm very satisfied. Perhaps I don't experience many of the problems some people experience, because I shut down any application I'm not using. I rarely run into RAM problems, because of this habit, that I acquired in the old days when computers still had very little in the way of resources. Hacking and customizing the unit has been not as tedious as I might have expected at first, as there is a great amount of info supplied in the wiki sections of Maemo as well as here and on users' blogs.

There are a lot of things Nokia could do to improve the user experience and interface, but as it stands now, it does what its supposed to do pretty well (except for the IMAP in the mail client) right out of the box.

btw, I wouldn't even bother with any adobe files. I work in the graphic industry, and I wouldn't even think of using the 770 for intensive image displaying or rendering. As for .jpgs, .pngs, giffs, and othe web based standards, the 770 displays quite well. Flash has no problems, other than the inability to display flash video. But that may change in the future. But lets not forget that the processor isn't a 64bit monster. I'm satisfied with its performance within the restrictive parameters of a handheld.

I've experienced no sound problems. The internet radio works quite well and sounds excellent with my Bose Quiet Comfort headphones :-)

Yes, most of those things are true. But they are improving all the time. With the latest upgrade and by doing a few hacks (running system files off the memory card and adding swap space) it can be made a lot better. The PDF viewer is really slow. Not sure there is an alternative about. Video I find is OK. A little jerky as mentioned on fast scenes (probably because I encode using 15fps actually) but perfectably watchable. You can't expect HDTV quality on a handheld device! MP3 playback is fine. I never had a problem with it. Bit annoying the volume buttons don't work when the cover is closed but you get used to slipping it open a bit to get them to work. I use the same tecnhique for popping the stylus in and out so that's not a problem for me. Never had any network problems with it and it seems very stable at home on my on WiFi connection. Of course connecting on the move out on the streets can always be a bit hit an miss but that's not the devices fault. Battery life on it is excellent and it makes an excellent eBook reader if you are into that. Handwriting sucks big time. I tried with it. I really did but in the end I gave up and use the on screen keyboard with the word completion turned off. Web browsing on it compared to any other portable pocket size device is excellent. I would say an 800 wide screen is a minimum for that and I don't know of any other devices with screens that big yet? Of course it could always do with more memory and faster processor but the device is very new and the software far from optimal I think. I expect there are a lot of gains to be made in SW before they start fiddling with HW. As has been mentioned what do you want to use the device for?

Thank you oafbot and Simon, you both answered my questions perfectly. I never expected the 770 to have amazing video, music, and internet abilities but I didn't want it to constantly run into problems. Certain things like the email program and the handwriting doesn't bother me. I'll just check my email online and I never really like using the handwriting on Palms.

I plan on using the 770 for many things. Checking my email instead of logging onto my computer every time. I plan on doing the majority of my news reading on it (RSS) because the 770 would be much more convient. The things I have heard about the RSS feed sounds good. Also for listening to music, ebooks, I will keep data on it that I would like to have on me most of the time, video clips, I'll also install some programs from maemo, etc.

Where did you find how to do that? Adding swap space should really help system performance.

You can find the root file extending instructions and swap space instructions here:

http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ExtendedRootFilesystem

You need x-term and root.

also if you are heavily into e-books, be forwarned that the available readers are plucker and FBreader, and its compatible formats.

EDIT: also I forgot... the mail app is not that bad. the IMAP just acts like a pop account. So I actually have no problems receiving and sending mail. Just the synchronicity with the server does not behave like IMAP.

Everything being said here is what I've been experiencing too. As a note, digg.com runs very slow on my 770. I think it has something to do with the scripts and whatever they use on the site. Anyone else have the same problem? The wifi has been very stable, and I even use it at a variety of wifi outlets.
Even with some of the disappearing browser windows, reboots, and low memory warnings, I still use it everyday!

Thanks oafbot.

I would expect that it would load slowly because the hoepage alone is very large. This isn't very surprising. I just don't want it to take three minutes to load. This site tells you how much data is needed to view the front page of digg. It's absolutely ridiculious.