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#41
Just a couple of small corrections...

Originally Posted by qviri View Post
The default media player on the N800 (and N810 I believe) doesn't support scanning contents of a memory card. You have to browse the directory structure and pick the file.
No, the media player has a crawler that scans your cards for you and adds anything it finds to your library. It should work automatically in the background (unless you manually disable it because you use another media player anyway)...

...except this requires adding a repository... wait adding a what? If not having decent software out of the box won't kill a device in this market, not having an extremely easy way to install things will.
This isn't really fair either. You don't have to add Extras, you just have to enable it in the Application Manager. And it is pretty straightforward to do that. And the Extras repository is stuffed full of fascinating, fun, cool software that is ALL FREE.

The NIT is not really a tech enthusiast device... I think of situations like not letting screen rotation into core Diablo despite being provided with ready-made code because "that's in the next version already".
That's not a very good example. Tech enthusiasts will figure out how to hack rotation onto their device (well, they will if they know how to search the forums), but OS2008 isn't really set up for portrait mode; it would require a complete reconfiguration of the home screen and the application menu. The "ready-made code" doesn't address this large and complex issue at all. No, official rotation support requires lots of work on Nokia's part, and without the hardware (ie an accelerometer to detect physical device rotation), it understandably wasn't really worth it to them.

I'm really looking forward to rotation in Maemo 5... The whole interface is being designed with rotation in mind.

...as far as I know I still have to find and install a recompiled kernel to be able to use a button to do something the hardware supports since 2006. And no one but Nokia can change this.
Hopefully my link above will help that situation for you! It includes a custom kernel that has rotation and faster SD card access. (Install Advanced Backlight for a nice rotation button right on the task bar)

Is it an internet gateway that takes a minute to load up Facebook
Search for the Tear browser.

and which has to wait until the whole Youtube video is cached before it can playback?
Try one of the several excellent YouTube players available in Extras, like MyTube and (so I hear) Digia @scene. I use MyTube all the time, it does a great job. The iPhone uses a dedicated youtube client, too. It's the best way to do mobile video. browser-embedded Flash video is just too resource hungry for this generation of ARM processors.

... doesn't come with a CD that will install a movie converter on the user's desktop?
They didn't put it on a CD, but a quick Google shows you that Nokia made one... Seriously, it's the first hit on a search for "tablet video converter"! And if you don't have the Internet, then why are you buying an Internet Tablet?

There are better third party converters, anyway. They aren't too hard to find, either.

A device for the geeks that doesn't support USB OTG out of the box?
Wrong again. If you buy an OTG adapter the tablets work just fine as an OTG host without any hacks at all. You just plug and play. USB flash drives and USB keyboards both work just fine, again with no hacks.

It is just difficult to find an OTG host adapter because there are almost no mobile devices on the market that can be OTG hosts, so there's no market for the adapters. But I got one for my N800 for about $10.

And don't say that Nokia should have included the adapter in the box, it is part of the USB OTG standard, and most people wouldn't use it. Most printers don't even come with the ($2) USB cable!
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#42
Originally Posted by qole View Post
No, the media player has a crawler that scans your cards for you and adds anything it finds to your library. It should work automatically in the background (unless you manually disable it because you use another media player anyway)...
I stand corrected. Was this in OS 2007's media player as well? I must have totally missed it then, but I've been living with Canola ever since.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
This isn't really fair either. You don't have to add Extras, you just have to enable it in the Application Manager. And it is pretty straightforward to do that.
But if the built-in media player is horrible, then having even a three-step installation for a better one is about two steps too many.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
That's not a very good example. Tech enthusiasts will figure out how to hack rotation onto their device (well, they will if they know how to search the forums)
(Noted and noted )

Originally Posted by qole View Post
but OS2008 isn't really set up for portrait mode; it would require a complete reconfiguration of the home screen and the application menu. The "ready-made code" doesn't address this large and complex issue at all. No, official rotation support requires lots of work on Nokia's part, and without the hardware (ie an accelerometer to detect physical device rotation), it understandably wasn't really worth it to them.
This is noted, and I understand that it'd be a large issue. However, it was still frustrating to read the "it's in the new version" arguments, and I wonder if Nokia could have put the hooks in and allowed an app to access that functionality. Comparison to the installable camera app comes in handy. (Incidentally, my experience with the camera app has been nothing short of disastrous, which I think might undermine my argument a bit.)

Originally Posted by qole View Post
Hopefully my link above will help that situation for you! It includes a custom kernel that has rotation and faster SD card access. (Install Advanced Backlight for a nice rotation button right on the task bar)
Thanks for the link. I hate to sound like a scaredy noob, but although from what I understand kernel replacements are no longer the USB-connected joy with Diablo's updates, something with definite potential to brick my tablet still makes me a bit uneasy. As I said, a hook left in the kernel could have made this much less painless.

I do have Advanced Backlight already, it's super nice

Originally Posted by qole View Post
Search for the Tear browser.
I actually just found it a couple of days ago through the forums. Looks great and confirms my belief Mozilla/Gecko on mobile devices is generally speaking a joke (then again, as an Opera user I'm probably not the most objective). Unfortunately, I just timed it now - 58 seconds before Tear was done loading and rendering facebook.com.

I do however have to say the iphone version loads acceptably fast and everything works, including photo albums which were iffy at best in MicroB. Hooray for Webkit.

Again, however, your ordinary user isn't going to just realise they should search these forums for "Tear". The built-in browser isn't even named, so if anything, they'd go looking for a newer version of, I don't know, "the Maemo browser"? More likely they'd just assume the browser is the browser is the browser.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
Try one of the several excellent YouTube players available in Extras, like MyTube and (so I hear) Digia @scene. I use MyTube all the time, it does a great job. The iPhone uses a dedicated youtube client, too. It's the best way to do mobile video. browser-embedded Flash video is just too resource hungry for this generation of ARM processors.
Noted, and perhaps this particular point was a bit unfair - still a tiny bit disappointing on a device possibly marketed more on its web abilities than any other of its time.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
They didn't put it on a CD, but a quick Google shows you that Nokia made one... Seriously, it's the first hit on a search for "tablet video converter"! And if you don't have the Internet, then why are you buying an Internet Tablet?
I am going to stick to my opinion in this case - finding a site, albeit Nokia-branded, that says "beta", "archived", and "no customer care" would be pretty unconvincing to a "normal" user. If Nokia wants the tablets to be considered as a movie player, that needs to change.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
There are better third party converters, anyway. They aren't too hard to find, either.
It's not really about being hard to find. Hardly anything is hard to find in the age of Google. It's about eliminating the questions of "Should I be using this?", "Which one should I be using?", "Is this going to break my computer?"

I installed tablet-encode (on Linux) without a blink, but someone new will see "beta" and "unsupported" and will wonder if they'll break something trying out the Nokia software.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
Wrong again. If you buy an OTG adapter the tablets work just fine as an OTG host without any hacks at all. You just plug and play. USB flash drives and USB keyboards both work just fine, again with no hacks.
Oops. I was honestly under an impression that software would be necessary to put the tablet into OTG mode. Is this a recent development, or is it because of a proper OTG adapter as opposed to just USB plugs soldered together?

Originally Posted by qole View Post
And don't say that Nokia should have included the adapter in the box, it is part of the USB OTG standard, and most people wouldn't use it. Most printers don't even come with the ($2) USB cable!
I wouldn't - I was surprised and impressed they've thoughtfully included a backup stylus.

Writing this post rather made me sympathise with Pittsburgh's players today . It was good experience though, and thanks for the corrections. Nevertheless, I'm seeing a lot that still rules out "normal" users, and for the more advanced folk, I'm still concerned that Nokia isn't really sure what they want to do with the tablets themselves. If they are, they're not really doing a good job showing it as far as I can see. (And feel free to prove me wrong... I want that excuse to buy shiny N810 goodness.)
 

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#43
my $0.02 worth.

After reading the inishal post, I was oddly moved, most of the conserns raised were the very reason I bought the device and payed an additional $120 to have my brother purchase it in Chicago and ship it to me.

I bought my N810 after realizing the 770 (or waterer it is) had an 800 pixel wide screen and wifi, it was a Palm replacement, and I wanted the full web experienced, to be mobile.

What blue me away on my N810.

I have tyred Linux on my home PC from time to time and inevitably come to the conclusion I am a Windows user and stuck without a GUI. I have got to say installing aps. with preloaded repository in Linux beats Windows hands down. I had never installed an application in Linux until my n810, it is so eazy to install my mom could do it. (i now use many embedded Linux devises and i think it rocks)

my n810 was my first GPS device - I wanted something GPS, the n810 was a little disappointing, but suitably impressed with Meamo map and the ability to download odd back country maps.

Multitasking OS, the n810 could record audio and take written notes at the same time (cant express how long I have waited for this ability in a hand held device) now I want the ability to track my note taking with the the recorded audio (so clicking on a word will start playing say a recorded meeting 10 seconds before actually writing the note) Imagen a journal linked into your calendar, recording all the audio in a meeting, and taking key points, and using those key points to navigate the audio recording and synking that with you PC (you can skip all the crap that gets said and jump right to the gems) - that said the first company to patient that app. and integrate it will probably win my business - i expect it to be palm. So multitasking is a huge winner, still blows my mind what it allows.

I Hate DRM - "DRM = stones", anything DRM is dead for me I cant buy it on principal, so all those DRM pay per use e-books, audio books are non options. I love my freedom wont compromise it and this device gives it to me the way I want it. FB Reader handled all my Palm content 100% and gave me more options, i am impressed. UI took a little getting used too but it is good. (it took me some geting used to the folder structure in Linux to actual find my content, this is the only thing I would fix (as an option to make this device consumer ready)

Canola wow what an interface for photos and managing podcasts.
I never thought I would uses it so i didn't download it for a while, I was impressed with what i saw on the Zoon and i-pone when it came to managing photos, so I took the plunge and installed Canola. what makes the n810 500% better, is i can be on sight taking photos, unplug the card, and plug it into my n810 and 3 or 4 people can view it almost as seamlessly as if they were prints.

as for pod casting i could improve Canola a lot, but it has set the bar high, and no device to date can match it (i-pod all you like)
i can subscribe to any (ANY) RSS feed in Canola and download 5 -6 podcasts at once just by viewing the RSS feed and have them on hand. (I though the nokia e71 may be a replacement for my n810 and phone but its pod cast plication and download speed made me feel like I would expect an XP user reacting to windows 3.1 would feel.) Canola must have memory leeks or use CPU when the device is unused my only problem is time to launch and i cant leave it running in the background as it flattens my battery.

Download in the background while you brows the Internet- haven't seen a device that comes close to the n810, i do thin in windows all the time the n810 lets me download stuff and carry on with what I was doing, no need to single window. (I can also use my n810 as a computer with it comes to interacting with my download.)

I never had or used a PMP, (other than palm OS as my audio book reader) so the N810 I though was fantastic for video, my only disappointment is not being able to play videos downloaded from www.ted.com without needing to convert them (a faster CPU would make it a little more smooth). But I have used it to entertain kids, keep me from sleeping on 24hr flights, I have found many ways to convert video and I love the fact I can circumvent DRP so I can future prof any content I deem fit for keeping. grab a few 8Gig Micro SD cards after converting you have a huge video library on hand.

Browsing a windows network was a plus although I found it a bit slow to be useful.

A BIG Bonus was ssh - for a person who needs a GUI I have leaned some thing just have to be and I have to change. SSH tunnelling wow, all the money I have spent setting up a VPN at work and home, only to discover ssh, it has proven to be the most reliable solution, after connecting to work via SSH VNC and RDP I have standardize on remote assess via SSH. - this SSH thing has probably been around a lot longer than May 2008 but I only just discovered it and now any device that docent sport SSH is a "Stone" (non option) SSH is ironical also the most eco-frendy program I run allowing me to send WOL commands to any PC I may interact with - the result is all PC's at work and home are off untill i want to acsess it (thanks to DDWRT and Qnap).

RDP - thats also cool, I can use it to log into my PC my n810 is like a remote for my PC, just wish there was a way to press F11 to exist full screen as I find browsing in Fierfox on my PC via n810 way faster. after my n810 I can now remember IP addresses and not computer names.

Wikipedia in my pocket at the diner table I love it, my kids know if they ask where does a cashew come from they will get an answer.

I also love the VMGarnet. so i keep my contact there as.

big screen and phone support and i will upgrade.

that's it,
Tim

Last edited by timwatt; 2009-06-08 at 13:27.
 

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#44
Originally Posted by qviri View Post
Unfortunately, I just timed it now - 58 seconds before Tear was done loading and rendering facebook.com... I do however have to say the iphone version loads acceptably fast and everything works, including photo albums which were iffy at best in MicroB. Hooray for Webkit.
I am a little puzzled by your numbers, actually. I just tested Facebook in MicroB and it took 43 seconds from hitting the Login button to the completion of my home page. I wonder why it is faster for me?

Again, however, your ordinary user isn't going to just realise they should search these forums for "Tear".... Nevertheless, I'm seeing a lot that still rules out "normal" users, and for the more advanced folk, I'm still concerned that Nokia isn't really sure what they want to do with the tablets themselves. If they are, they're not really doing a good job showing it as far as I can see. (And feel free to prove me wrong... I want that excuse to buy shiny N810 goodness.)
Tear is still in beta testing, but I don't think it will be that way for much longer, and then it will be easy to find in Extras, along with all the other great stuff in there.

I'm sorry if I sounded harsh or something...

I agree fully with your overall point that the current tablets aren't really for your "normal," average user. I just thought some of your particular points weren't really fair.

I also agree that the tablets were (relatively speaking) a marketing "flop". Nokia didn't know how to market them, and they really didn't do a great job aiming for any particular user group.

I seriously hope that will change with the new device. All indications are that it will.
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#45
Originally Posted by qole View Post
I am a little puzzled by your numbers, actually. I just tested Facebook in MicroB and it took 43 seconds from hitting the Login button to the completion of my home page. I wonder why it is faster for me?
Maybe Facebook hates me Meh, I wouldn't attempt to load the full facebook on a screen this size anyway (web apps: killing One Web since 2007), so it's irrelevant really... but it's not really that fast.

Originally Posted by qole View Post
I agree fully with your overall point that the current tablets aren't really for your "normal," average user. I just thought some of your particular points weren't really fair.
Fair enough, considering several were actually incorrect...

Originally Posted by qole View Post
I seriously hope that will change with the new device. All indications are that it will.
... I'm mostly happy with my N800. I'm rather confused as to what exactly Nokia's point is, which fueled the one-day rant, but that doesn't stop me from using their arguments, so to speak. I'll be on the lookout

Last edited by qviri; 2009-06-09 at 04:52.
 
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#46
Originally Posted by qole View Post
I'm really looking forward to rotation in Maemo 5... The whole interface is being designed with rotation in mind.
Unfortunately not. See https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4618 .
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#47
From the bug:

This has been closed internally as WONTFIX and the internal comment is "Portrait mode is not fully supported. Applications are expected to use landscape only UI, or if they insist on portrait, then fix all the problems by themselves on the app side (e.g by creating plain GtkDialogs with empty action area)."

From the API refs:
Hildon is optimized for a landscape screen orientation. Although both orientations are supported, framework level functionalities such as the status bar, back/close, are not available on the portrait mode...

The portrait mode is meant to be a one-hand special usage mode. Limited functionalities should still be given to this mode. For example, a Now Playing message for a media application, a read view for a PDF reading application, or limited call handle controls.

System notifications, error messages and progress indicators are only displayed in the landscape orientation. Apart from incoming calls, in this mode no other notifications are displayed on the screen. Instead, the other notifications are indicated by sound, vibration or LED.
....

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#48
Official landscape support only = the "N900" not being a phone for certain. If I have to use both hands for most tasks due to UI constraints, it's worthless as a phone.

Terrific.

Another hope smashed - right in line with poorly executed Ovi services, Symbian/S60 v5 and its half-assed UI implementation, and the generally "a generation behind" hardware Nokia has planned for the next time...
Seems like they need to have another <30% market share dip like in 2004 before they wake up...
 

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#49
could be that the parts that do phone (dailer for instance), if any, is designed for portrait...
 

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#50
Originally Posted by chlettn View Post
Official landscape support only = the "N900" not being a phone for certain. If I have to use both hands for most tasks due to UI constraints, it's worthless as a phone.

Terrific.

Another hope smashed - right in line with poorly executed Ovi services, Symbian/S60 v5 and its half-assed UI implementation...
Why is so hard for Nokia to create a nice GUI. Since N810 launch passed 2 years... since iPhone launch passed 2 years... they could have done a nice UI in that time if they started to write that from scrach... Maybe they should move all the software development to Russia or Romania or other Eastern European country - they have very good software engineers... if not, move everything to US but the development price will be 10 times more expensive...
 
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