ON NOKIA "INTERNET TABLET" UPDATE

SO FULL OF PROMISE...

Continuing the gadget update theme of the last post, I wanted to highlight an excellent "preview review" on the recently announced Nokia 770 "Internet Tablet" by jkOnTheRun (whose blog by the by, I would heartily recommend as regular fare for all things mobile and tabletty). 

I'd posted on the Nokia 770 back in May, with particular reference to Microsoft's activities in the Tablet PC area.

Anyway, jk had an opportunity to do a "hardware fondle", in his words, on a pre-production Nokia 770 with Nokia reps watching.  As a result, his review has some punches pulled, but you get his gist, both the good and bad.

My takeaways from his preview were:

1. The device is really smaller than it looks in a picture, about the size of a recent-model Palm
2. The screen is big, beautiful and alive with color.
3. It's Linux based, so there's increasing open source application support started to spring up for the gidget.
4. On the negative side,
   
   1. the device is slow, although that could be fixed in the final product.
   2. doesn't come with apps like calendar and to-do lists, but that too is being fixed by third-parties.
   3. uses a semi-proprietary memory card that is used across other Nokia phones and gadgets...you'd think they'd learn from Sony memory stick shenanigans, but no...
   4. It's a good first attempt, as long as you consider it a part of an evolving series (why does that not make me feel like I want to go run out and get one right now?)

Anyhoo, it's a pretty good run-down on the device.  I'm surprised jk didn't mention some negatives that were show-stoppers for me, summarized so eloquently from my earlier post by the Nokia 770 Blog:

1. Support VOIP and Skype.
2. Support (one or more) cellular networks.
3. Put (in) a hard drive.
4. Come up with a name, don’t name it 770.

Russell Beattie, another BlogGod on all things mobile phonish, also has a good, but negative take on the 770.  Om Malik felt a little better about the thing in his article on the subject.

So why post on this and read dedicated blogs on the Nokia 770?  Because to paraphrase from Gilgamesh, it vexes us, in its promise, potential and present, pre-production form.  A better device will come soon, be it from Nokia or not.