A Look at the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet

[Squinty]

Firstly this is by no means a new device on the market. And will probably never be confused for a IPhone.

The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet was released back in 2005. At around $350-$400 dollars. Prices have been dropping on these as of late. I picked this one up recently on Woot.com, for 135.00 after shipping. Currently Buy.com has a offer of 129.00 for the 770, if you do the google checkout sign up discount. Alot of other online sellers are following suit.

Thought I'd share what I've learned so far about the Nokia 770 and touch on it's capabilities out of the box.


Box Contents:
1: User guide & Quick start guide
2: 2 stylus pens
3: 64 MB RS-MMC memory card
4: earphones
5: pouch
6: Battery (BP-5L)(used in Nokia Cell Phones also)
7: Connectivity cable DKE-2 (USB)
8: Plastic Desk stand
9: Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
10: Travel Charger


Nokia 770 layout:
Top:
1:Full Screen key
2:Zoom key
3:Power key
Bottom:
4:Microphone
5:Charger Connector
6:Mini USB Port
7:Stereo audio-out connector
8:Memory card sot door
Front:
9:Speaker
10:Scroll key
11:Escape key
12:Menu key
13:Home key

List of Applications out of box:

• Web Browser (Opera 8) with Flash player
• Internet calling
• Instant Messaging
• Email Client
• Internet Radio
• RSS Feed Reader
• Media, Utilities and Games
• Audio/Video player
• Image viewer
• PDF viewer
• Application manager
• File Manager
• Clock
• Search
• Calculator
• Notes and Sketch

VOIP features:Its not a phone, although it has VOIP capabilities. I have tried google talk and it worked reasonably well. The microphone is located on the bottom of the unit. From what I've read there's a program called gizmo. Similar to skype, so you can make calls to land lines and vice versa. I'll get back you on this when I begin installing other applications.
Con: From my research it seems you can't currently use a bluetooth headset for the 770.


Internet browsing: - The 770 is using Opera as it's browser. Sites load ok, but can be sluggish at times. Flash heavy sites don't do as well, several ask for a newer version of flash.


Tacticalgamer.com Loaded on the 770.

Internet radio station streaming: Went to shoutcast.com to test this and the stations streamed fine. Started my own shoutcast server on my home pc and the 770 did fine with that as well. You have a option to add the ip of a internet radio station to the media player manually, then pull the station name down from a favorites list.

PDF reader: I had a couple pdf's of magazines. I was able to move through the pages with around 3-4 second delay. These were pretty image heavy though. You can zoom in and out and use the stylus to drag the page around. Or use the movement button to scroll up and down. A note on the PDF reader was you're not able to move to the next page if your zoomed in. You must zoom out to 100% before it will let you load a new page.

Instant messaging: Jabber or Google Talk accounts. Having to type with the on screen keyboard takes some getting use to, although you can connect a bluetooth keyboard up to the 770 if you so desire. I was able to login in to my google account and use the chat without any problems on the 770.
Text input:Just wanted to note the 770 has a form of hand writing recognition, you can teach it to learn how you write different characters. From my attempts with it you can't write that fast or it will make a mess of things. So far it's faster for me to use the on screen keyboard...

Games: Out of the box it comes with Chess, Mahjong, and a Marbles puzzle game. Pleasant enough 2d graphics for these. Theres resources online for downloading other games including a version of Doom.

Conclusion: Theres alot of possibilities with the 770, with many downloadable applications and OS tweaks. I will have to explore these further to really see what the full capabilities the 770 are.
The CPU speed and storage space options dates the 770. You get what you pay for though... The new N800 internet tablet by Nokia tries to update the older hardware of the 770 and adds a few things. The N800 is currently retailing for $363.97.