Some Initial Thoughts on Nokia N800
As you can tell by the crappy video I posted yesterday, yes I know I need a tripod, I got a Nokia N800 yesterday. I’ve been trying my best not to let it monopolize my day because it’s a freaking cool gadget.
What have I done with it so far?
- Using the web browser, of course. It works really well, even working well with GMail. It doesn’t support Google Reader, however. It works, but the browser chokes often enough that I use the Mobile interface to Google Reader. Leaves a little to be desired, but I can read stuff.
- Using MediaConverter, I’ve been able to take some videos I’ve pulled off the Internet and watch them on myN800. I will be doing some extended video watching on next week’strip to NYC.
- I loaded up the N800 with some media cards. I tried both old MMC cards I had as well as bought a couple of dirt cheap 1GB SD cards at WalMart. Can hot-swap the cards. Sweet.
- I upgraded the firmware. Something I highly recommend doing before you dig too far into the device.
I did this from a Windows machine, but supposedly you can do it from Linux or a Mac as well. - I paired my N800 to my Nokia N80 Internet Edition. It worked without too much mucking about.
- I set up the IM client and eventually got Twitter working with my GTalk account on the N800.
- I installed some third party apps. I didn’t play with Rhapsody–lord knows I want to actually spend $10 a month to stream music to my device when I’ve got just about every song I want encoded in MP3 already.
- I plugged the device into my Mac. Both SD/MMC cards showed up as drives on the Mac. When I tried to unmount them, though, they came right back. Had to pull the USB cable. A little disquieting, if you ask me.
- Used the software keypad to type a lot. I generally like the predictive “suggestions” the text entry system comes up with, though it would be nice if it did a better job cascading the suggestions. For example, I’ll type in “fo” and it will suggest “rbear” (to make the word forbear). That’s cool. If I click on that, it complete the word. However, if I wanted to type the word “forbearance” I have to manually enter the “ance.” The system seems to “forget” other stuff may have preceded the completed word that may, in fact, also be part of the word you are entering.
- I tried using the built-in camera. I took a picture. The quality leaves something to be desired, but then again, the camera is for video conferencing.
- I called Ken Camp with Gizmo Project without a headset. Works really well.
I sat down in my living room in the quiet of the evening earlier and used the tablet. Typed up, slowly, a few emails, and browsed around. Stuff worked. I like it. It’s a little big in the pocket, but I think it’s something I could carry around with me.
What remains to be seen is what the battery life will be. I am going to put it through that test next week while I’m on the road.
