Nokia N800 Experience

I collected these experiences as a result of a two-week trial of the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, which runs Linux and the Maemo user interface (related photos here):

Part 1:

The N800 arrived from WomWorld. I was surprised by its size; I thought it was bigger from the images I had seen. Compared to my Zaurus SL-5500 PDA, its about the same size, but thinner.

When I first powered on the unit, it started a first use wizard, that walked me though peering with my (Motorola) cell phone. I had never connected anything via Bluetooth, but the process was very simple. The N800 found my phone and offerred a PIN, which my phone asked for to authorize the connection. After enterring the PIN, the two were paired (able to communicate). The next step was connecting to my wireless LAN. The N800 showed four wireless networks (I had only known about one neighbor previously), and once I entered my key, the connection was established. Both processes were simpler than any wireless connection I had setup before.

Physically, the device is beautiful. The screen is sharp and clear, even with tiny text (and even without my reading glasses). I started the web browser, and had no trouble displaying a CSS heavy web log. What surprised me is the speed. This same web log spikes the CPU on both my laptop and desktop. The N800 displays the page just as fast. Very impressive. As other reviews have pointed out, Flash pages are slow, but usable.

My next test was software installation. Many folks remember the days of difficult software installation on Linux. While all modern Linux systems make software installation very simple (and provide attractive graphical interfaces), I was curious to see how the N800 handled this. I'm happy to say that installing software is just as easy - point and click:

My overall first impression is very positive. For the price of a middle-of-the road PDA, this is an amazing unit - and I've just scratched the surface of its capabilities!

Part 2:

In response to some questions I had received:

1. The handwriting recognition is good, about as easy to use and reliable as on a Palm PDA. However, it doesn't use its own special characters like on the Palm - you just write normally. My wife Barbara created a shopping list using the handwriting recognition, and it worked as expected. Even editing text was reasonably intuitive. For me, writing is harder than typing, so I personally wouldn't use it. Instead the built-in virtual keyboard is very good. You can click in any input field, and the keyboard pops up. There are actually two sizes - if you click with the stylus, a small keyboard appears, but if you click with your finger, a finger-friendly large keyboard appears. That was a nice touch (pun intended) that makes the interface very friendly.
2. The N800 accepts two full-sized SD cards (or mini/micro cards in a full-sized carrier). The 4GB SD cards have been confirmed as working correctly, so the total capacity is 2x4GB (8GB). As a point of comparison, the Zaurus I've been using (as well as Barbara's Palm) only has a 1GB SD - and that's plenty of room for hundreds of books, a few music albums, and a couple of TV shows. A one hour TV show typically takes about 250MB of storage, so 8GB is about 32 hours of (high quality) TV!
3. The stereo speakers are very good; the audio is better than I expected. I'm always amazed at the audio that comes out of the tiny speakers in modern electronics.

I loaded some additional applications:

1. FM Radio application: Excellent reception and quality, with a station forward/backward scan as well as manual tuning. You can assign any label to any frequency (for example, 'WMGQ - Magic New Brunswick, NJ'). The earphone cable must be plugged in to use the FM radio (it acts as the antenna), but audio can be played through the speakers even with the earphones plugged in.
2. GPE PIM: The GPE personal information management tools are not the best, but they provide basic calendar, todo list and contacts. I wouldn't use a separate PDA if I owned an N800, so these are essential.
3. FBReader: This book reader handles text, Plucker, HTML, Palm Doc, RTF, and Mobipocket book formats. This version doesn't have auto scrolling, but you can rotate the page and go fullscreen, which is very easy to read (with configurable fonts). There's a pre-installed reader for PDF files as well.
4. Media Streamer: An amazing application! This program connects to a UPnP Media Server, and can play music and video streamed from the server! On our Fedora Core 6 desktop/server, I installed the uShare media server (it's already in the Extras repository which is configured by default). Automagically, the media directory I configured on the server shows up, and I can play any of the music in our library, anywhere in range of our WiFi! Music, audio books and video on demand - very cool.
5. Maemo Mapper: If your cell phone has a GPS (or you have a standalone GPS receiver with Bluetooth - about $35 these days), this application turns your N800 into a "StreetPilot" - providing real-time directions with audio. This application alone would pay for the N800. The maps are freely downloadable - a much better deal than paying Garmin, Magellan or TomTom for updates!

I played with some of the included applications:

1. In addition the the above media streamer, there's also an Internet Radio player application. Many regular radio stations as well as some Internet-only stations stream their signal over the Internet. I tested that and it also works very well.
2. The RSS reader is simple, but great for keeping an eye on headlines.
3. There are a handful of games pre-installed, but many more are available for download.

I also encoded a video to test playback with the pre-installed media player. Some folks had indicated that playback could be jerky, but I suspected that was because the video hadn't been encoded properly for the device. Sure enough, playback was perfect. You just need to set your encoding for a resolution of 400x240 (16:9 widescreen aspect ratio) at a video bitrate of 600Kbps at 25fps with MP3 audio at 48000Hz sampling frequency, 128K bit rate, in stereo. Playback with these setting is indistinguishable from a high quality TV signal. The media player had no trouble playing the MP3s I loaded locally either.

I have found two gaps in the available applications that need to be addressed, both related to the video camera. While a video conferencing application is provided (using Google Talk or Jabber), there's no photo/snapshot or video recorder application. Since video already works, it seems that these would be trivial to create.

Part 3:

I installed xterm and SSH (both the client and server). This lets me use the N800 to connect to my home systems remotely. It also allows me to connect to the N800 remotely, useful for when you want to perform a large amount of text editing. Rather than use the on-screen keyboard (or carry a BlueTooth keyboard), you can use any desktop/laptop. For example, while browsing the N800 blogs at Maemo.org, I found an extended repository list, which makes getting new applications (some still in development) much easier - they all show up in the application installer. Rather than manually keying in a couple of dozen URLs, I just copy/pasted the list from my laptop web browser into an edit session on the N800.

I also came across the application wishlist in the Wiki, and added a request for a port of the IQNotes encrypting memopad application. This is an application I use regularly for storing private information on my Zaurus. My previous comment on the need for camera/snapshot and camcoder applications was already listed by someone else, as was a comment on the weak PIM applications.

I tried an experiment to see how small I could get a typical one hour (40 minute without commercials) TV program, while still having acceptable quality. I found that by setting the resolution to 400x240 with a video bitrate of 300Kb/s and 25fps, the image quality was good (like a VHS tape). I also reduced the audio to 16000Hz at 64Kbs, and surprisingly that sounded pretty good too. This reduced the size of a one hour TV program to 114MB, and doubled the encoding speed (only 19 minutes on my laptop)! With these parameters, a fully loaded (8GB) N800 can store about 70 "hour-long" TV programs. Take that Tivo!

In case you're wondering, the price of 4GB cards has dropped considerably recently, with the non-sale price currently at about $40 for cards with good ratings.

By the way, the method I'm using to move files to the N800 is via USB. The unit comes with a USB cable, and when plugged into a PC it appears as a storage device (one for each SD card). The N800 when connected this way essentially works like a flash reader, allowing you to move files easily back and forth. Unfortunately, the N800 can not be charged via the USB port, which means you'll need to bring the (small) wall wart charger with you when traveling.

Part 4:

I've been using the N800 long enough now to get a feel for its battery life. With the heavy use I've been giving it, a battery charge lasts just about what Nokia claims - 3 hours - with the WiFi and Bluetooth on. While you can extend that to 5-6 hours with the radios off (for example, watching a movie), you should expect to be charging the N800 daily. It is an Internet Tablet after all, and its primary functionality comes from connectivity. It would be nice if Nokia offered an extended life battery that replaced the back cover and matched the form factor. By increasing the thickness of the unit only about 50%, they could increase the battery life to several times the current limit..

Switching modes is straightforward; just press and hold the power button. A dialog pops up offering you the option to turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth radios, called offline mode. If you run any application that needs connectivity (like the browser), the unit will prompt you to exit offline mode. You can also lock the screen and buttons from this dialog, which is handy if you want to put the unit in your pocket and not have it power-up accidentally. To unlock, press the power button followed by the square center button on the cursor pad.

Some gripes, now that I have some experience with the N800:

The case that comes with the N800 is a soft eyeglass-like slip case. It's fine for preventing scratches, but something sturdier is needed to protect the unit when it gets thrown in a purse or pocket. Nokia has announced (but not yet made available for order at this time) a flip cover. It's similar to the flip cover that the Palm Tungsten C has. It's not enough though for those that seriously use their device. It would be great if Nokia or one of the third-party case manufacturers provided a hard shell case.

The email program is very basic. It's OK for sending text messages, but you are better off with a web-based email account if you want to send or receive emails with images.

The web browser needs to remember the zoom associated with a web page, or at least with a bookmark. Either that, or allow setting a minimum font size (like Firefox). There's way too much zooming going on. While it is easy with the zoom in/out buttons, it's becoming intrusive. Switching between Boing-Boing, Slashdot and Fark requires hitting the zoom buttons two or three times on each page.

There's no way to "switch off" the unit, without shutting it down (which requires a 40 second boot). You should be able to just tell it to go to sleep, like a normal PDA. In its standby/lock mode, the display still powers up when you tap the screen or press a key. It times out and the display powers back off, but that shouldn't happen. It should just ignore everything until it receives the unlock sequence.

I've gotten used to being able to use my Zaurus in brightly lit areas (like full sunlight), thanks to its transreflective screen. While the N800 has a much better screen (800x480 resolution vs. 320x240 on the Zaurus), the N800 screen washes out in bright light. That's true of most regular LCDs, but my Zaurus is almost 6 year old technology. Did they lose the recipe?

The software catalog for the N800 is too sparse. There are hundreds of thousands of Linux applications. Nokia needs a dozen folks assigned to the Maemo project to do nothing but port applications. There should be new useful applications daily from the vast pool of software. To an end-user, the available applications appear stagnant. To make the N800 attractive to non-software developers, the software must be available. To make developers interested, the environment must be useful and entertaining. Nokia needs to pay a small army to do the grunt work and kick-start the software catalog. Otherwise, there's a constant dark cloud of impending abandonment hanging over the environment.