will they get the speed/stability up? contemplating a return

[astroglide]

for its wrinkles, i still love the device. works for many things, but it doesn't work for one of my biggest reasons for buying it. i can't even browse to one of my favorite sites without the browser locking up or the entire unit rebooting, and pdfs are unbearably slow (a minute to open, a minute to zoom, a minute to change pages - and i'm not exaggerating). i've got the latest os update on it. here are my examples.

slow pdf (504k): http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/3215/hammerrulesv2.0.pdf

slow site: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

[astroglide]

maybe disabling flash in opera would help with the browsing...is there any way to do that?

[thoughtfix]

Did you install the 2005 week 51 firmware?

I put my experience with the update here:

http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com/2006/01/update-and-upgrade-plus-gps-wishes.html

[astroglide]

yeah, i have that installed already.

try the pdf and the page i linked to on your 770. you should see what i mean.

[Mike Cane]

Live via free 770:

Sitting here in Bryant Park, that page built in about 15 seconds. It's a fat pig of a page too, making Load's RAM-O-Meter go into the red.

Russell Beattie recently had a piece about bad web design and the toll it takes on the mobile internet. I think this is one such site.

PDFs are a pain -- even on desktops. PDF Reader here is more triage than must-use.

UPDATE: It wasn't Beattie.
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/01/03/a-little-more-on-mobile-websites/
http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/01/01/one-wish-for-2006/
http://www.damnralph.com/PermaLink,guid,6aef3210-a643-413a-8121-ddcbc0fd794f.aspx

[astroglide]

if the system doesn't reboot when opening the web brower, it "builds" fine for me too. it won't allow me to click any links or scroll though, and i have to manually kill the browser.

pdfs are a "pain" on desktops, i agree, but waiting over a minute between operations is completely unacceptable :(

[Hedgecore]

Astro: Try eVince (I believe it's available in the software section here, otherwise Google it). I found it gave slightly better performance for loading PDFs than the built in viewer.

So far as web pages go (And I realize I'll take flak for this), I'd never think of frequenting sites like newgrounds.com on a mobile. Maybe I'm just being meek for not expecting full functionality, ionno.

[Mythic]

maybe disabling flash in opera would help with the browsing...is there any way to do that?
In Opera's preferences there is checkbox not to use plugins

[astroglide]

yeah i saw evince, was scared away by the lack of an immediate binary and the porter's own comments that it was ultra slow. i'll look back into it.

the boardgamegeek site is far from flash-based, it just has flash advertising at the top. there are also no alternatives to the site, so i'm really stuck if i can't get it to work.

[NokNok770]

I kept getting kicked out of web sites and program closing after opening too after the update to latest version. Then I did one thing different this time after several reflash. I didn't restore, and it's working much better for me. Try reflashing and configuring everything again.

[Robette]

that web site worked flawlessly for me and im running xchat in the background.

maybe try installing a swap disk if youre having problems. dunno.

havent tried the pdf yet. brb.

[astroglide]

i didn't do a restore on mine. just got it yesterday, took it out of the box and grabbed the latest os update immediately. the problem i'm experiencing is an actual reboot for sure. i click to open the web browser, the screen goes white, and it starts booting up again with the nokia logo. the other symptom is a zombie browser - it displays fine, i can minimize it, etc but clicks/scrolls/etc aren't registered.

[gultig]

Maybe that website could fix a few of the almost 300 html compliance errors before you start dinging the 770. ;)

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boardgamegeek.com%2F

[thoughtfix]

Maybe that website could fix a few of the almost 300 html compliance errors before you start dinging the 770. ;)

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boardgamegeek.com%2F


Excellent catch there. That page took about 3-4 seconds in Firefox on a Pentium M 740 with a gig of RAM. It's perfectly reasonable to have the Nokia 770 take 5 times as long given the disparity between resources.

[ElGatoFlojo]

I'd also like to add that I enabled the swap space on mine and that page loaded up just fine. Granted it might be chewing up my 64MB card, but its been very much worth it thus far.

[Mike Cane]

Live via free 770:

Sorry, I didn't try to click through. That's happened to me on other sites. Close Opera or reboot is what I do too. Webmasters have to catch on to mobile access. This is the cutting edge. Maybe too sharp for your particular needs, alas.

[myet01]

The PDF was a little slow but worked great opening up in the browser. The web page loaded fast and scrolled great.

[astroglide]

Excellent catch there. That page took about 3-4 seconds in Firefox on a Pentium M 740 with a gig of RAM. It's perfectly reasonable to have the Nokia 770 take 5 times as long given the disparity between resources.

while the points regarding html compliance are well-made, i think that should result in rendering errors, not system death (and fwiw opera for windows renders it fine). it's not taking 5 times longer, it is literally rebooting the 770 or locking up entirely. if the front page (the busiest part) took 20 seconds to render and worked fine after that, i would be relatively content. i don't believe reboots should ever occur even if the site is malformed, and it happens to me constantly.

it seems that many people who are finding the web site okay are swapping to their mmc cards though - i'll have to try that out tonight. thanks for all of the responses!

[thoughtfix]

it seems that many people who are finding the web site okay are swapping to their mmc cards though - i'll have to try that out tonight. thanks for all of the responses!

Is there a swap howto out there? If not, I'll make one if someone points me to the right forum posts.

[psj]

how do you enable the swap space?

[Chainsaw76]

swap space thread:

http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=602&page=1&pp=10

[astroglide]

tried out evince. it gagged on the pdf i linked to in the original post here, took a couple minutes to open and then wouldn't scroll. i figured that as good a time as any to try out the swapping...

dd works, mkswap works. when i try to swapon i get "operation not permitted" :( i'm doing the "file as swap" version, not the fdisk version. i tried installing that guy's unix util deb to get fdisk and it said it was already installed, but i have no /sbin/fdisk.

[astroglide]

whoa, looks like i don't have root/sudo privs...looking into the pain becoming root entails now :(

[astroglide]

ok, i got root (linux flasher to enable r&d, overwrote the sudoers file) and i was able to enable swap

pdf reader speed didn't seem improved. opening the file took the same time, changing between pages and zooming still took forever (a matter of minutes). evince was about the same. not totally surprising since the memory meter didn't peg on these operations. it looks like opening pdfs on the 770 is going to suck bad until a better reader comes around.

boardgamegeek opened without a reboot the first time around. i was able to actually log into my account, which grants me disabled ads, a customized (smaller) front page, etc. i toggled to fullscreen mode and promptly found the browser hung. i was able to get out to the home, and after that i couldn't put focus back onto opera. i shut down the unit.

how does the cpu/mem/screenshot app bring up a task killer? i haven't found the interface for it.

still disappointed with the unit, and probably going to return it. i did enjoy digging into it a bit though, and i hope that it does well. if only it were more powerful :( i'd like it a little bigger too, maybe with a foldable keyboard that could wrap around the back tablet-style and support for sd cards.

[henry]

I've converted the PDF to CHM format using pdftohtml and (a trial version of) Abee chm maker. The result chm file is only about 300k. In my chm viewer on the device it only took about 5 sec. to open and also about 5 sec to switch between pages :) It's still not very fast, but at least better than the PDF viewer... :rolleyes:

[Milhouse]

still disappointed with the unit, and probably going to return it. i did enjoy digging into it a bit though, and i hope that it does well. if only it were more powerful :( i'd like it a little bigger too, maybe with a foldable keyboard that could wrap around the back tablet-style and support for sd cards.

Clearly it's not for you - sounds like you need to purchase a subnote laptop with your refund (or at least use it as a down payment on something like a Flybook or OQO)

[CrossBow]

Just some opinion here.

I don't think that saying an entire platforum is no good because you found a website that will crash one browser on that platorum.

Especially right now with the WMF voulmnerability, I am quite sure I can show you plenty of pages that will crash IE (and/or infect the system) on a typical laptop/OQO running XP. By your logic everybody should return thier XP laptops. (Actually, I'm starting to like your logic:) )

Similarly, there was recently a bug in Firefox/Mozilla where some very simple (bad) html would crash it. I am sure I can still find some page that will Bring down Mozilla on this Linux machine. :.Linux/Mozilla is also no good.

I have also seen Safari go down consistantly on certain pages on my Mac. There's going to be long lines at the Apple Store as everybody returns thier iMacs/PowerMacs/iBooks/Powerbooks.

Every page on the 'Net renders instantly and perfectly on a Treo 650 (Palm OS)? -- Yeah -- Right.

How about Windows Mobile? -- Do I even need to go there?

So if you do return your 770, just please be consistent. Let me know what device you keep. I'll buy one too.

[astroglide]

at what point did i say the platform was no good?

i bought the device for specific reasons. #1 being reading boardgamegeek/game rule pdfs, #2 being movie review/time/info lookup on sites like rottentomatoes, yahoo movies, and imdb. #3 is everything else, misc browsing.

somewhere between boardgamegeek's design and the system's memory management, the system doesn't cut the mustard for using the site. the pdf viewer is as slow as molasses. this effectively kills reason #1, the most important thing to me. you can keep your extrapolations about mass returns/recalls of every known computing product to yourself, because it's not a valid point. what i am talking about is the product suiting MY OWN NEEDS, and nothing more.

i don't want a flybook, oqo, or laptop - i'm specifically avoiding a hard drive for battery/reliability reasons.

fwiw, it does look like the dell axim x51v is the best alternative. $400 for ~600mhz xscale with wifi/bluetooth, 256MB of rom (tons of it user-accessible), sd/cf, windows mobile 5.0. you can use a hack to get 'real' 640x480 landscape mode out of the vga display, and despite pocket ie apparently blowing snot rockets opera mobile is supposed to be released for the platform in a week or so. so i guess i'll wait and see on that.

[Mike Cane]

how does the cpu/mem/screenshot app bring up a task killer? i haven't found the interface for it.

If you haven't yet gotten a (puke!) Axim, you need the experimental version of Load to do this.

[astroglide]

i'll have to delay a bit to check out the opera for wm5 thing, and apparently i can do much better than $400 if i wait for a deal - http://www.fatwallet.com/t/24/545997 had it for $230! i'm not in a particular hurry anyway, and i would like to further research my options or hope for a big firmware release for the 770.

i'll check out the dev version of load for the task killer, thanks. i doubt i'll be returning the 770 until my 15 or 30 days at compusa are up.

[Milhouse]

Have fun hacking your PocketPC coercing the very latest and greatest version of the OS to use the hardware to it's full potential! Apart from the persistent storage, WM5 is just a bit of gloss on WM2003SE (actually it doesn't look that much different, which means it's still looks pretty plain).

I have an iPAQ HX4700 and found it a horrible browsing experience (using Pocket IE or NetFront 3.2/3.3) even when using all the available hacks to get stuff to run in VGA resolution (which usually had the sideeffect of screwing up one feature or another). I hope Opera for PPC will be designed for VGA mode, it's an utter joke that you have to hack these things to get apps to run in anything but pixel doubled mode - the OS might "support" VGA but what's the point when the apps don't?

This is why the 770 is such a joy - 800x480 resolution without any messing about. I've not had any problems with complex websites and don't find PDF's a problem after the latest firmware (-51).

Anyone want to buy an iPAQ? ;)

[astroglide]

boot a linux pc
enable r&d mode with the flasher
install xterm
overwrite sudoers file
disable r&d mode with the flasher
use sudo to create file-based swap on a memory card

is that not a hack? i realize this is a 770-specific forum, but i think things could be a little more objective.

i linked to a sample pdf in the original post here. open it with pdf reader or evince, and note the time it takes to open. zoom in, and note the time it takes. change to the next page, and note the time it takes. now try randomly scrolling around, and watch what it does to the output. the experience is abysmal - measured in minutes, not seconds.

[aflegg]

I'm not sure why everyone keeps saying disable R&D mode after overwriting /etc/sudoers or changing gainroot.

Can anyone say why they're doing this, and what advantage it gives them over leaving R&D enabled?

[astroglide]

i was just 'doing as i was told' -- the docs implied that it should be disabled after enabling root. i didn't have need for the additional bootup information, and i didn't want to be operating in any sort of debug mode.

[Jerome]

1: The pdf reader is very slow, yes.

2: But the browser should not crash the machine all the time. Maybe you try to clear its cache and cookies and see if that helps.

[TVD]

Can somebody please make a movie of the Nokia 770 reading this "slow" PDF and browsing the site using the latest firmware and using a swap file.

slow pdf (504k): http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/3215/hammerrulesv2.0.pdf

slow site: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

Maybe it is possible to make a movie section in the gallery section of this site, so everyone can see how fast/slow this device is and discussions like this are not needed anymore?

Just like this great example of Ari Jaaksi's Blog:

http://www.kotiposti.net/jaaksi/770_use_case.mpg

[Milhouse]

is that not a hack? i realize this is a 770-specific forum, but i think things could be a little more objective.


I think I am being objective.

Sure, they're both hacks but hardly comparable - buying a PocketPC with VGA screen then finding all the software runs in QVGA resolution is nuts - the damned thing should be running in VGA resolution from day 1 and not require a hack!

Overcoming the security on a device and installing additional virtual memory is not something your common or garden 770 owner is going to want or need to do. Great if you can do it, even better if it provides reall and tangible benefits - let me know how you get on and I may consider it later (although I suspect it will most likely stuff your RS-MMC card in the long term)

I guess my point is that the PocketPC needs hacks just to work right - not so with the 770.

[j.pickens]

The real issue here is screen resolution for Web browsing.
For the price and size, the Nokia wins, IMHO.
The Dell WindowsPPC has, at best 640 by 480.
The other browse device I contemplated was a Sony PSP.
That is even worse, at 480x272.

You need 800 pixels wide to be able to do "normal" web browsing.
Anything less just doesn't work.
Even if you have to squint to see those small letters with the Nokia, they're still there.

Now if they can get Opera to render the small fonts a little better.
They get squished together sometimes, especially when you hit the magnify button. Any good ideas on font substitution?

[Milhouse]

"small font squishing" - I reckon this is a bug that happens when the page is magnified (since the text isn't reflowing correctly), if you reload the page then the text appears correctly at the new magnification. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future update.

You made a wise choice by avoiding the PSP if you want a web browser - no touchscreen, not enough memory for even moderately complex pages, the analog joystick is a nightmare for selecting links (I always overshoot!) and the "keyboard" is laughable (will take you about 2 minutes to enter even a simple URL!). Thank goodness it plays games well! :)

I agree that 800 is now the minimum - I bought the iPAQ hx4700 thinking 640x480 would be good enough but the available browsers on the PPC platform are terrible and a 640x480 required too much scrolling and "smart reformatting" of sites (which usually failed miserably). If/when Minimo becomes a more polished product (hopefully about H2 2006) it will clean up without any trouble and Access' business of flogging NetFront for PPC will rapidly dry up (they barely support the platform as it is - they never officially added support for WM2003SE until this OS was obsolete!).

[pdafan]

Can somebody please make a movie of the Nokia 770 reading this "slow" PDF and browsing the site using the latest firmware and using a swap file.

slow pdf (504k): http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/3215/hammerrulesv2.0.pdf

slow site: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

Maybe it is possible to make a movie section in the gallery section of this site, so everyone can see how fast/slow this device is and discussions like this are not needed anymore?

Just like this great example of Ari Jaaksi's Blog:

http://www.kotiposti.net/jaaksi/770_use_case.mpg


I created a movie of the boardgamegeek.com loading on my swapped 770. It takes less than 15s (includes time to select the bookmark.) I have the MPG ready to go, I just don't know where to put it.

[Neil McAllister]

Reading PDFs speeds up considerably if you turn images off in the preferences. Admittedly, this takes away half the point of PDFs, but it at least makes the text readable. I think the lousy PDF reader is one of the biggest flaws of the 770 -- why include it at all if it's so bad?

[TVD]

I created a movie of the boardgamegeek.com loading on my swapped 770. It takes less than 15s (includes time to select the bookmark.) I have the MPG ready to go, I just don't know where to put it.

GREAT! Thanx a lot!

You can create an account at Streamload (http://www.streamload.com/About/Home.asp) for example and upload your file. I tested it with the Nokia Doom movie and it seem to work:

http://209.245.59.39/Gimme/35115504/399139701/83662525/A2FB7DB9-CD67-403B-AAED-37E33A59F245/0.494047/2/nokia770doom.avi

[pdafan]

Ok, I have put the video on streamload.com and here's a link:

<bad download URL deleted>

Let me know if it doesn't work for any reason. Streamload doesn't let you 'host' a file for downloading if you are a free user, so I won't be surprised if that URL changes at some point.

Note that the video was made on a 256kbs internet link, so consider that when thinking about the page rendering time. Flash disabled, week 51 software.

[Biomech]

The boardgame link doesn't seem to be working.

[TVD]

Let me know if it doesn't work for any reason. Streamload doesn't let you 'host' a file for downloading if you are a free user, so I won't be surprised if that URL changes at some point.


Grrr, you are right it has changed or it is working with a cookie or something...

Maybe http://www.putfile.com is a better option? Or you can send the file to me using MSN (I send you a PM with the address) , I can place it on my server. Thanx!

[TVD]

The movie of the boardgame site (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/) loading on a swap filed Nokia 770 can be downloaded from here:

Boardgame movie (http://vandamme.users.balpol.tudelft.nl/upload/770_boardgame.mpg)

Thanks to PDAFAN!

All other Nokia 770 movies are also welcome send me a PM if you have one, I will put them on my server also.

[Mike Cane]

Hmmmm... the loading bar isn't all the way to the right! Foul! (Just kidding; I said it took about 15 seconds for it to load on my 770 too.)

But what is it with you people? Am I the only 770 owner who goes to Full Screen mode?

[TVD]

For everyone who has movies of the Nokia 770 doing cool stuff, send them to me please for on this new movie blog (http://vandamme.users.balpol.tudelft.nl/serendipity2/) for gadgets :D

[astroglide]

you can add my name to the long list of people who can load the page.

my problem with boardgamegeek was that the unit was regularly locking up/rebooting when i would open it. since i've added swap it doesn't reboot any more, but it still locks up when i actually try to use the site (clicking through links, scrolling, etc).

the big speed issue was with pdfs, not web site rendering.

[mhuie]

you can add my name to the long list of people who can load the page.

my problem with boardgamegeek was that the unit was regularly locking up/rebooting when i would open it. since i've added swap it doesn't reboot any more, but it still locks up when i actually try to use the site (clicking through links, scrolling, etc).

the big speed issue was with pdfs, not web site rendering.

Good luck on reading PDF's on Windows Mobile 5. Adobe doesn't support hires and WM5 so your PDF's will show up in 320x240 :D

Have you tried a PDF -> HTML converter? or even PDF -> TXT?