N800 browsing experience
 

Hello everyone,

I bought my N800 a week ago and have played around with it for quite a few hours now. It is great to have this forum as a source for background information.

What surprises me most about the device is that it excels at many tasks which it was not designed for and nearly fails the web browsing part (my humble if admittedly slightly exaggerated opinion). I find the browser not much more convenient than Opera Mini on my mobile phone, the difference being that when I use my phone for web browsing it’s usually to get some vital information on the road where the benefit of obtaining that information far outweighs the inconveniences of mobile phone browsing.

The N800, however, was meant for convenient couch surfing. It fails ( IMHO) for the reasons listed below.
If any of the Nokia/MicroB developers read this, please do not be offended. I know it comes across as a bit of a rant but it is mainly the result of exaggerated high hopes which have not been met.

- speed: most web sites load fine but many of those that make heavy use of AJAX are slow to unusable: Yahoo Mail, Google Maps, to name just a few. It is also a pain to watch internettablettalk being loaded in the browser, it takes 20 seconds to load the homepage on my device (OS2008, 128 MB virtual memory allocated). Maybe this is a bug, can’t see what’s so special about the page (apart from its user base, obviously ;-))
- zoom: does not work properly on many web pages, especially google’s. Size of the page will be increased but no scroll bars appear to scroll the missing content into view -> again, maybe this is a bug that will be fixed in the final release
- full screen browsing concept: the display size of the N800 makes full screen browsing almost mandatory. Why then does it have to be so difficult to call up the controls to navigate to a new site. Easiest way to do it would be to offer an “auto-hide” option for the address bar with the same handling as the windows task bar. Or is there a nifty shortcut to address bar and bookmarks that I don’t know anything about? I would be grateful if someone could tell me about that.
- Scrolling up/down using hardware buttons: problem here is that the hardware keys cause a jump to the next link. Scrolling or better yet page up/page down would be much more convenient. Does anybody really want to navigate to the next link with a hardware key?
- Scrolling up/down/left/right using fingers and touch screen: Every second or third time I use the touch screen to scroll the web page I will hit a link by accident. Couldn’t this be avoided if the N800 would not accept click events (or whatever they are called) from the touch screen during and right after scroll events?


There are a lot of things that the N800 gets right but I would have thought that – being called internet tablet – browsing would be among them. I bought the tablet for surfing but I am keeping it for the features listed below:

- vagalume last.fm client – cannot do without anymore
- VNC remote server administration
- internet radio in general
- games (Lucasarts)
- UPnP client for music


I am looking forward to your thoughts and comments.

Cheers,
fiy

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

"- Scrolling up/down/left/right using fingers and touch screen: Every second or third time I use the touch screen to scroll the web page I will hit a link by accident. Couldn’t this be avoided if the N800 would not accept click events (or whatever they are called) from the touch screen during and right after scroll events?"

Amen. I can't count the number of times that I have thought, while using my N800, "The Internet is a MINEFIELD" because of how many times I hit unintended links while using it.

In particular, for some reason I have seen the NY Times definition of the difficult word "inside" about 500 times, since apparently its dictonary definition is easily activated.

I don't know if the solution you mention is as easy as it sounds, however.

But I think the N800 + OS2008 is a great combination anyway, even as a web browser.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

AFAIK the OS2008 will brings a most finger friendly scrolling on browser. No personal experience, still stick with OS2007, waiting for OS2008 final release.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

The internet is a minefield of links...I've heavily relied on the d-pad to browse. This all changed when I got my iPhone...I thought I'd miss the dpad with that but somehow Apple's programmers seem to know what to do if you mash your finger on the screen to either hit a link or to scroll.

I wish someone developing microB would figure this out, otherwise, I'm sticking with the dpad (which is also a reason that allure of the n810 faded after I realized I had to always have the keyboard out to surf and why I ended up picking up a n800 for cheap)

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

I agree with all the above quotes: the internet browser on the tablet needs to be greatly improved, especially in the easy of scrolling/panning and the distinguishing between scrolling/panning and click/text input events.

Nokia should take every programmer not working on the core Maemo operating system and put them working on improving and perfecting the browser.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

These sites aren't particularly snappy on my dual-processor G5, so I'm not sure why you expect them to run like silk on your handheld. ITT is a bit of a special case, as the latest theme seems to be designed with zero efficiency in mind. Hopefully we'll see some improvements with further revisions from Reggie.

Zoom tends to do weird stuff with a lot of the AJAX-y multi-line text-entry areas. This feature will probably improve a lot over the next couple of MicroB releases.

I'd hardly call fullscreen browsing "mandatory", I spend a lot of my time browsing in windowed mode. Hiding the toolbar isn't particularly necessary, either, as the horizontal dimension (the most important dimension) isn't affected by it. Though, perhaps a show/hide hot-corner/button sort of deal wouldn't be entirely unwelcome.

Both MicroB and Opera have easy workarounds for getting the d-pad set up for page-up/down. If you're so lazy as to not want to do that, holding the d-pad will get you line-by-line scrolling.

Just focus on the whitespace. There's a lot of it these days, and it's not that hard to hit. :)

This has a lot to do with the fact that Apple doesn't have to worry about two types of touchscreen input (thumb and stylus), they have no contextual menu tap'n'hold to worry about, and that there's no text-selection process to worry about (that, and they don't have to deal with the N800's noisy touchscreen and its weird input drivers). The issue is more complicated than you think, and has its roots in system-level stuff that MicroB (well, the browser UI) really doesn't have much control over.

Yes, it's not perfect, but it's not an entirely clear-cut issue either. :)

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Right, but Nokia has been going towards finger input and less of stylus...they should've dropped the stylus input altogether and focused on thumb/finger inputs. They obviously don't care about the stylus that much since they haven't put any effort to polish up the handwriting recognition on the platform. So choose one, and go with it.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

I don't expect them to run smoothly but I expect them to run with acceptable speed for me to conclude that checking my Yahoo mail account is a tablet feature I can use comfortably. I do realise that the performance is low because the processor is relatively slow and that the processor was chosen for its low power consumption and low heat generation and all the other characteristics required for a small, light-weight device, but should that knowledge lead to a different evaluation of the browsing performance?

Nothing to do with laziness, I assure you, thanks for insinuating. I had seen a thread which mentioned the page up/down modification but I had understood it to be a global change effective on operating system level. I'll take another look at the thread, maybe I got it wrong.


Obviously not clear-cut since there are more than enough board members quite satisfied with the browsing experience. As for me, I'll use the mobile-specific sites of yahoo and google or try some of the dedicated proxies mentioned in another thread.

fiy

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

You misunderstood, my point was not that you were too lazy to make these changes (I assumed, correctly, that you were unaware of them), but that if you didn't want to make the changes, then holding down the d-pad to scroll is another option available to you (again, I assumed that you might've over-looked it, as many others have).

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Dropping stylus input would hardly be possible with the current maemo GUI. It would require an overall several orders of magnitude greater than the change between OS2005 and OS2008. Personally, I don't have any problem with stylus input and at the pixel densities the NITs have, global thumb-input doesn't really make all that much sense.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Have to disagree with you, not in the technical sense, but the philosophical sense. Nokia is marketing this as an INTERNET tablet, it should do that well. Nokia controls the hardware directly and to a large extent the OS. They have complete control over the browser experience, as far as it relates to panning/scrolling vs. input, etc.

Nokia may not be apple, but they are not a mom & pop store either. They have an amazing product here, that can easily compete with Apple's equivalent (the iTouch), but getting the browser working well is an important step.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

It's a good day for browser bashing:

1st: The access to history is too far removed.
2nd: I need the ability to simulate a right click for new-window control.
3rd: I dig my N800.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Not sure this qualifies as a nifty shortcut but you can hit the Menu hardware button to get to them easily enough. From there the address bar is at "Web page / Open location..." and bookmarks are at "Navigation / Bookmarks".

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

See my post just above. Also, if you touch-hold on a link you get the equivalent of a right-click. And touch-hold on the back-arrow gets the recent history.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Philosophy doesn't mean much in the real world. We are where we are, it's not like you can flip a switch and change that. :rolleyes:

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Yeah, the problem with "Navigation/Bookmarks" is that it launches the whole Bookmark organizer/editor which really isn't needed most of the time. I wish there were a way to get to bookmarks like the "toolbar" offers when you are in fullscreen without the toolbard visible. Even just an option off of the tap and hold menu would be fine. Now I find myself shifting out of full screen just to get at that toolbar and then switching back.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

You are right, I did not realize that holding down the d-pad will cause line scrolling. Thanks for the tip.

And my quip about the laziness and insinuation was just that, a quip not to be taken too seriously. I appreciate your feedback.

fiy

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Some thoughts from a newbie.

I also find that the browsing experience could or should be better, especially given that the NIT is marketed as an Internet device. Several Web sites I consult take a long time to download: I don't pretend the speed of a laptop, but sometimes it will take minutes for a page to download (and with little images). This is even more the case when you need to magnify and have the text display horizontally to fit the screen. I don't know whether this is linked to the poor wireless performance reported elsewhere, to the device itself, or to the browser. I hope and am confident it can be fixed.

Also on the n810 navigating through pages is hazardous: it is difficult to do it with your fingers, you may easily hit links and you really need the stylus if you want control of the sidebar. Some web sites, like MyYahoo, do not have a lot of white space in which to use the fingers without hitting a link.

The d-pad on the n-810 can help but the upper part is very close to the edge of the device and you may easily touch the central button, which brings you to the next link on the page.

I am sure I will improve my navigation ability. But meanwhile, is there a way to re-program on the n810 the page navigating buttons on the left side of the device? I think that would make things easier. I hardly use those buttons for their intended purpose.

I love the n810: it is already a companion and I my comments, by a non-techie and newbie, are only meant as a contribution.

Antonio

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

You, sir, are awesome. Thank you.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

Guess that doesn't look like a problem from here.

I set up several apps (evince, opera, and I think a couple others) to have the toolbar on in "windowed" mode and off in full-screen. This lets me use the full-screen button to get to additional options, and I like it that way. Tap full-screen, enter URL, tap full-screen again. Likewise in evince, tap full-screen, enter page number or use TOC to get to a page, tap full-screen again. I find I use applications in full-screen mode more often than not, and it doesn't bother me much.

One thing that would be nice is if programs could be set to automatically come up full-screen whenever switched to. That would help when I: tap full-screen, start other application from menu, tap full-screen to full-screen intervening program, then come back to original program, which has been left in non-full-screen.

Maybe, since applications can't overlap even in non-full-screen, non-full-screen mode should be eliminated, the full-screen button should become the "invade screen from all sides with helpful toolbars and menus" button, and the task switcher (tap home key) should have the "Home" entry partioned into two half-width buttons: the Home button, and a laucher-menu button.

Hey Technut! Thanks, I had no clue about the tap-hold for history; but I thought at first you meant the Esc hardware key. I tried that, and indeed it performs as in other apps, an app close. Then I realized what you meant. Don't suppose you could have said "the back-arrow in the toolbar" for me mit mein muddy-minded morning *****icity? ;)

Noventa, I find that, thanks to the bezel, I am quite able to control the scrollbar with a thumb. I hold my left thumb against the bezel so that the tip touches the screen. It touches right over top of the scrollbar, so I can just slide up and down the bezel.

Some people have commented on the experience vs. web-browsing on the iPhone <spit>, and suggesting Nokia should ditch stylus support. The great thing about the ITs that the Empire of Slightly Used Fruit doesn't have is a full mouse-compatible UI, making ports of 3rd party software much simpler. While the absence of total finger-centricity does have a (small IMHO) negative impact on browsing "experience", I'm quite happy to trade that off. I find it is still very usable for web browsing, and it gains so much utility elsewhere. I still hope for browsing improvements, but never at the cost of stylus support.

Re: N800 browsing experience
 

I *could* have said toolbar, but where's the fun in making it too easy? ;) And using the hardware button... wouldn't that be *push*-hold? I hope you're not operating heavy machinery in that state. lol jk.