An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Forgive me if the has been talked about before. I did some searching but didn't quite find what I am looking for. I have had an iphone for several months now and one of the main reasons i bought one was for listening to my music in my car. I have found using the iphone is this manner to be somewhat unsatisfactory. The main reasons being poor adapters, GSM noise and the probably the biggest reason is that i have come to the realization that i prefer something that stays in my car rather than me always plugging and unplugging it in every ride. I have considered purchasing a new headunit but after some research i am really intrigued with the nokia n800. I have looked at alot of the media apps for it and i am fairly impressed and considering i can buy one for just over $200 it seems like it might be worth it, but before i make that decision I need some advice and answers from some of you that own this specific tablet. My questions are geared toward usage in a car:

1: How is the audio quality coming out of the n800 and going into a car stereo?

2: What can I expect in terms of battery and power usage. ( since i would be leaving it in my car most of the time i would prefer that it boots up relatively quickly or at least if it goes to sleep that it recovers out of sleepmode fairly quickly )

3: What is the highest amount of storage i can put on it?

4: What options do I have for mounting it in my car?

5: How usable and reliable are some of the media players out there (I am paticularly interested in either running canola 2 or ukmp as the frontend to my music collection)

6: I also want to know if i can have the n800 either boot into one of these media players or recover from sleep and go straight into one of the media players.

Any other thoughts on using one of these tablets as a media player (paticularly music ) in a car would be very helpful.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

1: not good. despite what people say, the sound quality isnt top notch - at least for headphones. though i think it might be better with a car. i take it you use aux in

2: boot time is 45 seconds, but youre not supposed to turn it off - just put key lock on. in that case boot time is 0,5 seconds :p your best bet is to have a car charger plugged in anyways

3: 2x SDHC means 2x 16gb = 32gb ATM, 2x 32 in the future. you can technically use a usb stick too.

4: nokia have a car mounitng set, and there are a shtload of third party devices that will do the job, as low as 10 bucks on sites like dealextreme.com

5: i dont like canola... it looks nice but its more or less useless. the scrolling method is ******ed and its generally slow and annoying. the internal media player is more useful for music IMO

6: dont think it can bott directly into it, but you can just minimize the thing when you put on key lock and it will be there when you unlock it again

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Just fine over here with a direct RCA connection to my head-unit (CD-changer adaptor on a Toyota Camry).

It'll idle for a good 8 days, but the hot temperatures* in a car environment are going to destroy the battery very quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were down to sub-hour battery life within a couple months.

32GB right now, 64GB should be fairly inexpensive by summer.

Pretty much unlimited. You could build yourself a custom mount of some kind or just pick up a wieldshield/vent/dash mount for pretty much any PDA that'll work just fine.

Fine, though none of them are particularly well-suited to use while driving with the small screen-size.

Yeah, leaving the media player open would work fine.

Honestly, I don't think the device is particularly well suited for the task. I love my N800 as an in-car media player, but leaving it in the car all the time is going to have a major impact on battery life and potentially the LCD (maybe, the device is rated for 14-131°F), and it just isn't 100% for use while driving.

If you were planning to use the device for anything other than just the in-car media player, then I would definitely recommend it, but as you're not, I think you'll be much better off with an after-market head unit (particularly if you can fit/afford a real LCD model).

*A closed-car sitting in the sun can easily reach 130°F with only moderate outside temperatures.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Key lock is pointless in the car, just letting it sleep itself will accomplish the same thing.

Both hyperbolic and highly subjective. Most people love Canola and get a lot of good use out of it (I'm one of them).

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Well if youve used any real music player you'd know what i mean... the sole fact it doesnt even support embedded album art is too me freaking annoying

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Does too, it just doesn't grab it by default due to copyright issues.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Copyright issue with displaying pics that are stuck in the mp3 files? -.- thats a new one

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Don't know about you, but Canola's interface works better for me in the car than Media Player. I'm getting a custom DIN mount made for this later in the month and will be trying to rig up an aux connection on my Alpine headunit to take a 3.5mm jack, and I will be able to connect my N800 to my Nokia car charger and the audio jack in a tidy fashion and do away with my iPod

Now, if only i can get the cabin noise levels below 110 dB. Such are the compromises of a daily driven track Evo :P

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Thanks guys for the replys. I am not terribly concerned about leaving the device in my car in extreme weather. I used to own a zune in the summer and left in my car all the time and it seems to work just fine, besides if it does get really hot i would just take it inside. What does concern me is the audio quality. Cptnodegard and GeneralAntillies could you give me a comparison with other devices in terms of audio quality.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Doing what i do i online i have tested a "few" audio players in my days and i dont consider the n800's headphone out sound good in any way. That being said, i'm not sure how most people would look at it with less basis for comparison. I've test all my devices with a A/B switch i have, which connects two sources to one output. Then i play the same song on both devices simultaneousely, and switch back and fro to compare directly. When i compared the N800 to my cowon players, it became clear that i couldnt sell my real audio players :p the N800's lack of EQ is the biggest downside, and it generally has little to stand up with.
HOWEVER
You're using this for your car, aux in, which means you won't be using an EQ anyways. That makes it easier to say go for the n800, as i think you would need to have a more than decent car setup to really hear any major difference. The n800 isnt that far away from my psp without eq, and as i wrote in a review recently, the psp sound will do the job for 99% of the people in the world. you would basically need to have a very trained ear or a a/b switch to be able to tell the difference from the n800 to something else, so my recommandation would be go for the n800.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Eh, EQ is a bit of a joke from a purist's standpoint. The smiley face curve makes stuff sound better in the same way loudness makes stuff sound better.

Which goes to show exactly why this is a ridiculous metric. If you can't tell in everyday use, then it's really not very meaningful. Sound is such a subjective thing anyway.

I would like to see some hard numbers on the output, though.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

An audiophile wouldnt be using an internet tablet as an audio source -.- hence why it should have an EQ as most people actually do prefer to set the sound after their own liking, as you say yourself - sound is a subjective thing, so EQ is a definate must for headphone use. You can definately tell the difference between an EQ capable dap and the n800. About your numbers, run an RMAA test yourself if you're so interested in seeing numbers, personally I have better things to do.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

GenralAntillies how would you compare the sound coming out of the n800 to say an ipod. Also are there any brick and mortar stores that sell these so i could just go check for myself?

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

I use my N800 in my car just about everyday, during my commute home, about 1 hour. I run Canola2 and maemo mapper together with no major problems. I have tried Canola2, Kagu, ukmp, mediabox, and the built in player. I have found that canola2 is the best fit for me, with the inbuilt player second, mainly due to readability of the onscreen information, ease of use with a stubby finger, and ease of launching random mode for my whole library (about 15gb on one card). Canola wins as the internal player seems to suffer from poor responsiveness for me, and canola2 is no speed freak. Another factor, is that I use the gray theme in canola which if I need it does reduce glare at night, unlike the white of the default player.

I hook my N800 into a mp3 transitter as the incar aduio does not have a aux in connector (major oversight on a car launched in 2006) Sound is not too bad, but quiet compared to an Arcos gmini400 with exactly the same mp3 files onboard. I have all the n800 volumes up to max. I have reduced the problem to a degree by running mp3gain on the mp3 files and adjusting each tracks internal gain. With an aux in, I don't think this would be as much of a problem, but with an FM transmitter turning the volume up lets me hear background interference which I could not detedct with the archos.

I use a generic pda/mobile/psp windscreen mount which I bought from a local computer sale for £5 (10$) fits the tablets really well. I also have a in car charger for nokia phones which also fits the 800.

Overall, inspite of a couple of niggles, I like using the N800 in the car as I only have 1 device instead of seperate gps and media player. Also the touch screen makes any operation such as track skipping much safer than fiddling with a small player.

Gaz

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

I haven't bothered to do a direct comparison, but I haven't noticed any meaningful difference in quality (this is with a pair of Shure E2Cs).

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Hmm, I might have called myself an audiophile once; I don't have the time to care about it so much these days though I still enjoy putting an LP on once in a while :-)

I find the N800 just fine as an MP3 player in the car. On long trips I generally just put canola on random play and leave it alone. But the sound quality is just fine. I use it through that most high-tech of methods, a cassette adapter. Which probably does work better than the alternatives (bluetooth or FM), unless you have a real line-in. Of course who uses cassettes any more. I was lucky to find the cassette deck still worked...

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Surely you already did it, but try googling for "<your car model> aux in", you could be pleasantly surprised. Maybe it actually has an aux input but it must be enabled at the dealer (my case) or it has a cd changer interface that can be hacked to provide an auxiliary input.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Drop me a line when that's done. ;)

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

My N800 is coming, but the N810 has very good speaker sound, especially when flat and/or near a wall. I was surprised. I don't think the iPodT/iPhone is as loud (unless you puncture the waterproofing plastic).

Generally, the sound quality is as good as the source material (I realized I have a reference CD which I could try).

I have several iPods including a 2nd generation which runs without an external hub for power with the USB host mode adapter (time to port GTKpod or see if iPodlinux might be even more interesting as a media server), and I encode audiobooks from CDs or do podcasts for most of my listenting. My iPod is rarely used any longer since I can do the media player almost as easily. (my only complaint v.s. my iPod video is remembering play position for tracks).

And I have GPS, and a cradlepoint with EVDO setup so I have that too, i.e. a new podcast can be there in the few minutes it takes to download. I checked and even the iPod Touch can't download or move stuff not from iTMS into the music player function, nor do I think the playlists can be editied.

I do and have listened to internet radio. The only occasional problem here is when the only supported codec is a windows speech codec (there are arm versions of the dll, but libwine isn't there for ARM to my knowledge).

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

As a theoretical matter, it seems like a waste to specifically want to play music for your car thru an N8xx, since a car typically has very big pockets, so the N8xx's small size isn't a benefit. But I have used it pretty often, though I'm just about to go on a 7-mi jog, for which the N800 works great, and I DO need the device to be pocketable!

For cars, the FM transmitter option has drawbacks in the Los Angeles areas, where interference is plentiful. I have an old car, so the problem may be less severe with newer radios.

I wish there was a CHEAP way to listen to internet radio in my car...

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

Actually, older FM tuners seem to handle things better than the newer ones for whatever reason.

Honestly, I'd recommend doing everything you can to secure an aux in of some kind (most cars can do this through the CD-charger port), as the quality of both FM transmitters and cassette adaptors is well below par.

Re: An n800 specifically for Car usage.
 

I use my N800 in my Jeep all the time, just not quite in the way everyone else seems to approach it. I've got an asus Wireless router (Wl-500Gd) that's running OpenWRT and Music Player Daemon on it. The router has USB ports so all my music is stored right on cheap thumb drives that I've got plugged into it; the router is powered by a small DC-DC adapter that's wired into the 12V supply for the cigarette lighter. From there it's just a matter of using your favourite MPD interface to setup playlists and things; any time you want more music/etc either I unplug one of the USB drives and throw some more stuff in it from my computer when I go in at the end of the day, or Wifi-it over from the tablet using the default Samba file sharing support in OS 2008.
Being a Jeep and all there really aren't a lot of input options and I didn't want to replace the head unit as in the summer when I've got the roof off the thing would last for about 5 minutes before being stolen, so I picked up a HiFast USB audio card/FM transmitter combo, and the thing is awesome. No interference problems (I can get clear signal at about 100 feet, non-line-of-sight, so gives you an idea of how the thing compares to something like those whimpy iTrips/etc) and several frequencies to select in case you suddenly park next to a transmitter for a radio station or something...
It's a bit more work, but if you're serious about in-car music it makes a lot more sense then relying on your tablet.
1) The thing is always present and powered only off the vehicle, so battery life over time is not a concern.
2) Much more expandable thanks to USB. I know the tablets recently got USB host mode to work, but see the next point...
3) It's not mobile. Sure, it's easy enough to unplug the three cables from the back when I want to take it out, but it's not something that I have to do everytime I get in and out of the vehicle. Also, since I don't have to interact with it directly I have it mounted out of the way which keeps the interior space nice and clean (especially important for me again because of the no roof/theft problem and because quite frankly there just isn't a lot of space in a Jeep!)
4) Rugged. The tablets are great, but if I'm offroading or even just out on rough roads I don't want to be worried about my lovely tablet getting bounced around, falling out of it's cradle, or worse getting full of dust in the summer! Since I use the tablet only to control the router, I only need to have it out when I want to change something; once that's done it's safely stowed away again.
5) Passenger friendly. Because the tablet's not anchored or wired to anything, I can hand it out to anyone else in the vehicle who can take their time to scroll through and choose music/set up playlists etc with the tablet in their hands, as it was designed to be. They can make all the music choices and changes in realtime without having to plug it back in etc.
6) Tactile control. I also rigged up a few physical buttons to the router that control basic playback with some simple scripts. This is by far the biggest advantage, as it lets me have basic playback control without having to look down at a screen.

Anyways, I know it's probably more of a personalized setup than you're looking for but I thought I'd share it since it's my version of what you're trying to do.