n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

Hello, I just got an n800 a few weeks ago, and immediately flashed it to OS2008. Now, I'm noticing some annoying issues. Are they normal behavior, or should I try to get it replaced?

First, the touchscreen. I know about the double-tap regression going from OS2007 to OS2008, where a single tap registers as two taps. However, mine also randomly registers clicks as being from some distance to the left of the actual click. I can be clicking on the scroll bar, and one of the menus on the left appears. This is the most concerning behavior. Is this a known issue?

Second, virtual memory. Currently, I'm using the 128MB card that came with the device. When the browser takes a lot of memory, it starts swapping. It also slows to a crawl, so if I click in the browser, eventually the dialog pops up asking me to force quit it. If I say no and wait, eventually it finishes and information boxes appear saying that the browser is responding again. Other programs and the window manager also crawl when the device is using the swap. I don't remember any reviews saying that the device crawls. Should it?

Speaking of the memory cards, I got one of those generic Dana-Elec 2GB memory cards from Woot around the same time. It works for storage, but when I tried putting it in the internal slot for swap, the tablet crawled even worse and then entirely lost the memory card. As in, the card didn't show up in the file manager. So, I put the 128MB card back in. I think I heard that the tablet is picky about internal cards, so I'm not that concerned, yet. Is this appropriate?

Lastly, so far, when I send it a pure white image (fullscreen VNC viewer not connected to anything), I notice some unevenness in the lighting on the right side. There are bands that are darker than the rest of the screen, and bands that are brighter, but the unevenness fades out until the rest of the screen looks evenly lighted. I'm not really concerned, but should I be?

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

Yes, it is. Please vote for bug # 2784.

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

Most reviews assume you're doing one thing at a time, and therefore don't really need any virtual memory. Virtual memory uses storage memory for a purpose it wasn't designed for, so it's bound to be somewhat slower.

Most tablet users probably don't even know what virtual memory is let alone use it, and to be fair it's not really needed unless you're multitasking (I know I'm going to get people strongly disagreeing with that, but for the vast majority of websites you simply don't need it, I never use it).

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

i disabled swap and its much smoother and responsive

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

If you have a slow SD card, enabling swap when it's not needed will slow things. With a class 6 card, it seems to make no difference to me; other than not having troubles every time I open 3 apps at once, of course.

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

...i have 3 class 6 cards...2 sandisk 1 adata maybe i just need to do some fine tuning...

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

Don't know... you could try running a kernel with high-speed mmc support, but I don't think I'm running one. (Then again, I might be; don't remember for sure.)

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

ahh...im not that advanced yet.....stil learning....rapidly though....usaly have to wait till after midnight...drop a modalert...then try stuff....

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

Ah, I find ways to abuse my computers all the time:

Just try the web browser, one window by itself, open to Pandora. Horrible stutters.

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

I'd like to bring up Decade's mention of this screen irregularity (the "wavy" lines on the right edge of the display). I've noticed it on my N800 since I got it (about 2 months ago) and the display on another N800 my friend has has the same problem. It's not the end of the world, but is this just "the way it is"?

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

Yes. Most LED-edge-lit screens have some such artefacts. Severity varies unit-to-unit, but it's practically impossible to get it perfect.

Re: n800 touchscreen and flash issues: normal?
 

i remember a sony pda that had stage lights.....