is an IT right for me?
 

Ok. Heres the story. This whole thing started out with me looking for an mp3 player with video playback, so naturally i started looking at an ipod touch. but the rebel in my does not like the idea of having to conform and be limited to the use of itunes, not to mention the fact that there is next to no customization to them. second, after doing some browsing and reading some reviews and forums about the touch, i stumbled (or should i say was reminded) about internet tablets. this reminded me that an ipod is lacking a few key things that i would like in a device.

- format flexibility for vid and music
- PDA/organizer functions
- expansion and customization

now heres some info about me and what i would use such a device for the majority of the time. i work in the american wireless industry. in other words, i sell cellular telephones and pda's. i am very familiar with nokia's offerings in this field, and have always liked their products in general. the main things i am looking for are primarily a media device for video and sound, and secondly an organizer for contacts, schedules, and calander type stuff.

from the info i have, there are some characteristics i can factor out of my decision.

- i dont care about gps, as i have a great system readily available to me on my cell phone.
- storage capacity (internal or external) is also a moot point. its not too hard to get extra SD cards.
- skype, whoopity doo. again, got cell phones up the wazoo.

i guess the million dollar question is, would i make full use of an IT, or would i probably be better off getting a BlackBerry or some other sort of PDA/smartphone?

Feedback, anyone?

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

PIM/organizer functions are the one thing you cant easily get with the N8x0. there are half-baked solutions and workarounds, but there's nothing that just works out of the box.

expansion+customization is what you get.

format flexibility: yes, but you pay the usual price: you'll need to know what the N8x0 can play and probably will spend a lot of time re-encoding because there's no such thing as the video format for the N8x0. (you know: it says it plays codec A, but only with a max bitrate of B and resolution must not be above CxD and no, you can't have it in container E, you need F or G... freedom of choice requires knowledge.)

I'd not recommend the device to somebody who really wants the PIM functionality.
I do think it makes a great multimedia player once you know what formats it supports.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Short, good summary by benny1967..

The way I use it is that it makes me leave the laptop behind. I do most of my emailing and things through my N800. And for mapping and internet browsing. I use my Palm for calendar stuff.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

and pim is close...
gpe-calendar + erminig (for sync) + google calendar works close to flawless
and erminig should come with contacts sync - soon....

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

I'm would agree I'm not sure if tablet is best thing for you mcalendar does an ok job for Calendar and mcontacts is coming out soon. So Pim is getting better. Personally I don't even use the tablet as my main music player yes it has a good sized screen for video but for music I have 28GBs of music on my Ipod so that is what I use, heck even for gaming I normally pull out my DS. Don't get me wrong I use my tablet for about 4 hours a day just not as music player.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Well, to me you sound like a great potential tablet user -- smart and flexible and interested in the fast-moving environment that the tablet has become.

It sounds to me like you can expect good tries for all the things you want and have a lot of fun in the bargain. If I were you, I wouldn't pass it up. But then again, I didn't.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

"is an IT right for me?"

No.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Boom - didn't see that one coming Karel

;)

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Looks like what you need is the "next gen IT", the "N900" as we call it here in itT.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

If you don't need web browsing, you'd better buy an Nseries phone, it would fit better to your needs.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

I think it works great as a multimedia device... but I guess my opinion differs from others here. I have put several of my dvd's onto my device so I can watch movies anywhere I go.. plus I have around 50 songs on that I can play... and since it has flash you can even build online playlists at things like playlist.com and listen to those through the browser.

I also like the speakers on this thing.. it can get pretty loud..

But then.. I'm a tinkerer... almost nothing I use is "out of the box".. I don't think the NIT will work great for someone not wanting to spend any time getting what they to work exactly the way they want it.. It most certainly doesn't come pre-installed with what you want.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Well, if Nokia designs a new tablet with all the features asked for in the N900 thread it'll be... fascinating. I'm planning on doing workouts in preparation because it would be very, very heavy.. :D

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

well, thanks for your feedback guys. it sounds like the things i want his gizmo for just arent quite developed enough yet. at least not perfected. browsing obviously works great, which is good because i am an internet junkie. obviously. maybe i'll just have to wait for the next generation of PIM's (or PDA's as we call them in my neck of the woods.) But we shall see. i am a giant nerd who likes to have teh toy that no one else has, so it might just happen yet.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

thing is simply that pim/pda is mostly integrated in phones these days, and the tablets are designed to go along with phones, not replace them (as some seem to want).

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Allrightie then, here's the long version:

Neither video nor music playback are smooth/developed/supported enough to warrant an endorsement, especially not as it is his first requirement. He's probably thinking about Archos 605-levels, while the tablets are at 2004 level (qnd that's being generous!)

PDA functionality is rudimentary/buggy/nonexistent, depending on what he wants. For me personally, decent PDA functionality starts at Psion level and stops -- well, at Psion's level. Nothing at the moment comes even close.

Expansion is possible, but if you look at some of the examples in this forum, you'd almost need a wheelbarrow to lug some of them around. And frankly, most of those expansions/customisations are because of some of Nokia's stupid design or engineering decisions.

Happy now? (and did you notice how I didn't even mention the Panodra, let alone the Newton in my original answer?)

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

You mean I can access my phone's PIM from my tablet and edit/expand entries?

Really?

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

you just love putting words in other peoples mouths, dont you?

so let me restate then. how about the tablets being there to do what phones do poorly?

or for that matter, that the tablets are a nokia experiment in using open source code and community?

bah, i wonder why i even bother...

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

The usability of these GPE parts leaves much to be desired. It isn't hildonized either. Its still half-baked.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

But Karel had a valid point. It's been argued from Nokia's (or more correctly, Nokia employee's) side that you don't need PIM in the NIT as there's PIM in the phone. And that's why there shouldn't be a decent calendar or contacts in the NIT. But firstly, PIM in phones mostly isn't even near PDA PIM, and secondly, it's useless as far as the NIT is concerned - whatever is in the phone isn't integrated with NIT applications. Which all boils down to that having PIM in the phone isn't an answer to the missing/poor PIM in the NITs.

Fortunately people (3party) are working on this, but it's a long way to go still.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Also, from what I've heard (please correct me on this, I never actually tried it myself), it doesn't integrate at all with the EDS-based rest of the core applications. PIM to me also means that any contact-data I have will be available in modest, telepathy-based chat and voip-clients etc. ... a stand-alone thing that duplicates data is little more than a feasibility demo. (this is what makes Gizmo such a bad experience, even though it technically works very well as a voip-client.)

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

I don't know about that but I do know you can sync the PIM data of GPE with your GNOME Evolution using e.g. SyncEvolution or with Google Calendar using Erminig.

Point is, the fonts are different, the size of everything is different, the interface is cluttered and was clearly not designed by a UI designer but by a programmer, and it isn't hildonized. It only blends in well if the rest of your interface also happens to be GPE.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

I have a 6500 slide and I have contacts in it.

It is a pain for me to have to constantly press the down or up arrow to find a contact. Not to mention pressing keys two or three times to enter or search for them with the search option. There are perhaps over 200 contacts in my TX.

Shall I compare the amount of times my phone battery his died during a phone call or while it was sleeping compared to the amount of times my TX has died when I needed it?

No; PIM on the phone is totally unsatisfactory.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

I don't mean to be a jerk but this would appear to be a problem with the PHONE'S and not the NIT'S...

Since the NIT's weren't/aren't meant to "replace" phones (at least that is my understanding).. then demanding the NIT to fix a problem that exists with the PHONE is a bit unfair. You should be on your respective phone forums complaining that THEIR pim software is total crap and needs fixing.

I'm not saying I'm completely against some PIM software on my Nokia.. a Decent Calendar would be nice out of the box.. but I don't need to store phone numbers and such for it since I make my calls with my Blackberry, not my NIT. And it has it's own Address book. But since the NIT is almost entirely designed to be used "on the web" .. then it's just as legitimate answer to tell someone to use an online calendar software than having to re-write one for the NIT..

The expectations for a platform should be kept within the direction and intent the platform is intended.. and AFAIK; the NIT is not intended to replace phones.. which is why people screaming for a phone built-in to the next gen NIT need to go get an iPhone.. THAT is an IT that is intended to be a phone. It's also closed source.. no fun to play with.. can't modify.. and cagey... But - such is the way of "phones". Nokia has a cell phone line.. the NIT isn't in there.

You want an IT phone?? an iPhone or maybe one of the n9x's are a better choice.

You want an Open Source Tablet that you can make do (almost) anything you want?? Get a NIT. But this will require some work on your part.

You want an Open Source Tablet that does everything you want immediately with no modifications and reads your mind?? Well - When you find it.. let the Linux Community know would ya?? They've been trying to get Linux to "just" work for the masses for the past 20 years...

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Well, I have a Sony Ericsson P910i (a Symbian/UIQ2 phone) and I can tell you that the PIM on it is more than satisfactory. Of course, the P910i has a touchscreen and is rather intuitive to navigate.

Synching with a pc (something I rarely, if ever, do) is very easy, provided you ditch the default connection suite and go for Oxygen.

Still, the N800 with its bigger and clearer screen would be far more ideal to manage the phone's PIM on, if only it had decent HWR (I use Decuma Alphabetic on the P910i) and if it were at all possible to access the phone's PIM to begin with.

But, you know, I'm putting words in people's mouths and such...

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

I do like this idea.. as it fits in with the idea of a phone's "companion".. but this would not only require changes to the NIT but also the phones themselves.. there would have to be some sort of "standard" to access the internal pim software remotely..

Now I think some do this via Bluetooth.. as anyone tried accessing them from bluetooth on the nit?? I know (or rather, have heard) there are linux utils to "hack" cell phones through bluetooth and modify people's address books and crap...

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

i cant say i have ever seen such a statement from anything looking like a nokia employee, or anything official from nokia.

personally i just think its a plausible explanation for why nokia didnt bother with pim on the tablets, but beyond that i dont have any clue as to the actual reasoning inside nokia.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

quick and quite likely incorrect guess, but i suspect you take better care of your TX battery because thats where you store all your data. this would be out of instinct.

i rarely if ever allow my phone to run out of battery if i can have a say about it, going so far as to tell people calling that im low on battery so we have to keep it short.

but if i had a independent source of data for my day to day activity, i would not worry as much about the phones battery. especially if i bothered to have a voice mail/answering service turning on at the operators end.

we make our habits based on the tools available, basically...

oh, and as my tablet is not my primary data source, i allow it to run out of battery all the time...

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Even if Karel's post was a jibe (and in good spirit), I think this is the vision that SHOULD be - for a Nokia IT with a phone (at least a S60 Nokia phone) as a companion.

In fact when Qtopia on the Zaurus was supposed to be launched for phones as well (Trolltech's Qtopia based green phone as a example) this was the first thing that came to mind - would the Qtopia based Zaurus be able to "talk" to the Qtopia based phone ?
(and talk not in the sense of send/receive files over BT, but exchange more meaningful functions).

So now that QT has been bought over by Nokia and QT is being integarted into the IT platform (suposedly), will we ever have such cross-talk functionality ? Or even some framework on S60 to be able to "talk" to maemo or vice versa.

At least its about high time now.

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Please consider to follow this:

Re: is an IT right for me?
 

Back to topic, kids. I have used the N800 to watch movies, i think its ok indoors but rather bad outside. For music i feel its to big, so unless im reading an ebook or surfing, I prefer a small mp3 player. I really like the fact that you can stream video and music from your pc (no encoding needed with tversity, all the magic gets done in on your pc)
and listen to internet radio. And myTube makes it so easy to get your favorite videos, you can use them even offline (I currently have a beginners taichi choreography i need to learn, and portability makes it really useful). As always it depends on how much effort you're willing
to make to get stuff to work. Im not much of a multimedia person, what really got me was the browser.