770 is still worth the money - maemo.org

earksiinni | # 1 | 2008-06-30, 08:27 | Report

Hi everybody. I'm a longtime ITT reader, first-time poster.

I'm posting about my recent experiences with the Nokia 770 tablet so that everyone out there on the Internet who's doing a product search can know that the 770 IS speedy and stable (enough) for many people's purposes, IF you put some effort into it and do a few "mods". Not actual mods of the hardware kind, mind you, but rather by installing some officially unsupported software that's been made available by the hardworking internet tablet community.

I've written this mini-review with a very specific audience in mind. Those who are spendthrift first-time internet tablet shoppers who've done their research and have read several reviews stand to gain the most from this. (N.B., This might also be good for 770 owners considering upgrading to the n800 or n810 but who may not be aware of the software upgrade options available to them.) They know that the 770 by default is slow, unstable, and generally unpleasant, but they're hesitant to put down $200 on eBay for a used n800 or, even worse, $350 for a n810 loaded with features they know they'll never need. They may have even heard that because the 770 runs open source Linux the community has created certain enhancements that make the 770 run better, but since there hasn't been a new review for a long time they have no idea whether those work well or not.

Well, the short answer is "Yes, they work well," but you should read on to learn more. You should have read other more thorough reviews first because this one has been written more with the aim of overturning your expectations rather than informing you of the full capabilities of the 770.

First of all, here is a description of myself and my needs:

-Full-time college student with the important caveat that I'm probably one of the few college students who hardly cares at all about media. I rarely torrent and I buy my music legally as directly downloadable MP3's, so I don't rely on proprietary software. I never watch videos on my computer.
-My 770 is my full-time work computer. I am young and have good eyesight, so high resolutions on small screens isn't a problem for me. I have an iGo foldable bluetooth keyboard that works like a charm, which I use to write very long papers in AbiWord.
-I move my 770 around *a lot* (as it's meant to be used!) Thus, the built-in cover is very important for me and is a hugely important advantage over the n800 and the n810, which don't have any solution nearly as creative and well-suited as the 770's.
-I'm very tech and Linux savvy, so I haven't been daunted by any of the more seemingly arcane software modifications for the 770. If you don't want to deal with Linux command prompts and the like, don't bother, just get a n800.
-Nonetheless, as a principle I hate computers and I generally dislike the Internet. For me, the 770 is the ideal form factor because it keeps the computer and the Internet as just a tool, not as a world for me to get sucked into and distracted by.
-I don't care at all about running the latest and greatest OS for the tablets and I don't bother with all the instability of the hacker editions. OS2006 serves me just fine.
-I don't care at all about disk space. The 770 only has 64 MB available to the user in its flash memory and its single MMC slot can only expand to (8?) GB, but I've never seen an MMC card above 4 GB. Fortunately for me, 1 GB still strikes me as a huge amount.
-I don't listen to recorded music constantly. My city has a lot of concerts and as a student I can usually get in for free or at a deep discount. I don't like having a soundtrack to my life, it's distracting. Yet, I can imagine that the 770 would make a poor portable media player when compared to much smaller, sexier, or more specialized options.
-I don't need PDA functionality. There are some PDA apps out there for the 770, but none tightly integrated enough to seriously contend with anything from Palm.
-I don't use GPS. GPS is the devil's spawn and Google Maps more than fulfills my wildest cartographic fantasies.
-I don't use video or audio conferencing, though Skype does run on the 770.

Now, here's what I use my 770 for:

-Writing papers. As a serious college student studying history and art history I read and write--a lot. I cannot use a tool that I find uncomfortable to write with. Well, with my iGo bluetooth keyboard, I can say that that's not a problem. Again, good eyesight is important for using this device like a typewriter.
-Checking e-mails. As many reviews have pointed out, the default e-mail client is terrible. However, I've gotten around this problem in a way you may find helpful. My school e-mail is my primary account and I have it set to forward all mail to a Gmail account, which I use as a backup. That way I keep a very empty and healthy e-mail account that the default 770 mail app can handle just fine while knowing that if I need to go back to a previous e-mail I can just go to my Gmail account for it. I stick with the default client because of its tight integration with the rest of the desktop and OS, but if you don't mind an ugly but excellent client, I highly recommend Claws mail.
-Surfing the web. The default web browser is an old version of Opera that hardly handles Web 2.0 apps and crashes frequently. Instead, I'm using the 770 port of the minimo browser, which uses the same Gecko engine that Firefox uses, which means that I can browse everything just fine.
-Listening to (some) music. I like to use Streamtuner and Vagalume to check out the occasional online song, and it works quite well.
-Watching YouTube videos. Ah, yes, you might think this isn't possible, but with 1) fanoush's 48 MHz SDHC/MMC kernel, 2) booting off of the MMC card, and 3) Canola 2's YouTube plugin, you can in fact watch YouTube videos through a very slick interface. You cannot watch them directly from the website since the 770's version of Flash is too old, but Canola 2 gets around this through some magic.
-Web 2.0 stuff. Google Docs, mostly.
-Flashcards. I use a neat app called Granule that runs on my 770 as well as Windows, Linux, and OS X computers.
-Checking the weather. Good desktop applets for that.
-IM'ing. Pidgin and other clients are available.

Here are things that I can't use my 770 for that I have had to get around somehow:

-Printing. While theoretically someone might theoretically be able to run CUPS through some heavy hacking into Debian ARM binaries, that's just silly, not to mention no Maemo app has a print option in its menus. I use my school's comps for this.
-Certain wifi connections. My campus and many others like it use WPA enterprise security for its wifi, which requires certificate authentication and the like. While the GUI menus were implemented they are all for naught since the actual functionality is not there. Instead, I just use my regular WPA connection at home and the unencrypted connection at school =(.

Here are things that I don't use my 770 for *yet* but that I will do once I get around to it:

-External hard drive management. So I partly lied when I wrote that I don't care about disk space. That's only because I have an 80 GB external drive that I carry around with me. Now, you may have read that the internet tablets are stuck in USB slave-mode, i.e., can't take hard drives or the like. Well, with a little bit of hacking that can be toggled on and off, and apparently it can even be integrated into one of the status applets so that you have a nice way to switch between host and slave modes. A powered USB hub and a USB B to A adapter, however, are prerequisite, neither of which I own yet.

Now, in terms of stability and speed, here's what you should know about my particular setup:

-Speed: Much, much better than what you've read about in the reviews. Much better. The web browser and Canola, two of the most resource intensive apps for the 770, are snappy and while Google Docs loads slowly (I'd guess maybe 45 sec from the Google Docs login page to actually writing a blank new document) it runs fine once you're in. Overall just good enough for my needs.
-Stability: Pretty solid overall. Rarely do I need to reboot or do something drastic. Occasionally the web browser will close (but much less than you read in the reviews) and there will be the odd application that doesn't function properly (AbiWord, for example, crashes when you bring up the bulleting dialog box), but overall just fine.
-One important exception to the stability: if you use a bluetooth keyboard for some reason once in a while a letter you type will get repeated several times, so if you're typing "while" it might come out as "whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile". That's annoying, but it's also something I'm willing to put up with. It only happens, say, once per page as I type in AbiWord. I suspect that it has to do with load on the 2.4 GHz spectrum and the 770's ability to handle that. Perhaps turning off wifi may help with this problem. YMMV.

(more below)

Last edited by earksiinni; 2008-06-30 at 08:36.

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earksiinni | # 2 | 2008-06-30, 08:28 | Report

(con't)

Here's what you would need to do to get where I am with my internet tablet:

-Install the high-speed 48 MHz bus version of fanoush's excellent, excellent alternative SDHC kernel. The 770 is capable of running the bus between the CPU and its MMC card at 48 MHz, but by default it runs at 12 MHz. Installing fanoush's recompiled kernel running with a 48 MHz bus increases the transfer rate from ~1 MB/s to ~ 4 MB/s. Nice! The only downside is that your card might not work if it's not up to spec. Worst that could happen is data corruption and losing your files and the operating system, but that hasn't happened to me yet, and I bought some crappy no-name card off of eBay from someone in Hong Kong.
-Then, boot from the external MMC card (I'm using ext3 formatted, certain guides recommend ext2 but I haven't noticed any significant performance penalty with ext3). Normally the 770's OS is stored in the device's flash memory. Since that memory is only 64 MB (128 total, 64 for the system), however, the file system runs compressed, which takes up a lot of the puny CPU's power. Now, if you were to install the default OS on the MMC card it would run just as slow since although it runs uncompressed it also runs at 1 MB/s, but with fanoush's new kernel it runs far faster.
-Install the wifi driver patch that everyone's talking about.
-Install Canola 2 and the YouTube plugin. That'll give you YouTube goodness.
-Install the minimo browser engine and use that instead of Opera. It runs slowly on the default install, but, again, with fanoush's kernel and when running off of MMC it runs just fine.
-Activate swap space through the control panel. This effectively increases your RAM from 64 MB to 128 MB.
-Use OS2006. Don't even bother with OS2007HE (OS2007 Hacker Edition). If you want the latest and greatest, shell out the money for the n800. I know a lot of people use 2007HE, but there are always small bugs in it that just kill the joy for me, like the cover not working properly when you close it. Besides, it's all about OS2008 now, which the 770 can't run at all (there is an OS2008 Hacker Edition for the 770, but it's really awful.)

Here are the drawbacks of these "hacks":

-No official support. I'm not sure if Nokia has any kind of support at all for the 770 anymore, but whatever they might have or some third party might be providing you with (such as under a support plan), don't expect anything when you're running this software. But, then again, the 770 probably isn't supported by anyone anymore anyway.
-Possibility of some instability. I haven't had any problems yet, but with the 48 MHz patch ostensibly there's a reason why Nokia didn't set their kernel to that bus speed. YMMV.
-Can't take the MMC card out during operation. I'm not sure if anyone has regularly used this "feature", but with the default install if you're not using any swap space you can actually take the MMC card out whenever you want. Obviously if you're running the OS off of the card, however, taking it out would be a very bad idea. But who used that functionality anyway? Besides, for the tablet to be even remotely runnable with any modicum of comfort requires swap space even when using the default OS2006 install, which doesn't allow you to hot-swap the MMC card.

I hope that helps anyone still considering buying one of these things. Right now they run $70-$80 used on eBay, which is a steal for what they can do. Throw in a bluetooth keyboard, a bigger MMC card, and USB accessories for accessing your USB gadgets and we're talking $180-$200 total.

Last edited by earksiinni; 2008-06-30 at 08:34.

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wahlau | # 3 | 2008-06-30, 09:12 | Report

apparently i have justed "reflashed" Os2006 on my N770 30 minutes ago, and have then installed some IMHO must have software.

and i think it runs very fast, stable and good enough for me as compared to the 3 weeks using OS2008HE... i don'T really need the latest, but i need something that works (TM).

I will go the bluetooth keyboard way when i need to get things done while on the move.

is there a USB host feature i wonder? then i can even copy data from my camera on the unit :P (put aside the transfer speed, of course).

geneven | # 4 | 2008-06-30, 14:06 | Report

I have an N800, but it's still great to see this information. Makes me want to buy a 770.

wahlau | # 5 | 2008-06-30, 14:10 | Report

we can swap, if you want

i do think a N800 is pretty nice, only thing missing is the hard cover

OVK | # 6 | 2008-07-11, 10:27 | Report

Nice thread. It made me look further in the possibilities of my 770.

One suggestion though: it would be nice to have links to the different HOWTO's and resources (for example in the second post) that you have used in tuning your 770. This would made it easier to find ways to unleash the potential of 770, especially for the newbies.

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anidel | # 7 | 2008-07-11, 10:49 | Report

Originally Posted by earksiinni

Nonetheless, as a principle I hate computers and I generally dislike the Internet. For me, the 770 is the ideal form factor because it keeps the computer and the Internet as just a tool, not as a world for me to get sucked into and distracted by.

That's the best quote I 've ever seen .
Congratulations. Really.

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jrock2004 | # 8 | 2008-07-11, 12:07 | Report

I agree the 770 is nice but it is not the software that I care about it is the hardware. I have my 770 in for repair again. I wish the hardware would hold up so I can use the device.

rittf800 | # 9 | 2008-07-12, 23:51 | Report

Imho, the latest 2007he is the best thing to have on the 770, it seems to be much more stable, this for the btowser (closing one tab, or even a popup) often closes all browser windows, and 0s2006 seems to reboot spontaneously at least once a day, eating half the battery in the process.