N810 leaves me cold
I really thought I would love this device considering how much I like its old N770 brother. However it completely misses the mark and I can find no place for it in my daily workflow. Dare I say it, I would prefer an iPod Touch!
Last May at Cork OpenCoffee, Gordon Murray told everyone about an amazing bargain on Expansys. Nokia N770 Internet Tablets were selling for approx €100. By the end of the coffee morning, more than 10 had been ordered and after a few hours humming and hawing I got one too.
Initially I loved it with its touch screen, wifi, bluetooth, web browser etc. Then I realised it was based on Linux and discovered the treasure trove of Maemo apps out there. Pretty soon I had a good application stack including some of my desktop favourites like Pidgin IM, OpenSSH etc. However the killer app for it turned out to be mplayer. I load up Divx and Xvid movies and tv programmes onto a 1GB RS-MMC and have the perfect mobile movie player for the car and elsewhere.
Of course there were problems too:
- The biggest by far was overall speed and performance. It’s a very slow device to do anything.
- The browser was pretty rubbish too, unable to handle any site with lots of Javascript and unable to handle modern Flash sites like YouTube.
- I upgraded the OS on the N770 several times with OS2007HE with the expectation of better browser/flash performance but neither improved.
- The build-in email client didn’t work properly with GMail IMAP on Goog Apps and generally none of the built-in apps were as good as Open Source ones.
- The lack of a java stack meant that it couldn’t tap the huge application base from all the Nokia Symbian phones either.
- The touch screen is almost unusable with fingers and really needs a stylus which is incredibly annoying when you want to tap something quickly.
- The iGo Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard had major character repeat problems with it
So I started wondering if maybe it was time to upgrade to the N800 or N810. The N800 has a much faster CPU, more memory, takes bigger memory cards, has a better screen, runs Skype, has a small camera and the all-new OS2008 but is over €200. The N810 adds a slide-out keyboard, GPS and a few other goodies and is generally over €300. However, I wasn’t going to spend that sort of money without knowing for sure that these devices were far better.
Luckily Tom Raftery had an N810 which he thought was garbage compared to his iPod Touch and he loaned it to me for several weeks. I am so glad he did, I won’t be buying it or the N800 based on my experiences.
First the good news. It’s much faster than the N770, the iGo keyboard works perfectly, the screen is much better, Flash works well, Skype works and the built-in keyboard is ok. But that’s about it. The problem list is almost identical to the N770:
- You cannot practically use the UI without a stylus. The touchscreen remains terribly unresponsive. Palm had this issue sorted 8 years ago
- You cannot call something an internet tablet if GMail doesn’t work in normal HTML mode
- You cannot call something an internet tablet if GMail IMAP doesn’t work on your email client
- Why have a movie player which is incapable of playing lots of formats when mplayer exists?
- The GPS is utter rubbish compared to the N95-8GB. The maps are a joke.
- The browser is still dog-slow with Javascript
- There is still no java stack
- No-one has bothered to write a Twitter client.
- There is no built-in decent PIM app
I just don’t understand the target market for the N810. Give me an N95-8GB with a touch screen and the N-series tablets immediately become irrelevant. They do lots of things ok but nothing brilliantly, they just fall between several stools.
The sad fact is that the N770, a three year old design, is not that bad compared to N800/N810. Unless the next tablet is head and shoulders better than the iPod Touch it will be a flop. What would make me buy an N820? It has to be a cloud device:
- Seamless syncing with all Goog Apps and other online/cloud apps
- Full integration with all the Ovi initiatives
- Lightning fast JS engine
- Brand new UI much more like the iPod Touch
- Finger friendly UI
- Java stack that can handle most J2ME apps built for mobile phones (Yes I’ve read the technical problems with this. Solve them!)
- Best of breed movie player, email client and online/offline PIM
Somehow I doubt we’re going to see this.
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I make daily use of my N800. It fails to do exactly what I want frequently. But I bought it very cheaply, and it is still my favourite outragous toy.
Your feeling about the N800 is probably similar to mine about the N770. When something is as cheap as chips you forgive it a lot. I’d be very happy with both the N800 and N810 at a €120 price point but the list price of €360 for the N810 makes it more expensive than a Dell Vostro 1000 laptop or an Nokia N95-8GB and it ain’t as good as either.
[...] Conor was keen to try the N810 and see if it had overcome some of the issues the older tablet had. Initially things looked good with improved speed and updated software, but for Conor that was about it. He can’t abide the [...]
What other device out there can check out all the items you were looking in the N810 ?
Closest is N95-8GB with an iGo Stowaway. Misses out on not being Linux but all the apps I need (and more) are there. Give me decent native Goog Apps integration/OTA-sync and I could live without a touch-screen.
If you’re looking for a 100% non-stylus UI for the Nokia tablets, try installing Canola:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0aQ62PLi4BQ
The N95 8GB’s far lower resolution makes it much much less suitable for viewing websites, and the S60 browser simply isn’t anywhere near as good as MicroB at rendering sites properly and quickly. There’s no proper Skype client for S60 either (the official Java one doesn’t count because it involves call charges even on “free” calls).
I’ve used Canola – If Nokia rebuilt their UI like that, then they’d have a winner. I can’t even get the current UI to register fingernail presses on large buttons on the current UI. And as for scrollbars, well they just get me angry.
I honestly thought MicroB was going to be a big leap forward but I found that on the sites I frequent it isn’t. The S60 browser has never crashed on me once, MicroB is totally unstable. Both are terrible on JS-heavy sites.
Skype voice via Fring is just about acceptable on N95-8GB but I’ve switched over to Truphone for most calls and just use Fring for the IM part of Skype.
[...] Argolon – N810 leaves me cold [...]
Good points. The most craziest thing is the iPod touch has very very simmilar specs except it has a functioning PowerVR 3d acceleration chip.
I was looking forward to a nokia internet tablet, i really want one. But for its price I don’t have the money.
I really thought I would love it, hence the disappointment. The icon changes etc in OS2008 are also retrograde. Hand an N810 and an iPod Touch to a person and see which one they figure out quicker.
I also had it for a week before I realised that the three small buttons from the N770 were not missing, they were moved to a cheap feeling flush toggle switch which I had thought was a loudspeaker!
I have found the N810 to be a great product though most certainly not perfect. I did buy it at American rates which lessened the initial pain as it was close to half the amazon uk price. A big selling point for me is no monthly fee. The N95 was more expensive than the N810 and Vodafone probably kill you for its use.
A few points on the N810
- Canola – a great media product and can play 80% of movies attempted on it. You may need to use Nokia’s video converter on some file types which only slightly lessens the video quality.
- MPlayer and MediaPlayer will play close to the 20% of movies Canola can’t
- GPS – MaemoMapper supports Google Maps and VE Maps. Some effort needs to be made up front to download the maps of where you are going but the detail is as much as you can squeeze on the sd card. My biggest argument on the GPS is the initial lock, which can take up to 5 minutes. After that it works remarkably well, even on the back roads of Clonegal.
- Gmail – Works fine using the native browser. It is a bit slow for my liking but works well
- Touchpad – Finger browsing at the highest resolution is hit-and-miss. Zooming in makes it much easier to navigate with the finger. The last 2008 patch was supposed to have improved the touchpad use.
- Browser – MicroB is based on Firefox 3 alpha 1 and still works reasonably well. Fennec, the latest build from Firefox, works a bit better as MicroB in beta. When it releases I’m hoping for a marked improvement.
Plus there’s a load of apps that just make the N810 great to use.. Streamtuner for internet radio, RDC, USBControl to hook up the 8gb usb stick, skype for ok audio calls. Won’t be long now before Ubuntu or Android will be openly available on it…
And of course they released a new rev of the OS the day after I write this review!
I think it’s a great HW platform and love that it’s Linux at the back-end but the front-end really does need a lot of work.
If I’d had a spare day, I was actually going to try the Android install. Dare ya!
I wonder if Tom would sell me his N810?
I think he would but he’d have to ship it from Spain.
If I had just read this review before I bought the N810. Most of the reviews out there are positive, but the issues raised here are spot on. I have owned an iPod touch now for 5 months or so and it changed my life. The Nokia N810, on the other hand, seems like a brick from a different era. It is open, yes, but nothing works out of the box. Everything is an effort. The only think it can do that my iPod cannot is open ssh connections (a hacked iPod can do that as well). And the price is twice. So my verdict is:
The effort thing is a major problem for the N810. That’s why I think it’ll remain a geek toy that is fantastic for hacking but will not go mainstream. “Oh I have to add the Bora repository from Maemo to get the XYZ? Or is it the Maemo repository from Gregale? Or? Oh forget it”.
I see you have gone through in fact what I did in theory, discount the Nokia’s. I bought a Palm T/X. Say what you will, it has some problems, but does more than a iPod Touch (built in Speaker for alarms) Better Email, larger screen, more apps (temporally) and for about 200 Euros a 100 less than a Touch. Bluethooth that links to my Nokia 6300, and Syncs with my Mac wirelessly, WiFi and InfraRed (TV Remote) a Slot for SD cards an good battery life. PIMs to outclass any so far on the iPod/iPhone and multi media with TCPMP or PocketTunes.
I seriously considered a T/X last year since I loved my old IIIx and Tungsten T but couldn’t get a good price on one. The implosion of Palm is still one of the biggest tragedies in tech business in the last few years.
For kicks, I installed the Garnet VM on the N810 to re-live the Palm experience. Pretty cool (if slightly pointless) app.
I got my N810 just a few days ago (cheap, off ebay) and so far i love it. As mentioned above by Craig, nearly all of your issues can be fixed by 3rd party apps. Ok, thats’s not out-of-the-box and requires a little effort, but i set up my N810 and addded all applications I needed in less than 3 hours. I love the open platform (im a desktop linux user, too) so far im really having a lot of fun with it. Its not as refined as an iPhone, but on the other hand its much cheaper (at least here in Germany) adn offers more fun (at least to geeks like me).
I actually think we’re in agreement Branitar. If I got one cheap, I’d probably love it too.
The problem is that its retail price makes no sense given how clunky it is compared to an iPhone (or the new Nokia touch-phone).
I actually just bought an Eee PC Surf 4G on Expansys recently. They were selling them off for £100 since they are end-of-lifed. Whilst it is much bigger than an N810 and doesn’t have a touch-screen, I’m much happier with it. I can plug USB devices in, use my O2 broadband dongle, access thousands of standard Debian apps and have an almost-full-sized-keyboard. Eee PC plus N95-8GB is a killer combination right now.
Last week I hooked the Eee PC up to my office monitor, keyboard, mouse and network. I then worked the entire day on it. Apart from being a little slower than my usual machine, I was able to do a full day’s work with no major drawbacks.
Cheers for all the write up.