The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is a wireless

Internet appliance An Internet appliance is a consumer device whose main function is easy access to Internet services such as WWW or e-mail. The term was popularized in the 1990s, when it somewhat overlapped in meaning with an information appliance, Internet com ...

from

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

, originally announced at the LinuxWorld Summit in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

on 25 May 2005. It is designed for

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

browsing and

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

functions and includes software such as Internet radio, an RSS news reader, ebook reader, image viewer and media players for selected types of media. The device went on sale in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

on 3 November 2005, at a suggested retail price of €349 to €369 (£245 in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

). In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, the device became available for purchase through Nokia USA's web site on 14 November 2005 for $359.99. On 8 January 2007, Nokia announced the

Nokia N800 The Nokia N800 Internet tablet is a wireless Internet appliance from Nokia, originally announced at the Las Vegas CES 2007 Summit in January 2007. N800 allows the user to browse the Internet and communicate using Wi-Fi networks or with mobi ...

, the successor to the 770. In July 2007, the price for the Nokia 770 fell to under US$150 / 150 EUR / 100 GBP.

Specifications

* Dimensions: 141×79×19 mm (5.5×3.1×0.7 in) * Weight: 230 g (8.1 oz) with protective cover or 185 g (6.5 oz) without. * Processor:

Texas Instruments OMAP The OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) family, developed by Texas Instruments, was a series of image/video processors. They are proprietary system on chips (SoCs) for portable and mobile multimedia applications. OMAP devices generally ...

1710 CPU running at 252 MHz. It combines the ARM architecture of the ARM926TEJ core subsystem with a

Texas Instruments TMS320 Texas Instruments TMS320 is a blanket name for a series of digital signal processors (DSPs) from Texas Instruments. It was introduced on April 8, 1983 through the TMS32010 processor, which was then the fastest DSP on the market. The processor is ...

C55x digital signal processor. * Memory: 64 MB (64 × 2²⁰ bytes) of DDR RAM, and 128 MB of internal flash memory, of which about 64 MB should be available to the user. Option for extended virtual memory (RS-MMC up to 1 GB (2 GB after flash upgrade)). * Display and resolution: 4.1 inches, 800×480

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...

s at 225

pixels per inch In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...

with up to 65,536 colors * Connectivity:

WLAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office buildin ...

(

IEEE 802.11 IEEE 802.11 is part of the IEEE 802 set of local area network (LAN) technical standards, and specifies the set of media access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer commun ...

b/g),

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

1.2, dial-up access,

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

(both user-mode, and non-powered host-mode) * Expansion:

RS-MMC The MultiMediaCard, officially abbreviated as MMC, is a memory card standard used for solid-state storage. Unveiled in 1997 by SanDisk and Siemens, MMC is based on a surface-contact low pin-count serial interface using a single memory stack sub ...

(both RS-MMC and DV-RS-MMC cards are supported). * Audio: speaker and a microphone The device was manufactured in Estonia and Germany.

Maemo

The 770, like all Nokia Internet Tablets, runs

Maemo Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...

, which is similar to many handheld operating systems and provides a "Home" screen—the central point from which all applications and settings are accessed. The home screen is divided into areas for launching applications, a menu bar, and a large customisable area that can display information such as an RSS reader, Internet radio player, and Google search box, for example. Maemo is a modified version of Debian. The 770 is bundled with applications including the Opera web browser,

Macromedia Flash Macromedia Flash may refer to: *Adobe Animate, a multimedia authoring and computer animation program formerly known as ''Macromedia Flash'' *Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform ...

and Gizmo. A critical bug has been identified that causes memory corruption when using the WLAN connection. This could result in system instability and data corruption. Owners of the 770 are encouraged to apply th
bugfix
preferably before having used the WLAN connection for the first time.

Versatility

Because of the Linux-based operating system and the open-source contributions from Nokia, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet has a great appeal to the

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

and

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...

markets.

Programmers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

are

porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

applications to the Maemo platform, allowing a much more rapidly growing application catalog than other mobile platforms would enjoy. The inclusion of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB host functionality (through a hack) permits enthusiasts to expand their tablets to include

USB mass storage The USB mass storage device class (also known as USB MSC or UMS) is a set of computing communications protocols, specifically a USB Device Class, defined by the USB Implementers Forum that makes a USB device accessible to a host computing devi ...

, Bluetooth

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

receivers, a normal USB keyboard, or other devices.

Criticism

The Nokia 770 has received criticism from some technology reviewers.Nokia 770 reviewed – Engadget
The most common complaint was about the overall speed of the system, due to the relatively slow CPU and the size of the on-board memory (64 MiB). Short battery life (less than 4 hours in the case of continuous Wi-Fi usage) was also a concern. Some reviews suggested problems with the handwriting recognition, and some said tapping the on-screen keyboard was too slow. Another common complaint was that it lacked the functions of a mobile PDA, although there are now several PIM options created by the community. Also, for Internet access away from Wi-Fi hotspots, the Nokia 770 relies upon a

1.2 phone acting as a modem, and not all bluetooth phones will work with the tablet. Additionally, some complained that the device used Reduced-Size MMC (RS-MMC or Micro-MMC) cards that were originally difficult to find. However, the format has since been used in other products and has become widely available. The device originally could only use cards up to 1 GB, but 2 GB cards are supported with the current version of the operating system.

References

* *

External links

Applications for the Nokia 770.

Ari Jaaksi's Blog
- Former director of the open source software operations of Nokia.

{{Linux mini computers

Internet Tablet A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being compu ...