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 World Wide Web, WWW or e-mail. The term was popularized in the 1990s, when it somewhat overlapped in meaning with an information appliance, ...

from

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

, originally announced at the LinuxWorld Summit in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

on 25 May 2005. It is designed for

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

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

browsing and

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

functions and includes software such as Internet radio, an

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...

news reader, ebook reader, image viewer and media players for selected types of media. The device went on sale in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

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 Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

). In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, 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 1710 CPU running at 252 MHz. It combines the

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer, RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for central processing unit, com ...

of the

ARM9 ARM9 is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Holdings for microcontroller use. The ARM9 core family consists of ARM9TDMI, ARM940T, ARM9E-S, ARM966E-S, ARM920T, ARM922T, ARM946E-S, ARM9EJ-S, ARM926EJ-S, ARM968E-S, ARM99 ...

26TEJ core subsystem with a Texas Instruments TMS320C55x

digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit chips. ...

. * 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 graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

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 addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sma ...

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 medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) computer com ...

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 li ...

1.2, dial-up access,

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

(both user-mode, and non-powered host-mode) * Expansion: RS-MMC (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 Linux-based software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the Free software movement, community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and Software development ...

, 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 Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

. The 770 is bundled with applications including the Opera web browser, Macromedia Flash 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 achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

and DIY markets. Programmers 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 desig ...

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, Bluetooth GPS 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, 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 computer ...