Nokia's N810 Internet tablet has finally been announced.
The N810 now features WiFi, Bluetooth connectivity and integrated GPS functionality. The biggest addition is the new slide-out, backlit QWERTY keyboard which takes the place of the on-screen keyboard on the N800. A navigation pad resides to the left of the keyboard.
The display is still measures 4.13" with an 800x480 resolution, however, the Texas Instruments OMAP processor has been bumped up to an even 400MHz.
As with the N800, the N810 uses the Linux-based OS2008 operating system. A Mozilla based browser is included which supports Ajax and Adobe Flash 9.
"The Nokia N810 packs the power of a traditional computer into a pocket-sized format. Its open standard technology accelerates the convergence of multiple functionalities and services into a single device", said Ari Virtanen, Nokia's VP of Convergence Products. "Our new Nokia N810 offers users a true Web 2.0 experience in a compact, stylish, yet affordable package - it connects people to what matters to them."
The Nokia N810 will be available in mid-November for a price of $479 USD. For those that don't need the latest and greatest, the older N800 has received a substantial price cut, you can get the amazing price in Amazon.
iPodLinux is an open source venture into porting Linux onto the iPod. So far, it have successfully ported a customized uClinux kernel to the iPod, and written a simple user interface for it dubbed podzilla. Additional applications and modules have been written, adding many capabilities not found in Apple's firmware.
iPodLinux is currently safe to install on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation iPods. Development is currently on-going on later generations of iPod, including the fourth generation click wheel, mini, U2, Photo/Color, Nano, and Video.
The installer is currently in development for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It will only work on some iPods. Check Project Status page to see if your iPod is supported; the "improved" revision of 5th Generation iPods, and presumably any iPod running an Apple Firmware newer than Sept. 12, 2006 (iTunes 7), will definitely not work. The installer is written using Qt.
The installer was made possible by the rawpod library; it basically throws its own device system on top of the raw iPod device, so it can partition, format, read and write files to the ext2 partition, etc.
The installer manages your installation as a set of "packages"; each one is just a tar.gz archive that gets extracted into the iPodLinux partition, but the installer remembers what packages are installed and what files they contain, so you can remove and upgrade packages easily. A package might be the userland, a podzilla, a pz2 module, iBoy, etc; pretty much anything that works on iPodLinux.
Download here installer iPod Linux from Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
The Nokia 330 is a Satellite Navigation system (Nokia call it “Auto Navigation”) that bears a passing resemblance to the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Like the 770, the Nokia 330 isn’t a phone but the really surprising thing lies deep underneath.
One nice feature with the Nokia 330 is that it can play back multimedia content, such as videos and MP3 music tracks. It also comes with Bluetooth, presumably so that traffic updates and other value added features can be accessed. Overall, the Nokia 330 is a pretty slim satellite navigation system at 81 x 109 x 30mm and 205 grams in weight. The sales package includes the “gooseneck” mounting kit, a memory card, phone holder and USB cable.
The Nokia 330 comes with the Route 66 Satellite Navigation system and it offers pan-European mapping (although not every country has 100% coverage). The maps are preloaded on a 2Gb memory card, which can also be used to store other data. The navigation software has the usual combination of spoken and visual directions, 2D/3D views, and it comes with a touch-sensitive 3.5″ display. The GPS receiver is a SiRF III GSC3 unit.
Source: EliteZoom
Nokia N800 is the follow-up with compressed Internet of Nokia 770, building on the platform of Maemo Linux developed by Nokia. N800 employs the third incarnation of Maemo, called edition 2007 of OS of compressed Internet which adds some new devices to the edition 2006 (which was in oneself an enormous improvement above the original platform).
It is harshly the same size as its predecessor - measurements of Nokia N800 75×144x13mm and weighs 206 grams. The 770 were 230 grams in its protective case, and 185 grams without him. N800 divides the same thing display excelé of the Pixel 800×480 of its predecessor. it is a display very of high resolution which puts competition at shame. N800 adds a webcam more of the improvements to the execution of WiFi and Bluetooth of the tablet.
A principal weakness of old men 770 was an internal lack of storage, and this was increased in N800. N800 also accepts a large variety of charts of memory, including RS-MMS, miniSD, microSD and units of MMCmobile, which gives much flexibility. A nice contact is that N800 has an integrated stand, one of the first things which are lost on 770 older.
It is important to note that Nokia N800 is not a telephone, although it supports Skype in the future. Connectivity is by the adaptor of N800 WLAN, or via a telephone of Bluetooth. The 770 were not limited on the telephones of Nokia either, thus you should be able to employ just about any Bluetooth fixed at the hand with the telephones of N800, including 3G, of EV-DO and HSDPA.
Range of the software available now and in the future for the demostrates of Nokia N800 clearly that it is a ultra-compact computer. There is a version of the web browser of opera, a customer of email, newsreader of RSS, player of multi-media, plays plus a range of the utilities and other applications. It will be also possible to employ N800 with a receiver of GPS like satellite system of navigation.
Nokia N800 has various glances too much - the 770 were a little, N800 is polished more and contemporary. One or the other manner, both compressed Internet of Nokia has the abundance of the factor of defect of the sound reproduction. particularly when people see the quality of display.
You could regard Nokia N800 as of compressed Internet of Nokia. The original version of the 770 had the abundance of the approximate edges (call it version 1.0) which were mainly fixed by the OS 2006 (call it version 1.1). Perhaps N800 will be polished enough to make him an adapted product for human consumption, while old men 770 were really for enthusiasts.
Source: EliteZoom
TurboLinux has delivered Wizpy in Japan, a portable media device. It can be used as a video player, music player, recording, FM radio, picture viewer, e-book… I almost forgot, it has TurboLinux installed and when it is connected to a computer is a portable hard drive as well. Sweet! Wizpy also has 1.71“ OLED screen, 4GB of flash memory, weights only 60g and is accessible through the USB 2.0 port. The best thing about Wizpy is its versatility. If you’re on the move, you can take advantage of the entertainment features that are offered by this all-in-one portable device that looks and acts like a PDA.
One of the biggest advantages of Wizpy is the portable hard drive feature and the bootable Linux operating system. TurboLinux is the popular Linux distribution in Asia, and hence it’s on Wizpy! When Wizpy is plugged into a computer it acts like a portable drive and all you have to set is the boot options for the USB and you’re working in TurboLinux. The TurboLinux Fuji operating system itself has a lot of bundled applications, like Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, Skype, OpenOffice etc. I often use portable applications when I’m working away on other computers. There’s something about the ability to save your accounts, bookmarks, data etc. that makes me love this solution by TurboLinux. Imagine, you just sit on another computer, plug-in your Wizpy and there’s your operating system, data, the familiar look… Also, there are a lot of other useful features like the availability to install additional software, make software updates and use P2P services. One of the disadvantages of Wizpy is that the files can be locally stored in the /media folder, accessible when it is attached to the host PC, or in the documents folder, when they are accessible by the operating system itself. Also, the files on the host PC are not accessible. But, Wizpy is an interesting portable media device, and the bootable TurboLinux is a nice thing when you’re going to show off to your friends later on in 2007, when the global release is scheduled.
The RAZR2 V8 is a quad-band GSM and EDGE phone, it features two 240x320 TFT screens (one internal 2.2" and one external touchscreen 2.0"), 512 MBs internal storage out of which 420 MBs are accessible, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, a microUSB charging/data/audio port, and a 2 MP camera without flash. The V8 came with a headset, a British-style charger (PureMobile added to the package both a converter and a mini-USB Motorola-branded charger), a microUSB 2.0 data cable, CDs and manuals, and a 770 mAh Li-Ion battery.
The V8 is one of the most beautiful phones ever released. It is RAZR on steroids in terms of industrial design. It is extremely thin (11.9 mm), weighs 117 gr and feels "right" on the user's palm with its stainless steel frame. It features volume up and volume down buttons on the left (also couple as user-profile selectors), a lock/unlock/confirm button below that, and a voice recognition/camera-shutter button on the right. Each time you click these buttons there is a vibration effect that provides tactile feedback. The external QVGA screen is a touchscreen one, but it only works as such when you are using the music player or when reading SMS. All other functions/screens shown in the external display don't have any touchscreen support. Speaking about the screens, the internal one is very bright, and while the external one is of the same quality as the internal one, it is not so bright because it does not have its own TFT light but it piggybacks on the internal's one. This is a good trick to save battery life, while by using the same resolution for both screens the graphics and menus don't have to be redesigned, so it saved Motorola engineering time.
As for the internal keypad, it feels better and more rigid than previous RAZR phones. While this is a very thin phone, it has a very strong infrastructure. I can definitely "trust" the hardware to not fall apart in pieces or break. The only problematic thing I found about the hardware is that it's getting really hot when playing music or talking for more than 10 minutes on the phone. Reception was amazing, one of the best phones we ever tested. Voice quality was good too, although the placement of the microphone was an unfortunate one: instead of placing the mic in the middle of the keypad, it's placed on the right side of the keypad, so if you are using the phone with your left hand, there is a good chance that your fingers will cover the mic. Battery life was not too bad either, although it seems to be reducing fast if you also play music or use the EDGE network. Overall, we managed 4 hours of talk, while standby was not bad either.
Our version of the V8, which comes from Hong Kong, comes with a 512 MB internal flash storage, out of which 420 MB are available for usage. The American version that will be sold by T-Mobile, will have 2 GBs in it. The other three major US carriers will not be using the V8, but the V9, which is *not* Linux-based but instead it's using Motorola's old operating system (and it's actually a somewhat bigger/heavier phone). Very unfortunately, there is no microSD slot on the V8 (there is on the V9), so all you get is 420 MBs of storage, and no FM radio (in case you run out of music space).
On the highlights, we found the Bluetooth 2.0 performance. It maxed out in file transfer at 95 KB/sec, it worked great with two A2DP music headphones we had around, plus a mono voice headset. Speaking about audio, the included headset is one of the best we've seen included with cellphones. I have smaller ears than most people so I have difficulty using earphones, but V8's fitted fine -- for the most part. Audio quality was top notch, while voice was good too: the headset has a answer/hangup big button too just like in the iPhone.
The 2MP camera is one of the better ones we've seen on phones, albeit without flash. It has a night mode, but even without it, it performs well on low-light. A funny thing was that on the first ever boot of the phone, it would refuse to snap a picture for us, but after a reboot it never exhibited the same problem again. A cool feature is that if you open the camera application and then close the phone, you will see yourself via the camera in the external screen, like a mirror (although you unfortunately can't snap a picture or video in this mode). The phone won't zoom-in when on 2MP mode, but it will zoom-in up to 4x when on video or VGA/QVGA picture mode. The only bummer is, the phone is not capable of recording video in QVGA format, but instead only in QCIF one (176x144). More over, it will refuse to playback 30fps QVGA mp4 files, as it already drops frames with 15fps ones. Video performance was always very poor on Motorola's Linux phones, either when they used to come with RealPlayer, or their current video player. The music portion of the phone offered us a better experience with MP3 and WMA, and especially with its external screen support.
Now, regarding the actual software: the phone is running on the MotoMAGX platform instead of their previous one called EZX. While EZX used exclusively a 2.4.2x kernel, the V8 uses a 2.6.10 one. When the native SDK will be released next year, there is a good chance that this phone will be supported. Problem is, you will have to wait a whole year before -- and if-- you get any native applications to install in it. Until then you can only install Java applications and so this phone must be called a "feature phone" rather than a true "smartphone" as of yet.
On the V8 you will find a pretty flexible file manager with a lot of options and information, a calendar, alarm, tasks, SyncML support, email, SMS, MMS, photo dialing, a good multimedia navigator, there is theme support, some pre-installed games, J2ME 2.0 support (Opera Mini 3.x, Gmail and Google Maps worked great but Opera Mini 4 beta had problems). The V8 allows you to run more than one Java application at the same time, but there is no application switcher utility. The phone's browser is an Opera v8.50 port which worked adequately well, it had a full screen mode and it managed javascript and CSS too. There are various audio profiles to choose from too, but if you want to turn ON flight mode you need to restart the phone and choose that in the "login" screen, it won't do it via the profiles.
While under the hood the MotoMAGX platform has changed significantly over the EZX, the actual user experience hasn't, compared to the previous non-touchscreen Linux devices from Motorola (e.g. the Z6 or the ROKR E2). I still have the exact same problems as I had last year, and the year before that: the inaccurate battery reading, the artificial inability to boot without a SIM, the 12 clicks you need in order to turn ON/OFF Bluetooth, the low video playback performance, its inability to both vibrate and ring at the same time (this feature is actually implemented in the software, but was again artificially removed as Motorola for some reason usually does for most of its phones) and more. The only application that seems to be somewhat rewritten is the camera app.
One funny bug we noticed is that when you boot the phone, the "Options" menu in the front-screen is normal and your modified user settings have *not* loaded correctly by the phone, but if you then close the phone and the external display's configuration data is loaded, and then you re-open the phone, your user settings are now active and the "Options" menu has now reloaded with new data (we know that because there is a typo in the second set). Finally, it is not yet a good phone to hack on with Linux, and it probably will never be as the rumor at LinuxWorld Expo had it that the API prohibits full access to the system (the native Linux apps will be somewhat restricted, just like Java apps are).
The way I see the user interface of MotoMAGX is that is lacking compared to the usability of Symbian S60. There is no copy/paste, the UI feels disconnected and not well-thought. To be honest, I think that older Motorola users who used the old Moto OS, will absolutely love the new Linux UI. Why? Because it is a definitive upgrade for them! It's so much better than the old OS. But users who are already on Symbian S60 or on a touchscreen-based smartphone, they won't be easily lured away no matter the good hardware looks of the V8.
Overall, this is a great upgrade for existing Motorola users, or for users who want a sleek-looking phone. Its industrial design makes justice to carry the name "RAZR", and the software is a step-up from the previous RAZR offerings. However, while this is one big step for Motorola as they announced that 60% of their phones will be Linux-based in the future, they still need to make more steps (and quickly) to properly compete with Nokia and the other smartphone players in that market.
Source: OSNews
