Nokia 770  Would it be considered an ultramobile personal computer? It is very small and has a - somewhat - low price. The price at Tiger Direct is about $379.99; relatively low compared to other  UMPC's(?).

Would it still be an UMPC even if it does not use Windows (or any variation of it)? From the description, it runs Linux.

The strictist sense, that a UMPC runs Windows XP Tablet edition.

But taking a more general marketing term.an UMPC  to me is more the capibilties of the device as opposed the software that runs on it, and in this case i don't think it would be. Main reason is storage. If one must call this a UMPC they should at least call it a Diskless UMPC.

However the pricepoint is gonna kill the UMPC in what ever form. Its cheap enough for the mass market but since it runs linux, where software would be hard to comebuy for the mass market. They'll get the feeling its a deadend device of what they personally can do with it and then associate UMPC to that.

 

Hi all.

We're back to the old argument of 'what is a UMPC' again!
I always use the obvious definition - UMPC=Ultra Mobile PC.
MS has no rights to the term. It was used before they came along and I think that for that sake of the market and the customer, we should embrace all ultra-portable PC's as UMPC's.

The Nokia is certainly at the low-end of the market but through some efficient programming, they've shown what functionality you can get with a low-spec hardware platform. I think this is the right way to develop things rather than than saying 'OK we've got this high-end desktop platform, lets squeeze it on a small device. Oops, we need 1GB ram a high-end mobile GPU. Oh ***, it takes too much power'

We've taken it into the UMPC 'fold' over at Carrypad. It's listed on our product portal. (www.carrypad.com/portal)

Regards
Steve.

YES!
A 770 is a very good origami-umpc !! but i think that a good screen in mobility is a 7 inch. the dialkeys is also necessary. but the 770 is very interesting.

Questions:
Does it run a pc OS?
will photoshop run on it?
does it have TIP?
does it have dialkeys?
CAN I ENTER TEXT?
(without selecting letter for letter like on the PSP)
does it do anything but IM and surf the web?

NO on every single aspect of what shows up a
difference between a PPC and a UMPC.
AND I can enter text on a PPC.
Think about it. It's not what a UMPC is meant for.

//F2theD

I beg to differ with F2theD.

Its an ultra-mobile computing device. No question about that. Its running a full desktop capable Linux kernel. Its ultra-mobile. You can't really argue with that.

Its not, however, an Origami-based ultra-mobile PC though. I think this is what F2theD defines as an ultra-mobile PC.

If you don't want to write on the screen, don't want to run photoshop and only need the browser, im, voip, PIM, audio player and doc viewer capabilities, do you really need to run windows XP?

At the end of the day, the user/buyer needs to be honest with themselves about what they want from an UMPC. There's no point going out and spending $1200 on an Origami-based UMPC if you just surf the net.

Having said that, the Nokia is very low-end. The video capabilities are almost non-existant and multiple running apps can slow the device to a crawl. BigJerseyGuy, you need to be able/careful about defining your requirements if you are considering this device.

Nokia are planning a new device as a follow-up to the 770. I'm sure we'll see some interesting industrial design and a boost in the specification department. Maybe even a move to an x86 architecture to allow easier Linux package porting.

Regards
Steve

Steve, if the 770 had more than a qaurter of a gig of memory (at best), and you didn't have to buy MMC cards which don't get too high in the storage size range, I might agree with calling it a UMPC. As it stands, it's nearly a PDA, and would be better if it had phone capabilities at that price. And since cell phones is what Nokia is known for, it would also make sense.

To put it another way, I can do everything the Nokia 770 does with a Cingular 8125 or a VZW XV-6700/Sprint PPC-6700, and have a phone with a data connection as well. (And have a mini-SD slot to boot.)

Further, if it doesn't have 20-30 GB of HDD space (whether standard spinning disk type or flash memory), I don't think it really qualifies as a UMPC. To get the 40 GB of RAM I have with the Q1, for instance, I'd have to spend upwards of $75-100 for each 1GB MMC card I buy, and I'd have to carry 40 of them around. That means in addition to $400 for the 770, I'd also be spending $3000-4000 for enough memory to match the HDD I have. I think since it didn't come designed to have an HDD, that Nokia wasn't considering it in quite the same vein as the eo/clones or the Q1.

That doesn't, of course, mean you can't or shouldn't feature it on your site. You pay the bill for the hosting, so it's yours to do as you want. But I think we might start demeaning and diminishing the meaning of the word mobility that a UMPC a la the Origami Project offers.

Just my tuppence for today...

Woadan

Sorry, I had a wrong idea of the thing. I thought it was something with a java/symbian OS that doesn't run anything but fixed, preinstalled programs like cellphone. Oh and by the way, how do you enter text on that thing?

//F2theD

I'm all in favor of expanding the definition of the term UMPC to include devices similar in concept to the Origami standard, like the Sony UX series.  I don't even have a problem with the idea of a UMPC that runs something other than Windows, but I think that it is a pretty big stretch to include the Nokia 770 in the category.  While it may be Linux-based, it isn't running a desktop-level build of the OS and it doesn't have the onboard storage capabilities to run full desktop applications.  It really is just a portable Internet appliance and a fairly simple media player/reader.  It may be "ultra-mobile", but it hardly fits the common definition of a PC.  At best, I'd classify it as a PDA, although I don't really think that it is even as capable as most of the current high-end Palm and Pocket PC devices.

-Jeff

JeffGr:

I'm all in favor of expanding the definition of the term UMPC to include devices similar in concept to the Origami standard, like the Sony UX series.  I don't even have a problem with the idea of a UMPC that runs something other than Windows, but I think that it is a pretty big stretch to include the Nokia 770 in the category.  While it may be Linux-based, it isn't running a desktop-level build of the OS and it doesn't have the onboard storage capabilities to run full desktop applications.  It really is just a portable Internet appliance and a fairly simple media player/reader.  It may be "ultra-mobile", but it hardly fits the common definition of a PC.  At best, I'd classify it as a PDA, although I don't really think that it is even as capable as most of the current high-end Palm and Pocket PC devices.

-Jeff

I totally agree. A PocketPC is capable of far more (Office Applications, Sync w/ PC) while the 770'S widescreen may be optimized for browsing websites. Ultra Mobility is no question, but there's two ore letters: PC. To me, this thing has way more to dowith a (downspec'ed) cellular phone with internet capability than anything with a PersonalComputer. But again, just my litle bit of an opinion (that others may share :) )   cheers

//F2theD

I agree with others in that we all want a mobile computer and we should not argue about it must being a specific size etc.  The problem with Nokia is they have always been against paying any license fees for their hardware that is why they use proprietary Sybian OS for their phones to avoid MS fees.  That is a problem as everyone needs to work with others using MS so having a Linux is not very attractive.  What it does show is that the technology is there to make a device small.  The problem is that nobody has the right form factor.  The device needs to have a touch type keyboard that can be easily typed with a nice screen yet fit in a jacket pocket.  That is possible with current technology.

Actually, I have to say, having owned several cell phones, mostly Motorola, but one HTC and one Nokia, that the sycnh software Nokia provided was miles ahead of the productivity that Motorola provided. I always had problems with Motorola for putting a different contact in outlook for each number or email I had for a person. Their software does that in psades, and I suspect the only reason the Q didn't do it is because it uses ActiveSync. Nokia's suite, on the other hand, took what I had in outlook and put it exactly the same on the phone, and vice-versa. The HTC (Cingular 8125) couldn't synch up with any of my computers, even though it used ActiveSync.

Woadan

Primaz:

...The problem with Nokia is they have always been against paying any license fees for their hardware that is why they use proprietary Sybian OS for their phones to avoid MS fees...

I've been writing about the Nokia 770 since just after it's release. I love it. I absolutely love it. I just wanted to do MORE. My eo arrives on Tuesday.

I would say that the 770 is the perfect device for mobile web checking, browsing, Voice over IP, news reading, eBook reading, and light audio/video playback. Battery life is nice and long, the screen is sharp, and the application catalog is growing constantly. It's not a laptop replacement. It's not even an UMPC killer because it's not a PC. It's a web tablet, and very good at that.

Now that we all have a notion of what the Nokia 770 is, it is not available anywhere for sale (in the US). Even the Nokia site (US) indicates it is unavailable.

 

Is this a precursor to a new model, or the end of the road for a dead-end device?