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rsperberg · 01-31-2006, 08:04 AM

What's so odd is that this is the only place where people call the Nokia 770 a Swiss-Army-knife kind of device, as though it intended to do as diverse things as pick your teeth, cut paper, screw in screws and saw wood on top of whittling.

The 770 doesn't have a hard disk drive. It doesn't have a keyboard or use a mouse. It doesn't have a way to connect a joystick, or a printer. It doesn't include a camera. It doesn't include a phone.

It's very focused on letting users access the "other" kind of communication than voice, the kind that travels via IP, stuff like web pages, mail, news feeds, internet radio and, as it develops I would guess, video. The WiFi, the small screen that's still 800 pixels wide, Bluetooth -- these are just there to make it possible to access that kind of communication. (And VoIP and IM in the summer.)

The 770 fits smack dab in the middle of Nokia’s definition of itself as not a phone company but a “communications” company. Ari Jaaksi, whose the head of software development for the 770 wrote in his blog about how cellphones freed voice communication from being stationary, tethered to one spot — big thing too; we define them as “mobile” phones instead of “personal” phones, say, or “always available” phones. Ari’s point is that a phone-770combination does the same for the web. Information from the web is now mobile, just as voice communication is (that's what the Bluetooth is for).

Me, I think e-books are part of this kind of information. And so I see e-books as being central to the 770's focus, not a silly add-on like the corkscrew in the Swiss Army knife.

It's only when you say the e-book-type information is the central thing here and everything else is superfluous that it even looks this way.

I've had a 770 for almost three months -- it's a fabulous e-reader. And, yes, when I take a break from reading, I can check my email, look at this site (without horizontal scrolling) and Teleread, review my RSS feeds. Then I set a new playlist and listen to music while I read a PDF, then go back and use the FBReader to look at some html books, then others in aportis doc, Weasel, FictionBook, and Plucker formats, all with the greatest control over the appearance onscreen of any e-book reader there is.

What's not to like?

01-31-2006, 08:04 AM	#9
rsperberg Zealot Posts: 114 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: NJ Device: Kindle Voyage	What's so odd is that this is the only place where people call the Nokia 770 a Swiss-Army-knife kind of device, as though it intended to do as diverse things as pick your teeth, cut paper, screw in screws and saw wood on top of whittling. The 770 doesn't have a hard disk drive. It doesn't have a keyboard or use a mouse. It doesn't have a way to connect a joystick, or a printer. It doesn't include a camera. It doesn't include a phone. It's very focused on letting users access the "other" kind of communication than voice, the kind that travels via IP, stuff like web pages, mail, news feeds, internet radio and, as it develops I would guess, video. The WiFi, the small screen that's still 800 pixels wide, Bluetooth -- these are just there to make it possible to access that kind of communication. (And VoIP and IM in the summer.) The 770 fits smack dab in the middle of Nokia’s definition of itself as not a phone company but a “communications” company. Ari Jaaksi, whose the head of software development for the 770 wrote in his blog about how cellphones freed voice communication from being stationary, tethered to one spot — big thing too; we define them as “mobile” phones instead of “personal” phones, say, or “always available” phones. Ari’s point is that a phone-770combination does the same for the web. Information from the web is now mobile, just as voice communication is (that's what the Bluetooth is for). Me, I think e-books are part of this kind of information. And so I see e-books as being central to the 770's focus, not a silly add-on like the corkscrew in the Swiss Army knife. It's only when you say the e-book-type information is the central thing here and everything else is superfluous that it even looks this way. I've had a 770 for almost three months -- it's a fabulous e-reader. And, yes, when I take a break from reading, I can check my email, look at this site (without horizontal scrolling) and Teleread, review my RSS feeds. Then I set a new playlist and listen to music while I read a PDF, then go back and use the FBReader to look at some html books, then others in aportis doc, Weasel, FictionBook, and Plucker formats, all with the greatest control over the appearance onscreen of any e-book reader there is. What's not to like?