Nokia 770 or Reader, which one do you want?

[Snappy!]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Hi,

I want to thank you for recommending the Nokia 770. I went to CompUsa on Thursday (4/6) and when I saw it, I immediately bought it. I had a problem in that the display failed after several hours (seems to be a relatively common problem this display failure in the first several days of use, once you pass the 10th or so boot, it seems that you are safe - as mentioned on a Nokia forum), but I exchanged it without hassle on Friday and it's been working great since then.
...

Wow ... I must say I like what you did. Just get it! ... I guess handling it in person and having it in your hand beats looking at pictures any time. Too bad I'm out of US for awhile ... will be difficult for me to get a Nokia 770 as they do not seem to sell them in Asia.

Got to pull some favors and get one shipped ... say, anyone?

[ascherjim]

DELETED

[ascherjim]

LIVIU: Pleased that you're enjoying your Nokia. In formatting for ebook reading, I prefer the traditional black on white screen. As previously reported, I haven't had occasion to try the .pdf format yet. From what source did you download your Evince reader? On product dependablilty, I myself have had no problems to date and will keep my fingers crossed. Regards, Jim

[Snappy!]

ascherjim ... I suppose you do realise that I do not have a Nokia 770?

though I must say that after all the posts and threads, I'm considering it probably a better deal than the ebk.

[ascherjim]

Snappy: Sorry for my initial oversight in inadvertently sending my reply/query to you instead of to LIVIU, which I have since rectified. I wish you luck in acquiring a Nokia, if that should be your intent. JIm

[Snappy!]

No worries ascherjim, no harm done, no offense taken. ... I just thought you may want to remove the content and replace with a *deleted*.

[ascherjim]

Snappy: Thanks. Done. Jim

[Liviu_5]

Hi,

You can find all the applications available at maemo.org, specifically here

www.maemo.org/maemowiki/ApplicationCatalog

Another useful site is:

http://nokia770.com/

For evince you need to download another package too and install it first (libgnomeprintui), and then the evince package, they are both available on the same site. There are many interesting applications at maemo.org and depending on my usage of the device I will check them out, right now since I use it only for reading those too (Fbreader and Evince) are good enough, but there are xterminals to access the "inner structure on the device", games, tools, graphics, office, lots of cool stuff and since it is Linux it is very easy to install

In many ways I think that Nokia 770 is the opposite of Ebk1150 and presumably of the Eink readers which try to get close to print, this is pure LCD screen but amazingly beautiful. So reading on it is very different than on Ebk1150 or print for that matter, but I find it so compelling that I plan to rearead a lot of my favourite books that I have in e-form (of course time permitting ), and probably I will scan/ocr some that I would not have done otherwise just for the pleasure of reading them on this device. When I want to read traditionally I will do it either print or on Ebk1150.

In terms of screen size, with the fonts described as above I get ~160 words per page, while on Ebk1150 I get ~100 words per page on large font (and the small one is just too small for me). And this is another reason that this device is great that even at smaller size (say in a full screen pdf page or 480x800 jpg image of a pdf page) the beautiful screen makes it readable with pleasure as opposed to Ebk1150 where I read with pleasure only in the large fonts.

Since I budgeted 400$ for another ereader I will probably wait on the eink devices for a while though I will check them out. I probably could budget another 400 in several months but only if those readers will give me the same pleasure to read as this one (and even then the lack of backlight is annoying since I do most reading at night and I'd rather not use a booklight).

I include a picture of the Nokia (unfortunately not as clear as the one of Ebk1150, the size is right but the actual picture is far brighter and clearer) for people to have a sense of how text shows on it.

Liviu

Originally Posted by ascherjim

LIVIU: Pleased that you're enjoying your Nokia. In formatting for ebook reading, I prefer the traditional black on white screen. As previously reported, I haven't had occasion to try the .pdf format yet. From what source did you download your Evince reader? On product dependablilty, I myself have had no problems to date and will keep my fingers crossed. Regards, Jim

[ascherjim]

Liviu: Thanks for the download references. I've loaded Evince and tried it out in comparison with Nokia's build-in pdf reader, and definitely prefer the Evince, if for no other reason than the option of portrait format. Thaks for steering me to it. Your description of your situation vis a vis the Nokia, eBookwise and eInk readers mirrors mine exactly, including even the budget(s) set aside for such purchases. Who knows what the immediate (or maybe not so immediate) future will bring in the field of email readers. Although I join you in your obvious pleasure and satisfaction with the Nokia. Even though, as I believe I earlier reported, I download most of my books in txt or html formats, I want to be "up to snuff" on reading pdf texts as efficiently as possible. However, I know nothing about the effecting of "swapping" and "flashing" to render pdf files quicker to retrieve and read, as referred to by earlier contributors to this thread. Do you know much about this, or can you refer me to an appropriate learning source? Regards and thank again, Jim

[Liviu_5]

Hi,

As far as I understand (and my tech knowledge is limited to basic unix/linux, as mentioned I avoided dual boot since I killed a hard drive many years ago, so before colinux I have not used linux, just cygwin ocasionally, and I used Unix profesionally many years ago only in graduate school and for several years after, though only at a simple shell scripts/awk user level) you have to partion the rs-mmc card, then format one partion in linux format as swap memory, use a tool from maemo to switch it on/off and you add "extra internal memory" to your Nokia 770, as much as you put in that partition, for example I would do 64 or 128 Mb out of a 1 Gb card. On a linux box it is very easy to do it, but I am not sure with my colinux, though I mount easily my hard drive, I did not try to mount other drives (I have cd, mmc, cf, sm, sd). I will do more research as soon as my 1 Gb card arrives. I have a spare older pc, so in extremis I would just install Linux on it, but I'd rather not do it for the time and energy required.
To get root permission and do the extended file system thing there are detailed instructions at maemo.org, though again you need a linux/mac access to an usb port this time as far as I understand it and that one may or may not be trickier/possible to do on colinux, I will just do the research if I feel I need it.
For the moment just getting more internal memory would make me happy, so I will try the swap thing as soon as I get my card.

Liviu

Originally Posted by ascherjim

However, I know nothing about the effecting of "swapping" and "flashing" to render pdf files quicker to retrieve and read, as referred to by earlier contributors to this thread. Do you know much about this, or can you refer me to an appropriate learning source? Regards and thank again, Jim

[ascherjim]

Liviu: Many thanks for your explication of the swap process. My wife is a programmer/analyst, but she doesn't know linux -- and is not too interested at this stage of her busy professional programming load to really look into it for me. However, I will show her your message if for no other reason than her explaining it in further detail to me. Anyway, I will be most interested in anything further you learn or work out when you get your new memory chip. Thanks again and regards, Jim

[Liviu_5]

Hi,

I will post my experiments in creating swap memory for Nokia 770 on a mmc card here, as explicitly as I can.

Personally I am very interested in spreading the ebooks message and from my interaction with people live and online, I found that a big obstacle is the technical aspect. People do not like reading long texts on pc/latops, at least not in pdf/html/word (scrolling is very unnatural in reading books, as is reading landscape unless you do it double page and then you need good reading software) and unfortunately right now we are in the "Tower of Babel" age with all formats, devices ... in the ebook world.

With music, you do it mp3 or itunes and pop it on your ipod or equivalent and that's that, with books...My opinion is that we need something like Fbreader for regular texts and djvu for images/professional books (I hate pdf so I may be biased but pdf is at least as of now good for printing or formatting but reading no way).

For me as for most people time is a constraint in doing all these conversions, my technical knowledge whille better than average is far away from expert status, so I try to do the things that I need in the simplest/cost effective way I can do it. Linux has so many wonderful free tools for manipulating files, while in windows similar software is expensive, so once I decided I needed file manipulation, I spent the 5-6 hours needed to install Colinux. If I will need a Linux box, I will spend the day or so to install it at some point and so on.

So while my postings about how to do things to help with the ebook experience may seem puerile to people in the know, I hope they help regular people pick up on ereading so we achieve critical mass for take off.

Liviu

Originally Posted by ascherjim

Liviu: Many thanks for your explication of the swap process. My wife is a programmer/analyst, but she doesn't know linux -- and is not too interested at this stage of her busy professional programming load to really look into it for me. However, I will show her your message if for no other reason than her explaining it in further detail to me. Anyway, I will be most interested in anything further you learn or work out when you get your new memory chip. Thanks again and regards, Jim

[ascherjim]

Liviu: Thanks for the quick follow-up. I will remain an avid reader of your reports on further exploration into this issue. Regards, Jim

[Liviu_5]

Hi,

After using the Nokia 770 for 2 weeks I started to really appreciate the device and I carry it with me almost everywhere. It improved my reading time considerably since I can snatch now minutes otherwise wasted. I still miss my 80 plus minutes of reading per day that I enjoyed for the past 8 years or so on my train commute (the disadvantage of working 5 minutes from your house ) but finally I am getting to read 2 hours a day again. Ebookwise was and is still a big help, but it does not fit in my pocket so while I would carry it in my car, I would not take it with me say at the train table at B&N where my son can play for 30 minutes by himself
I installed the upgraded firmware from Maemo and indeed it improved my pdf/evince experience. I installed xterm and explored a little bit the internal structure. I installed the memory applet and took some nice screenshots. I got my 1 Gb card on Friday so I started experimenting with partitioning on the 64 Mb one and making a swap file. I finally managed to do it. However to run swap on Nokia you need to be root and unfortunately Colinux does not support USB as of now, so I will try to install some full Linux at some point.
I read 4 full novels and 2 magazines on the Nokia and the only complaint I have is that Fbreader is sometimes slow to load my library and also that I need to exit it to save the last configuration. In general I keep a book on and just slide Nokia from its cover when I want to read and back when I am done, and I charge it once a day. I rarely reboot it. For pdf's I like Evince, though it still gives me occasional memory problems, it is usable and the books are readable. Hopefully activating the swap will help there.
Outside of testing for functionality (it recognized my wireless router immediately and it discovered 2 more networks in my neighbourhood that the laptops in my house do not see), I have never used it to browse the net.
I include 2 screen shots exactly as saved on the device (they are about 3 times bigger than the device but they reflect very well the reading experience).

Liviu

[Snappy!]

My Jornada 720's keyboard decided to call it a day and so now I'm kinda without a proper eReader device ...

How I wish Nokia came out with a snap on keyboard attachment to make it into a clamshell handheld. ... Having an external folding bluetooth keyboard is a good enough solution for me (if I choose the Nokia 770) but its still a hassle and a bit too geeky for me right now.

I was looking at a Sharp C1000 ... its screen is a bit smaller ... and it has no wifi built-in. But it has keyboard, albeit thumbboard style.

Nokia770 ... the worse problem is that its not available directly in Asia. I just moved over from US ... *sigh* ... *twiddle thumbs*