Nokia 770 Linux-based web device

[Alexander Turcic]

WSJ picked up the story and reports that analysts aren't that excited about Nokia's latest attempt to conquer the mobile device market:

But analysts say the device is unlikely to sell in big volumes. "It's very niche," said Neil Mawston, a U.K.-based analyst with research firm Strategy Analytics. "I am struggling to see why consumers wouldn't just use their laptop or desktop to go online in the home."

Ben Wood, a U.K.-based analyst with research firm Gartner Inc., said it is surprising that Nokia hasn't adapted the device to make voice calls over the Internet using software from Skype Technologies SA of London or one of its rivals. "Perhaps they were reluctant to upset some of their existing customers," Mr. Wood said, referring to the cellphone service providers.

The newspaper also quotes Mr. Jormalainen, a Nokia vice president saying that his company chose to use Linux desktop system because it has widespread support among software developers. <-- good call!

[Alexander Turcic]

MobileBurn has a first hands-on review of the Nokia 770 with nice photos:

http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.jsp?Id=1381

Looks smaller than thought... which is of course great for mobility!

[Francesco]

Yeah, next step must be develop PIM apps (and iSilo!)...
I want it! I want it!

[Bob Russell]

Check out the info about Nokia's role

Role of Nokia in maemo.org

The Maemo development platform and this community website is contributed and operated by Nokia.

The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is the first product from Nokia, that is compatible with maemo. Nokia aims to use maemo as a development platform in subsequent products in this category as well. As maemo is fully open source, it means a whole new degree of openness for developers using Nokia products.

With maemo Nokia aims to encourage others to adopt, use and contribute technologies for handheld products and applications. This will result in a feature rich, mature and well-supported software base that could evolve as a de-facto standard for Linux handhelds via the open source process.

During the creation of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia has been already working with many open source projects and initiatives, contributing and adopting upcoming open standards.

For additional information about Nokia's contributions to open source project, please visit the Nokia contributions page.

For the time being, Nokia controls the development of maemo to keep it aligned with its product development. This may mean in practice some limitations in accepting contributions to the package repository. However, we are open to suggestions to improve opportunities for involvement.

[gadgetguru]

Battery life will probably be a non-issue as with all Nokias the battery should be user repalceable, so just pop-in a spare and you'll be okay.

As to not selling big volumes, this will be a bigger hit than the Ngage, where Nokia spend a considerable sum too. And with Wifi use booming, many casual users will prefer bringing these to their local Starbucks than lugging along a laptop.

Sure its not phone volumes but could boost the PDA current 10 million per year volume. And who knows, when VOIP become more widespread, Nokia will be better positioned there than any other hardware makers...

I'll get this one over the Lifedrive.... $350 for a 800x600 pixel screen device look sweet. Only Nokia could price it that way, thanks to their big size and volume orders. I doubt PalmOne could produce a comparable product for that price.

[Colin Dunstan]

The guy in charge for Nokia's open-source developments has some slideshows introducing the Nokia 770 and explaining why open-source and Linux:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/article058/index.html