Nokia 770 Handheld

There aren't too many places you can buy this little gadget. I ran into a non-working display model at a computer store and got curious enough to do a little research on it before ordering it direct from the Nokia website.

In spite of Nokia's attractive "free 2nd day air shipping" for 770, it took more than 2 weeks to receive the package as it was back ordered. This frustrating 2-week was probably a good thing as it gave me ample time to do more readings on 770 including its owner's manual found on the website. And it also gave me time to buy a screen protector before receiving 770.

Upon receiving the package, I scanned through its Quick Start-up Guide to perform an initial set up including the installation of battery and memory card, and immediately began to surf the net while charging the unit. Let me tell you, it was a disappointing experience as the screen was too small to read the miniature version of a web page even with its high definition display. Zooming it made the page scattered everywhere so it was difficult to follow articles. The internet radio worked good, but the only station came with the unit played songs I would not listen to. The manual was poorly written so that adding another radio station seemed impossible. "RSS News feeder", whatever it was, did not work at all. I began to think that I should have paid serious attention to all those negative comments written on 770 forum, while maintaining my fake amused face in front of my wife just so she would not start to criticize me for "another wasted" gadget soon to start collecting dust under the bed. Well, that was the first day...

Five days into the ownership, I am completely amazed as I keep discovering one more thing it can do. I must say the owner's manual needs to have at least five times more pages to explain things better, with step-by-step examples. I added one more internet radio station after reading a posted message on the 770 forum, and activated RSS News feeder by doing something accidentally (by the way, I found out RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication"). The RSS News feeder is an awesome feature of 770 as it updates all the current highlights of news every time you press the refresh button. I look forward to adding more RSS to the system once I figure out how to. Since 770 cannot surf without wi-fi connection nearby, having abundant RSS list would allow me to read up on the latest news while off the net. There are also games (chess and majang) that can be played without wi-fi connection.

The unit slips in the metal case with its face up when in use, and face down when not in use. I think it is intended not to use the main power switch as the unit goes to sleep mode when it is in the case with its face down. When pulling it out and putting it back with face up, it wakes up instantly. But it will have to re-connect if an action requires wi-fi connection, which takes about 15-20 seconds.

For the past five days, I moved back and forth between the owner's manual, 770, and my PC (for website) to figure out 770's capabilities. Since then, I discovered how to zoom in on a website with an optimized view on 770. Some website won't work as well as others, but most well known websites display the zoomed in articles with re-formatted view to allow easy reading without the horizontal scrolling. Even the vertical scrolling was not easy at first, then I discovered the page could be moved in any direction with its stylus by dragging. Further, the "out of memory" problem when surfing seemed to have disappeared with my better understanding of the memory usage, along with a tweaking of Virtual Memory setting in the control panel. I have not yet figured out how to make email, VoIP (internet call), etc. work. It's a slow but fun process of new discovery every day. In another words, I love this 770.

With a fairly steep learning curve (I blame this on the poor manual), I can almost see why some people hate it. It takes several days to learn, so if you are simply checking it out at a store it is entirely possible to feel it is another useless gadget. Same goes with the people buying it and returning it in a day or so. One or two days are not enough time to learn its usefulness. Then again, some people are not interested in a gadget that requires "research" to use it. If you are reading this, you probably are interested in the unit. As the saying goes, "you gotta have what you gotta have". Warning though... if you are not a current owner of a PDA, but simply considering this in lieu of a laptop you could be disappointed. If you are a current owner of a PDA, it is likely that you would fall in love with 770.

It's always easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Here's my two cents... I'd like it more if the unit is about 1 inch taller and wider with a larger capacity battery. Remember the discontinued Apple Newton Message Pad? That should be the perfect size (slightly smaller than an old Reader's Digest size) for 770 although the very reason Newton Message Pad died might have been its size as the much smaller Palm took over the market. I always thought a gadget like 770 should be made by Apple for flawless execution, oh well. The 770 battery lasts 3 hours, and this is not nearly enough for traveling. Even with the current screen size, I wished Nokia would have made the unit slightly thicker to accommodate a larger battery that would last a minimum of 8 hours. Finally, its processor could be a little faster, or there should be a "fulltime indicator" to let you know the unit is still working. The on-screen "wait" indicator is visible on one application and not on others making it difficult to know when to click next button. It does come with experience though.

I now discovered it can also become an MP-3 player. The list of its capability goes on and on, but there are other gadgets coming out to out do 770 now; namely iPod-touch, Nokia N810, etc. Oh well.