Monday, January 15, 2007

Using Nokia 770 to Surf & blog on the Internet

I have recently become a little disheartened by all the talk that the Nokia Internet Tablets are not a good for general Internet surfing using the provided Opera 8 Browser. So last Night whilst lying in bed I quickly fired up my Nokia 770, connected to my Wi-Fi network and the Internet and visited a few sites.

Below are some captured Nokia 770 screen grabs to illustrate the ability to open various sites and work within site almost completely normally and as you would expect to on a typical PC.

1a) Google Maps: Location 28027 Madrid, normal view. (Full 800x480 view on Nokia 770)
1b) Google Maps: Location 28027 Madrid, Satellite view. (Full 800x480 view on Nokia 770)
2a) Blogger2: Dashboard.

2b) Blogger2: New post where using Opera 8, I am unable to enter the Title & Link fields.

2c) We are able to clearly see and edit the HTML of the post, although the edit html, compose and preview options do not display correctly? (Like Title and Link options above)

2d) Adding multiple images from Nokia's Internal or external memory works great.

2e) Images uploaded to the draft Blog post.

2f) Saving the draft blog post with the uploaded images.

3) Gmail. (Full 800x480 view on Nokia 770)

4) BBC World. (Full 800x480 view on Nokia 770)

5a) Editing text using the virtual keyboard designed for the stylus. (Earlier screen capture from a few days ago when using old blogger)

5a) Editing text using the Finger & Thumb keyboard.


I am well aware and I do agree that there are real issues using the Opera 8 browser on the Nokia 770 and Nokia N800. With regard to sites with heavy Flash usage, there are definitely problems with the Nokia 770 which uses Flash 6; but even the new Nokia N800 with Flash 7 and more onboard memory, the problems have not been fully resolved.

However to say that the Nokia Internet tablets are not a good Internet Surfing device when on the move is just plain wrong !

4 comments:

MikeL said...

I must apologise to the person that left a comment against this blog post, regarding the use of predictive text when writing emails with gmail etc

I inadvertently deleted the comment this morning instead of publishing it?

Please ask your question again (Regarding use of thumb pad and predictive text completion I think?)and I will check it out and answer your question.

dave said...

oooh, Mike, tsk tsk. :)

I was wondering if you knew how to accept the suggested word completion when using the thumb keyboard? I found that I could hit 'direction-pad-right', but hoped I wouldn't have to remove my fingers from the LCD.

Do you know of another way?

thanks
dave

MikeL said...

Hi Dave

I tested and confirm the same problem with predictive text as you pointed out, we can't just finger or thumb select the semi-completed word and it completes it, which seems a natural way and would perhaps be a good enhancement? (I could not find another way on the Thumb keyboard)

I wonder if it's available with OS 2007 on Nokia N800?

So it seems that the only option when using thumb keyboard is the one you pointed out in your post! (direction-pad-right, it feels intuitive once you are used to it)

With the virtual keyboard and stylus we have the word options along the bottom which can be selected with the stylus, but this is not available with the thumb pad option. (Due to lack of available space I would imagine)

Anyone else any further thoughts?

As a more general question, how do our American friends find predictive text, in Europe we have been used to texting on our mobiles for quite a while now so perhaps we find the concept more natural on the Nokia Internet Tablets? (Surveys imply and suggest that mobile texting has not taken off in America, are the surveys correct?)

Predictive text is great as it can speed up typing tremendously on small hand-held devices.

roope said...

Hi, another way is to directly tap the word completion candidate on the text input area. (Just tap the proposed candidate to accept it.)