Jupiter: Nokia 770 Internet Tablet - First Thoughts

Lucky gadget guy as usual, Michael Gartenberg at JupiterResearch gets to play with the Nokia 770 Internet tablet and blogs his first thoughts. As Gartenberg notes, Nokia is positioning the 770 as a mainstream consumer Internet device even though it is Linux based and receiving plenty of support from the enthusiast community.

Gartenberg finds it "works very well but with some quirks," and runs through the pluses and minuses of the device. In summary he states:

Overall, Nokia is on to something here. The form factor makes casual surfing a pleasure. If the email client were a little more robust, it would be a perfect little terminal for handling most Internet needs (adding in IM support as well). For now, it's mostly going to be a device that's best used by enthusiasts, who will revel in the Linux based platform and get it to do all sorts of geeky things going forward. For mainstream users, it's more of a toss up. The price is fairly cheap but there's no PIM functionality so it's not a PDA replacement. Nor given the current level of performance, is it the type of device you might take on the road instead of a laptop. The 700 seems best suited for the task it's designed for, casual Internet access from home when you don't want to bother with a PC. For most consumers, that's still a problem in search of a solution and a product in search of a market. Nokia's best hope for taking this mainstream is to embrace the enthusiasts in the short term, then work to smooth over some of the rougher edges of the device and then make the transition into a more mainstream market.