[clue-talk] What I like and don't like about the N800

[dennisjperkins at comcast.net]

I think there is a second article about it that was more useful.  Altho if I do buy one for myself, I might also add GPS.  It would be handy in the Virgin Islands this November.

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com>
> David,
> 
> Thanks for sharing your experiences.
> 
> Reading LJ, I thought there'd be something like your analysis here, and 
> instead I found myself wasting 30-45 minutes reading Doc Searls teach me 
> crap about GPS software that I already knew.
> 
> Then he babbles about how his setup in-flight is legal, which he forgot 
> he was linked to the GPS receiver via Bluetooth, thus... a receiver and 
> transmitter, and completely illegal in-flight... on pretty much any U.S. 
> flagged carrier.
> 
> LJ's articles continue their slow slide into uselessness... this month, 
> an old guy playing with his GPS, while the cover promised a review of 
> the device he was using.  (Nice review... fly all over the place, never 
> even talk about the specs of the thing...)
> 
> Next month, some other old guy tells us some more about his world travel 
> to exotic foreign lands to evangelize Linux, while completely ignoring 
> that his readership will never go there, nor is interested.  (Yeah, 
> Maddog... that was for you.)
> 
> And then for "entertainment" they'll throw in another of Marcel Gagne's 
> articles where 1/3 of his word count and page space is taken up with his 
> mythical restraunteur and wine cellar slave.  He actually writes about 
> interesting things, but he'd have more room to do a good job of it if he 
> dropped the whole fake-restaurant thing.
> 
> LJ has become a serious snoozer of a publication lately.  The cover's 
> pretty, but the guts are lacking.
> 
> Nate
> 
> David Rudder wrote:
> > I haven't read the LJ article on the N800, but I figure it's probably a 
> > cheerleading piece.  I've had my N800 for about 6 months and I've found 
> > a whole buncha flaws that most reviews don't cover.
> > 
> > The Good Stuff:
> > *) Supports both Opera and Mozilla, so all pages render nicely 
> > (including AJAX, yay!)
> > *) Support VoIP with all of Skype, Gizmo and generic SIP.  Generic SIP 
> > has a little work to go, but it's good enough to make and answer calls.
> > *) A bunch of cool puzzle games, which I love.
> > *) Support for internet radio.  Both video and audio feeds.  I listen to 
> > Air America Radio (*ducks the inevitable flames*), the BBC, WBGO Jazz, 
> > etc.  My daughter loves the live video feeds from NASA.  Actually, I do, 
> > too.
> > *) Easy, quick IM
> > *) The touchscreen controls are very nicely done
> > *) Convenient, light, small, easy
> > *) In the end, the thing is pretty useful.  Even just having an 
> > ultra-portable web browser with the ability to take notes is very handy,
> > 
> > The Bad Stuff:
> > *) Video VoIP is a joke.  Only between N800s. *) I'm not liking any of 
> > the email readers.  I've been spoiled by Thunderbird, I guess.  It 
> > doesn't seem too tough to support multiple IMAP accounts and to lay out 
> > the folder tree nicely.
> > *) The case is weak.  It's just soft leather, so there's no protection 
> > from dropping the tablet and breaking the screen.
> > *) The package management is weak.  It uses Debian's APT, but there 
> > isn't a good centralized repository, so finding what you need is difficult.
> > *) The OS upgrade is also weak. It wipes out all your applications so 
> > you have to reinstall.  This is made much worse by the problem noted 
> > above...finding these apps is really tough.
> > *) Lack of cell access is kind of lame.  I am surprised at how 
> > infrequently I can find an open access point unless I plan ahead.
> > 
> > MythTV Integration:
> > One reason I bought the tablet was so I could watch the videos from my 
> > MythTV anywhere in the house.  Cooking shows in the kitchen, for 
> > instance, or StarGate reruns while on the can. The tablet doesn't have 
> > the oomph to display the SD-resolution files that my Myth stores, so I 
> > had to make a custom transcoder to write them to smaller files.  That 
> > works pretty well, actually, so I'm able to view most of the videos from 
> > my tablet.  It took a lot of work, though.
> > The MythTV UPNP server doesn't work with the tablet.  It's probably 
> > myth's fault. But, the end result is that I can't play my MP3s easily.  
> > The tablet doesn't have an easy way to mount NFS shares.  So, I end up 
> > SCPing them over and playing them off the memory card.
> > Accessing other content, like news, stored videos (I have gigabytes of 
> > videos of my kids and ripped DVDs), etc is a non-starter.
> > So, the MythTV integration is just barely good enough.
> > 
> > -Dave
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> > 
> 
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