The recently released Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is an interesting product. Notable for three things: it’s high resolution compact display; the use of Debian Unix, allowing open source application development and porting; and the philosophy that one should be able to access personal information via the internet rather than retaining everything on board.

Unfortunately, it still looks and behaves like a computer. This is perhaps inevitable given its operating system, but it is interesting to note that the most successful PDA-type devices rely on specialised operating systems – i.e., Palm, Blackberry and Sidekick. Of course, this list forgets the Newton which remains the best, most usable PDA in existence, 11 years after the product was binned.

I think therefore that the Nokia 770 is a missed opportunity. It would have been really enlightening for Nokia to provide a suite of integrated web-enabled applications which could be accessed from the device, or any web browser, and store very little on board. Perhaps a simple subscription model could have been used? More on this in another post.

Instead, we have a PDA with limited functionality, no PIM, buggy software, and the most bizarre software upgrade mechanism:

You need a PC.

Yes. For the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, you need a PC. To upgrade the software, you connect the Nokia to a PC with the supplied USB cable, download the updater onto the PC and run it on the PC for it to be ‘flashed’ to the Nokia. But that’s not all – to access the updater from Nokia’s website you need to enter your product ID, which is contained on a label underneath the battery!