Summary: The Nokia 770 is the best bridge-device yet between mobility and the web2.0 world. It is a solid go-to device for messaging and presence, as well as having a very capable browser. It can appear a bit sluggish at times, but it is a very flexible device with a lot of untapped potential. Having said that, Nokia has been making steady improvements to the device in the form of software updates.

I am running the 2006 edition of the software. I am also only going to cover the things I actually use my 770 for, since it does a lot of things, but I think it may be interesting for people to know how I use the device.

The Nokia 770 is easy to like. It runs Linux and X11, has a slew of little applications and allows easy third-party access, and also speaks WiFi and Bluetooth allowing you to talk to the Internet with ease.

Physically the device feels great, it is a good weight and the build quality is nice. It feels substantial and not cheap. It really freaks me out when I’m using something that feels hollow and brittle. I really like holding and using the 770. There are some minor construction issues, namely that when you have the 770 in its metallic sleeve you can’t reach the stylus because its blocked by the lip of the jacket. I don’t know how something like that got through QA.

So it has a stylus and a touchscreen, and it does handwriting recognition but I haven’t used that yet. It doesn’t have a PIM and it doesn’t sync against anything. It isn’t a PDA but is more of a surfboard for IM, Presence, Browsing, and Email. It can also be transmogrified into a softphone via Gizmoproject or Google Talk.

When you first boot the device up and do some simple configuration you’ll be dumped out to a desktop of sorts, which is also activated by using the Home key on the device. You can run little widgets that do things like pull RSS feeds, access Internet radio, or give you easy access to your favorite search engine.

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