[Novalug] Nokia N800 as PDF textbook reader?

[David Lerner]

The N800 behaves very nicely for the tasks that I had in mind when I
bought it. This includes the ability to read PDF documents. The device
weighs just 8 Oz and the travel charger adds about 2 or 3  Oz. This lets
me check email, check financial accounts and make payments online, and
do general web browsing without the need to carry a heavy laptop.

Positives include low cost ($229 including shipping from Amazon). It
runs a Debian based Linux. It is an open platform with lots of free
applications. Screen resolution is excellent at 800x400 but the screen
is small and you may not be able to read normally displayed text without
a magnifier. A zoom mode will make almost any text legible at the
expense of displaying only a small portion of the page. Skype is
supported and it works well, but I will use my cell phone instead for
all calls within the US. The built-in FM radio works well. Blue-tooth
support is included for keyboard, mouse, headphone, and data cell phone.
The media player will handle most open media formats.

Negatives include the need to use a hunt-and-peck style of input. The
on-screen keyboard almost always comes up when you need it, but there
are exceptions. The VNC viewer application is virtually unusable because
it does not bring up the text entry mode when needed. An external
blue-tooth keyboard would solve the problem. You may find that too
little of a PDF document is shown at any time to make reading a scanned
text comfortable. A built-in web camera is cute but of little use. The
free map application and free downloadable maps are worthless.

There is a USB connector but it is limited to flashing updates to the OS
and mapping the memory cards as disk devices to an external computer.
The USB connector does not make any USB devices visible to the N800. The
only way to connect to the internet is the built-in wireless adapter. A
cable connection is not possible; a USB Ethernet adapter will not work.

Dave

Brandon Saxe wrote:
> I am thinking of getting an N800 so that I can read
> PDF's of my scanned textbooks instead of lugging them
> around.
> 
> Can anybody on the list here comment on how well their
> N800 can do this?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/novalug
> 
>