No 4. Sexy streaming. The Nokia is tailor made for WiFi streaming, and it shows. The designers have included streaming Internet radio as standard and there’s no doubt they’ll do more later on. How do we know they’re taking it seriously? Just look at the audio and video codecs which are supported on the 770 out of the box and you can tell they have plans. The mylo, on the other hand supports the bare minimum, and in fact probably less than many of the low end MP3 players. $350 for MP3, WMA and ATRAC? Really?
The reason why it matters is that WiFi is increasingly used as a home streaming technology, and the clever folk at Nokia have done their homework. The 770 for instance also supports mp3tunes.com, which lets you stream your personal MP3 music collection from your online locker to any device. Think about streaming your own sounds from the locker to your hotel room WiFi via a small handheld at reasonable quality and you get the idea. Who needs 1 GB of RAM when you’ve got infinite online storage on tap?
No 5. Developers rock! The key to tech success nowadays is to encourage a community to get behind your product and develop the heck out of its capabilities. Sony has a checkered history in this regard, since they’ve never really moved away from their entrenched proprietary platform mindset. Nokia on the other hand, has learned from Symbian and it’s clear that they’re going to drive the 770 dev community as far as it can go.
Already the application list being ported from Debian Linux is growing fast, and the list of apps on the 770 already shows some class – email, games, RSS reader, even the hottest product on the block right now, the Gizmo Project Internet chat client, which offers free calls to national and international landlines from your device. Clever stuff. See the Maemo.org site for more detail.
Conclusion. So, I realise that I come off sounding like a fan-boy of the Nokia marketing machine, but it’s not really as simple as that (and long time readers will remember that I’m no Nokia apologist). The folk at Nokia have had their share of problems in the recent past, as witnessed by some truly horrible product releases (n-Gage anyone?), but I do believe that the company is now trying to redress its arrogance and get it right.
The 770 has proved to be a real hit with those who like its portability, superior handheld browsing (just about the best anywhere according to the pundits, and it’s true) and versatility. At the end of the day, the two devices are definitely not as close as it seems in terms of specification and options, unless Sony does a drastic makeover in the next few months before launch, which is unlikely.
The reality is that those of us who’re wedded to the power and utility of constant broadband find it hard to live without it on the move, and so we seek constantly to stay connected – to have ubiquitous ‘access’, rather than just that ‘ubiquitous computing’ concept of the past. Smartphones don’t do it, laptops do but are just too darn cumbersome and until something pocket friendly comes up that gives us what we need, the Nokia 770 is the best on offer. Period.
[Postscript: I realise that I’ve left off the massive difference in RAM capacities, but that’s because I suspect that the Nokia’s streaming feature is a big leveller of playing fields in this regard. You need lots of memory if you’re just trying to be a glorified MP3 player, but for a real Net connect device it’s just not as important. Online lockers, applications and tools kind of remove the need to store that much locally. However, let’s not delve into the pathetically limited number of WiFi access points in general right now, eh?]
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The thing is that Nokia is reinventing Nokia intends to create a new cellphone from scratch and Sony is teasing MySpace users. So they don’t share the same battle plan. But still, saying this doesn’t explain the poor technology orientations made by Sony. (And I don’t like the Mylo design)
The market for “personal communicators” is far larger than for portable internet browsers, so that’s hardly an argument in favor of the Nokia. The Sony is clearly designed more for the communicator task with its smaller size and available keyboard. There’s no doubt that the bigger screen in the Nokia is better for browsing but the two devices are targetted at different uses.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the Sony device is destined for failure. It’s basically a Sidekick without cellular support. Unlike the Nokia, the Sony form factor at least is proven in the market. I think both products are losers.
Craig, you’re right, in some months, every one would have forgotten (again) the Mylo. Unless, Sony achieves to bring up a community of developers round its open source platform. But Sony doesn’t seem very familiar with this kind of relationship.
Yeah Craig, I suppose we’re kind of coming at it from the same angle, although I believe that the Nokia does have a better market chance as a small carry around tablet browser, in that it does a better job of mimicking a laptop (or more precisely, a network appliance!).
The whole thing goes away if the mobile network people do their job and produce a genuinely fast ubiquitous data network for a reasonable price. Then we’ll start seeing some really useful products. But I have to say that the Nokia 770 form factor would still seem to be a winner if that happened, if only because it is a nice compromise between screen size and pocketability.