Nokia released a new update for their Linux-based N800 internet tablet, v3.2007.10-7 which includes improvements and fixes in video and Flash performance and quality, Bluetooth connection, browser stability, activating touch screen and keys lock, new camera app, rdesktop and more. Nokia also wrote an good-looking front-end to Real’s Rhapsody service that includes a 30 days free trial. You can choose from millions of songs to fetch and playback via WiFi (no permanent downloading). In my test, the N800 managed 4 hours of battery life of fetching+playback using Rhapsody. Screenshot here.
While I generally avoid Real player on the desktop, I’ve actually found the PalmOS port to be alright so this should be a good thing especialy with Rhapsody streaming.
Why avoid it ?
Realplayer is actually somewhat excellent under Linux.
It is just the Windows version that sux balls with all the included crap, the player itself is great.
The client was written by Nokia, not Real.
The UI of the Rhapsody client is near identical to the Nokia’s uPNP client called “Media Streamer”:
http://maemo.org/maemowiki/ApplicationCatalog2006#head-296a12ff610a…
does anyone know how to access rhapsody from a nokia phone? i would really like to be able to listen to stuff from my phone with wifi.
Has this added ogg support? Nokia really should have Ogg support in a device that runs on Linux.
No, it doesn’t have Ogg or FLAC in the standard software. I play both using mplayer from the Maemo.org site.
People want Ogg Vorbis accelerated via hardware DSPs! =]
There’s no real world reason to use ogg vorbis or flac in N800 if it’ll drain you battery much faster than MP3 playback if it doesn’t use the hardware DSPs.
I agree, Ogg Vorbis support is important for a device like this, especially one which draws so much of its userbase from Linux.
Edited 2007-03-28 18:01
Does it play YouTube vidoes properly now?
From the two I checked, I’d say “it plays them better”. Still not perfect, but much better than before.
Does it have USB Host support so I could use usb mass storage devices yet?
No, it doesn’t.