Digital Common Sense

Not much, but there is at least one vital piece missing, and I’m not the only one to have noticed.

The N800 comes equipped with absolutely nothing in the way of PIM functionality. There’s no native synch with Outlook, or even better, with a Nokia N-series phone.

In my case. I synchronize my data in far too many directions. I can give up the Outlook notes and ToDo list. I use them, but could easily adapt without. But my calendar and contact lists are vital to everyday life.

With the N800, you have to build contacts in from scratch for the most part. Given the very GoogleTalk-centric environment, I would have expected some way to such down my Gmail contact list easily, but it isn’t there.

A choice of cable or bluetooth synchronization to a PC or telephone would be a huge step up for the N800. As it is, it can’t servce as my single device ever. It has to be paired with a phone. If I’m constrained to one device for any reason, a phone wins.

I like choices, and adding synch capabilities would allow me to pick up the N800 as easily as a phone when I dash off to many places. Given WiFi availability, I could easily take the N800 instead of a cell phone. With VoIP capability via Gtalk, and the Gizmo client that works great, the N800 can easily function as a phone, if not a fully mobile cell phone.

I’m sure given Maemo, there are PIM tools and options I haven’t yet found, but frankly, they won’t cut it at the consumer level. This stuff simply needs to be built in. Users shouldn’t even have to think about them.

The other thing I’d realy like to see is a port or subset of Open Office running on the N800. That might be out there, but at a cursory glance, I didn’t see a mention anywhere.

Technorati Tags: Nokia, N800, mobile devices, VoIP

Filed by Ken at 5:53 pm under Mobility & Handheld, Portable Pleasures - PDA/Smartphones