Small Surfaces

Sean Luke published an evaluation of the Nokia N800 tablet computer user interface in comparison to the Apple Newton.

“The N800’s “Hildon” UI is shown at left, in a screenshot reduced 50%, which gives you the sense of how large it looks on the N800’s small screen. The N800 employs the GTK+ toolkit, originally created for the GIMP photo-manipulation program but (unlike the GIMP itself) bearing the hallmarks of inexpert design. It tries to copy much of the look and feel of Windows 95, including IMHO its worst features. Nokia then took this toolkit and tweaked it to look if not feel a little better, but couldn’t escape their cell phone roots: the modified version they created is very, very modal. Much like PalmOS, only one application may appear at a time; applications take up the entire screen; and applications interact with one another rather less than in the Newton.”

Link: The Nokia N800 (cs.gmu.edu, via)