Discovering The N810 - Bluetooth Woes
I’ve had the N810 for 2 days now and even if I love it a bit more everytime I use it, I gotta say that I feel mainly letdown by one particular aspect: Bluetooth connectivity and transfer.
Let’s start from the beginning. Turning bluetooth on. How hard can it be? I previously said that everything is straight-forward with Maemo, every rule has an exception. Well let’s just say that for a minute, I thought the device didn’t support bluetooth until I found a “Send to bluetooth” option in File Manager. And that’s how I turned it on the first time. I later discovered that the real way to do do is through the Control Panel. Correct me if I’m wrong but it takes 8 clicks to do that and go back to the main screen. WTF? How about leaving that Bluetooth icon steady on the Home screen, just like the Connections one, or at least giving me the option to keep it even when it’s off?
Second problem: receiving a file. When receiving a file over bluetooth, you can’t do anything else with the device. The only thing you can press is a Cancel box. What? This reminded me of the time I got my aunt’s Sony Ericsson K750i for a month. The device couldn’t clearly multitask, so even if I was annoyed at the idea of having to wait for the transfer to finish, I wasn’t moaning about it. When I got my first S60 I was pleased to see that this wasn’t an issue. The N810 can clearly multitask, and I know it’s not a phone but don’t tell me you don’t send pictures, videos, songs, pdfs to it! Well it doesn’t have to be this painful, damn it!
Third issue: paired devices. The way I have grown accustomed to, is that when 2 devices are paired, file transfer is seemless. I don’t get asked for a passkey, I don’t need to agree to receive, it just works. Well that ain’t the case here, even after pairing devices, the N810 still asks me if I want to save the file. Seriously?
This brings me to the one thing I loved about the N810 BT: choosing the directory. When a file is received, I can pick when it gets saved, unlike S60 where it goes immediately in the Inbox, which prevents me from receiving big files if my internal memory is small. With the N810 I can pick in which memory the file is saved, in which folder, and even create a new folder for it if I wish. I can even tell it to automatically open the file when it’s received. I know this behavior explains why the transfer isn’t seamless with a paired device, but I think it can be improved somehow. Give me a default folder for paired devices for example.
Well this is my main issue with the N810 so far. I know this doesn’t seem as a great problem, but you’ll have to try it for yourself to see that it can be a major annoyance.
Rita - Regarding the bluetooth issue, you need to go into control panel > panels and edit the displayed items which will be shown on the taskbar at all times. This way you can enable and disable bluetooth with one click. This is possible on the N800 running OS 2008, should be the same on the N810 also.
Well it isn’t because even if BT is checked on that panel, whenever I turn BT off, the icon disappears (even if the taskbar isn’t full with icons) :s so in order to turn it on again, i can only do it by going to control panel again.
Nokia has a bugzilla just for these types of issues. Post something on Internet Tablet Talk first. I hate to see people woe and not fix issues, that is so lame. Im a pessimist myself but I try to fix stuff that really matters. I don’t own a Nokia Internet Tablet but soon once I scrape enough money together I will buy one. Can’t confirm Adonis’s comment, obviously. I’m pretty sure he is correct though.
Vlad
I thought I would do a test on my Nokia N810 connected to my N95. I can confirm that the Bluetooth icon stays on the screen. It also stays on (if I have selected as such).
When sending a file, I wasn’t asked to re-enter the passcode as it was a paired device, but was asked if I wanted to save the file. I actually like that, as it enables myself to select where it goes, though your point about a pre-selected folder is taken.
The one area I was able to replicate (though in my experience so far it hasn’t been an issue for myself) was not being able to do something else, whilst the device was receiving the file.
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2911
Here is the link at the bugzilla in case nobody knew there was a page for this bug….
Hazza, just to make sure, when the icon is on the system tray, if you turn bluetooth off, the icon remains yet it is not lit (not on), pretty much like the wifi connection one?
Vlad, sorry this is my firs time with a tablet and i didn’t know this was a bug with mine, i thought this is how it behaved.
Oh and Hazza, the N810 doesn’t ask for a passkey again, after I have paired devices, but it asks me to save the file, then it asks me where i want to save it. I think the first step is plain SILLY when I have allowed the 2nd device to access my N810.
Point taken about the silly step.
About the icon, I am not sure if i am misunderstanding, but on my n810 the bluetooth icon is always there, but is white, except when connected when it goes blue. I don’t need to turn the bluetooth on as I have it set to be always on, and don’t have to go looking for it to turn on, as it is always on the front screen.
Is this different from your experience?
Hazza, if you set bluetooth off (click on bt applet -> “Bluetooth Settings” -> “Bluetooth on”) the icon will disappear. Of course it stays visible if you never set bluetooth off…
hazza, fact is that I turn Bluetooth off when I don’t need it, in order to save battery life. So let’s suppose that bluetooth is on, if i click on the status bar icon, it tells me “bluetooth settings” i click it and get to choose if BT is on, visibility as well as device name and paired devices. If i untick the Bluetooth ON, the bluetooth goes off and the icon disappears from the status bar.
What I am asking for is that even if i untick it, the BT icon remains on the status bar, in “gray” mode, much like the WiFi icon when you are not connected. So that, when I want BT on again, I can easily click the icon and set it on, and not go to Control Panel to do so.
And I thought that this was what everyone wanted :s seems I was wrong
Well Rita; what you are asking for is the simplicity that just isn’t there. Its not so much your fault as much as your user experience with Bluetooth is different than the one that the IT is letting you go through.
As you run thru the IT, you will find that the user experience is fustrating at times, and other time kinda neat, just as you have here.