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[icurafu]

I must admit that firefox 3 is a lot more zippier than most other browsers (excluding opera). I use it on a very low-end laptop.

Another thing to note, when thinking about a fat OS, is that Ubuntu has now got an ARM branch, as of a week ago. So you're going to start seeing Ubuntu on high-end ARM systems, which incase you didn't realise, is exactly what the Pandora is.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Except that MWeston said that Firefox 3 runs full speed on the dev hardware.

What exactly does 'full speed' mean when referring to Web browsers? They can never get fast enough ;P

Read the post.

If the dev kit was hidden behind the monitor, you would swear it was just your PC running a variation of some linux desktop complete with an amazingly full speed Firefox browser. There was no lag or scroll issues whatsoever, even at 720p.

 

[Ravnos]

I'd just like to say that I've tried Google Docs on my N800 and it was unacceptably painful to use. Maybe the Pandora can overcome that with its better hardware, though.

 

[sindbad]

I'd just like to say that I've tried Google Docs on my N800 and it was unacceptably painful to use. Maybe the Pandora can overcome that with its better hardware, though.

I think maemo has Minimo as the default browser, or in any case some variotion of Gecko older than 1.9, which means slow. Gecko 1.9 is much faster (but still lags quite a bit behind webkit).

 

[craigix]

I'm not sure if it was firefox 2 or 3 we saw, it might have been firefox2. It was running just as it would on a desktop pc. You could not tell it was running on the omap3 at all.

 

[Shiny]

Read the post.

If what is meant by 'full speed' is just the scroll smoothness, then I'm not impressed. Even the Nintendo DS's Opera browser manages to scroll everything smoothly, and that's on much weaker hardware.

I'm not sure if it was firefox 2 or 3 we saw, it might have been firefox2. It was running just as it would on a desktop pc. You could not tell it was running on the omap3 at all.

But how were the render times? ;P

 

[chad78]

Thanks everyone for the responses. At this point, I am hopeful, but reserved, in the likelihood of running Google Docs on the Pandora.

Addressing some of the other points in this thread.

I, too, have a N800 - but I've updated to Tablet OS2008 - the latest version of Maemo. The default browser is the Firefox-based microB - which can run some Firefox extensions like Ad-Blocker. I don't have a problem running Google Docs on there. If the Padora's browser can run Google docs as well as the N800 with OS2008 - then I'd be happy.

There are a number of reasons I personally prefer Firefox to Opera. The biggest one being extensions. I love being able to get my browser to do what I want it to do. Whether that's show the weather in the bottom righthand corner at all times - look different - block ads - control my media player - or whatever. The second one is open source. I'm no hacker - seeing the code doesn't do much for me - but the ideals behind it are cool. It wasn't that long ago that you had to pay to use Opera. Either pay or constantly have ads in the browser itself - or steal it. Of those 3 options - I chose to not use it. Firefox has always been, and will always be, free.

Also, I've used the Opera browser on the DS Lite, and on a cell phone, and on my N800. They all sucked. If that's what the Pandora's browser would be like - I won't be buying one. I want a full browser that runs pretty much everything. If Flash isn't possible - I'll deal with that, (although I do have Flash on my N800). But I won't deal with no Javascript, or poorly rendered pages.

That's another problem with Opera - it screws up pages no other browser (including IE) screws up. No thanks.

To the developers. The screen size you are using is the same size and resolution as the N800 / N810. You might want to look into porting the microB browser to the Pandora. Actually a lot of apps for the N800/N810 would be good to have on the Pandora. Since the Pandora is more powerful, ARM based, and Debian based as well - I (admittedly as a non-programmer) don't think it would be that hard. I'd say 95% of the apps, if not all, are open source, so you should be able to. Just a thought.

 

[atomicthumbs]

You need to use the desktop version of Opera for the best experience. All the others suck.

 

[Chip]

Whether you love or hate Opera, there is very little chance of a Pandora version of it. Opera is closed source as previously mentioned. The Opera devs are not likely to port it unless there are many tens of thousands of Pandoras for it to run on.

It is much more likely that we'll have at least 2 or 3 browsers to chose between from the Mozilla or webkit families.

Personally, I'll be happy with anything that provides broad site compatability (AJAX, streaming flash video, etc) and supports tabs. I don't care WHO wrote the original source

 

[chad78]

You need to use the desktop version of Opera for the best experience. All the others suck.

I have tried the desktop version of Opera - I have a lot of browsers since I do web design, and I have to test my sites. I'm not impressed with it for the reasons stated above. I'm glad to hear that it most likely will not be on the Pandora in any of its incarnations.

 

[Ravnos]

I, too, have a N800 - but I've updated to Tablet OS2008 - the latest version of Maemo. The default browser is the Firefox-based microB - which can run some Firefox extensions like Ad-Blocker. I don't have a problem running Google Docs on there. If the Padora's browser can run Google docs as well as the N800 with OS2008 - then I'd be happy.

I'm also using OS2008 and I thought Google Docs ran terribly on it. Maybe it's because I was using it for spreadsheets, though, which would probably be more resource intensive than text documents.

 

[javaJake]

Spreadsheets run terribly on my P4 1.8 GHz machine, so I wouldn't be surprised if Spreadsheets died on a mobile device.

 

[cb88]

well what i want to know is how is full screen flash performance?
While normal size is fine fullscreen is not on any linux desktop i have seen.
It lags severly on my 1.8Ghz desktop and there is even lag on my friend's quad core?


What is amazing is that flash ran better inside windows XP in Virtual box than it did natively.... makes me wonder if the linux version is not really all that native?