Tag Archives: White Screen of Death

Apple/Mac, Computers/Technology

New Toy

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iPod Touch

So this morning at work a small package turned up on my desk containing my new toy, an iPod Touch.

Depending on your point of view, this is either the ultimate touch screen and wi-fi equipped iPod or it’s a cut down iPhone with loads of functionality missing. Needless to say I’m thinking of it more in the former category, and thinking that I could use it for all the things that my short lived Nokia N770 – which produced a white screen of death a couple of weeks ago – was doing, so as a general media device with a bit of internet browsing. With the news that Apple are going to open up the platform it certainly seems like an iPod Touch will in the future become a good platform for that sort of thing – and probably a lot easier to sync up with my desktop than the Nokia N770!

As is traditional, I’m just waiting for it to sync large amounts of my music and pictures before I’ll get to play with it – I guess it will be tomorrow before I get a chance to seriously try it out!

Computers/Technology, Web/Internet

N770 – Nice Tablet – Lousy Quality

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Faulty Nokia N770

A month or two ago I was raving about the Nokia N770. Unfortunately tonight I am somewhat less enamoured having been greeted with the pictured screen.

It didn’t come up with this first mind you. Initially it booted normally – but then it announced that the battery needed charging before shutting off, and this is what it produced on reboot after an apparently white screen. Based on the sounds it was booting properly, and certainly if I tap the screen where icons should be it sounds like they are working. Looking at the screen at a very low angle I can just about make out the screen, so it seems something weird has happened to the screen.

As always with technical problems, the first port of call was an internet search where I turned up a good deal of other people with the same problem – indeed it seems I got off lightly with the usage I’ve had – other peoples units did this within days! The problem or “White Screen of Deathâ€? as the problem has been christened seems pretty common. The cause is described as ‘un-clean’ power cycles by some users, so they recommend minimising the number of times you power the unit on and off. Certainly it seems like my booting up with no battery may have caused the problem.

Considering the numbers of still working Nokia phones I have sitting around it is decidedly disappointing that the company doesn’t seem to be able to produce an internet tablet that can last more than a couple of months without the screen packing up. It’s also going to be an interesting series of exchanges as Expansys were shipping out US N770’s over the summer – mine included, so although all the machines are manufactured in Estonia, Nokia may well try to avoid replacing the unit. Expansys policy seems to be to pass any faults onto the manufacturer after 21 days…