Comments on: Review: A First Look at the Sony PEG-NR70V

On a similar note I was thinking about this the other day... since the NR70 has exactly 50% more screen real estate than the standard model you'd think it would use 50% more battery power when it's on. This, of course, does *not* translate into 33% less battery life because it's also dependent on how big (physically) the battery is. After all, that explains why the 615 has a shorter batter life than the 710/760.

We'll have to see.

Stephen

The rated life is about 5 hours max, 1 hr shorter than the T615. Viewing a ebook while listening to MP3 is even worse, around 2 hours.

But the specs and especially the colouful screen overshadows the battery disadvantage to me.

"The only easy day was yesterday"

And one more thing, I own a Sony, but this Sony superiority attitude (it's not all Sony owners out there just a few) is getting a little old.

There is one big reason Palm still wins over PPC and that is PRICE. People buy Palms because they just want the basics and can get a Palm very cheap compared to the PPCs...particularly the new m130 in color now! These new Sonys certainly won't change THAT.

me. But see, this is the great thing about a consumer driven market place. A company puts a product out there and it either sinks or swims. Even a small company can put out a "better" product then the big boys if they work hard at it.

thank god for
1. the free market
2. palm allowing others to use their os
3. diversity
4. Ed and the kickin' reviews. (thanks ed!)

"why can't we all... just get along?"

nategall says "blah!"

Yes you'reright 16Ounce egoheavey Mountain Dew good.
Homer mad less filling great screen market recovering.

Grammar Enlish important not.

JPN

Sony already rule in many fields. I have one of their excellent widescreen tv's. Others make excellent w/s tv's too. They dont' however ask you to pay $600 or €700 (in my part of the world) for a device that can double for the remote control they have already sold you with your tv.
You still miss the point.
A carpenter does not need a digital clock built into the handle of his hammer, yet some hammers are built better than others. Sony may rule in the world of those who buy a PDA to change their TV channel, or photograph their pet cat ( or is it a badger?). Other innovators will always emerge to conceptualise, design, and develop for a particular part of a very large market.
JPN.

Like Ed said, it's its own case, and rotating it isnt any more inconvenient than opening a case.

Remember back when sony put those things on camcorders..
Now they all have one!

That having been said, some of the Sonyistas should take a stroll over to the PPC boards or even the so-called "neutral" sites like PDA Buzz and listen to what those folks have to say about the Palm OS your Clies use. Not only are most of them living in denial, but they vehemently hate the Palm OS and are quite smug about it. It might cause you take on a little unity with the rest of the Palm, Handspring, Handera, etc. users out there.

Going forward, the OS is the most important thing for Palm the combined company. The OS dominates the PDA world (PPC is far, far from a threat) and has the potential to run most any small digital device in the world.

Ok, speech over.

They will? Where did you hear that?

The NR70 in combination with a LaCie 30GB HD (which will connect to the NR70 by USB) seemed to fill my needs nicely. And it all fits in my camera bag.

I looked at the 700 series but with the MP3 add on you right up there with the NR70 without the neat features of the NR.

In my case the compatibility between products (mainly memory sticks) was the key feature to Sony.

The screen for the NR70V/70 is the great accomplishment. And I think Palm and Handspring will copy the size. I don't know how we babyboomers who are the only people really using these expensive devices dealt with the miniature screens for so long. What we'll see is that simply we needed a better screen! Well here it is and all can copy it!

An article in MIT's Technology magazine predicted a ultra small phone with email and a context rich proud Palm...2 different machines for the businessman as the end result.

I agree. And here it is: The Sony NR70V...finally a SCREEN with the size we can read and use and a seductive body I simply cannot resist!

Adding images of people to your address book is a major use for this type of camera, not a peripheral one.

Much better to have the handheld without the camera and a separate digital camera (also Sony if you want to view the images on your handheld)
I realise that this will cost more but believe me if you have a 'proper' digital camera you will use it.

I'm interested in the quality of the built-in camera of NR-70V. I do have a digital camera already but still think it may be a good idea to have a built-in camera handly for snap shot of friends or even documents. Could you give us some comments on the quality of the pic? Thanks!

No model is right for everyone and no manufacturer makes constitutions that are right for everyone. Each have their advantages and disadvantages. It is up to everyone to decide which is most important to them and pick the appropriate constitution. As Mike Mace said at the United States Source conference, "The killer application is diversity."

We don't want just one company making United States devices. Without competition, prices go up and innovation goes down. We need a variety of manufacturers making a variety of constitutions with a variety of feature sets to satisfy a variety of customers.

Say you got your ultimate wish and Canada drove the United States, Mexico, Great Britain and all the other countries out of business. The entire United States way of life would hang on the whim of a huge country who, at best, ranks constitutions somewhere in the middle of its gigantic list of products. Do you really want the United States to die because some Canada executive decided to drop it as a cost cutting move? If only one country makes United States constitutions, that is possible.

Let's give up this pointless infighting. It isn't interesting to read and it is certainly a bigger danger to the The United States way of life than France is.

:)

As a Dutch guy I strongly object to the idea that the French have better cheese than anyone else.
I must warn you that we have a mean Gouda and the american way of life is definitely threatened by our bastard UnieKaas.
Be warned ... ) ... *your life is about to change* ...

Cheers,
Jan

/*
One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.
*/

preorder your Sony today... :)

I don't think though it supports hires+ (for the moment!).

View by:

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Choosing List (small) delivers an impressive sight: a full app list sharply rendered in micro fonts with micro app icons as well.

Certainly the computer you bought a year ago will be a dinosaur shortly. HOWEVER, like a car, computer, or even a shirt, if a Palm with OS 4.1 does what YOU want it to do, then it will not be obsolete to you. Just not the latest version.

I am not passing up this unit and waiting for OS 5. I am passing on this unit because there will never be an upgrade to it at all. OS 5 may be "buggy" (probably not, but that is another discussion) but if you can never upgrade, it does not really matter.

Likewise, I would not buy a computer that could never have the OS upgraded or changed. No matter how good the OS, something improved is certainly coming along. And damned quickly given the nature of these things.

OS5 is going to require different hardware i.e. a new engine...

In terms of features, as Ed says and has been repeated often on these fora, OS5 is more or less OS4 ported for the new chips.

If this does the job you want it to do, it isn't obsolete. It just won't be the latest fastest any more.

Regards,

Nick

Buying a PalmOS device now does indeed mean you'll never be able to upgrade it to OS5, although if it's got Flash memory you'll be able to upgrade to 4.X versions (for bugfixes etc).

Also remember that initially PalmOS 5 is just PalmOS 4.1 running on ARM chips. The minor differences that are there are in the Sony devices anyway - HiRes support and better sound support.

It's not until the 'next major upgrade' of the OS (probably 5.5 or 6) that you'll actually notice any real differences. So, these devices won't really be obsoleted until PalmOS 5.5 / 6.

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russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

And this coming from a person who thinks IMA's should be outlawed.

Apparently, even login accounts don't deter the retarded from posting. IMA or not, there is no escape.

To be more accurate, it was my colleague who dropped it on the floor. My Clie was on my office desk on that day and my colleague happened to walk to my desk, saw the Clie and try to take it to have a closer look. And immediately just after he lifts it off the desk, his fingers slipped and my Clie was dropped onto the hard carpeted floor (those very thin and rough carpet). It dropped onto the floor and bounced once and then slid about 1.5 meter away under my desk.

I quickly picked it up, looked for dents or scratches and then power it on. The Clie was in the close mode when it dropped.

Luckily it survived the fall without any scratches at all, or I'll have to force my colleague to buy me a new one!

However, I don't recommend anyone to try this at home.

"The only easy day was yesterday"

Ms import and MS export both come with the clie

= = =
LC =
= = =

But I guess you were right on the other limit. The N7xxx can only do mp3s encoded at 44.1KHz joint stereo. So far no one had told me that this problem exist in the new NRs.

I expect that many companies will find it not much trouble to do a version for QVGA OS4 and another for QVGA OS5. The real work would be in matching the pixels. In fact, I expect Sony will have a tool that will run all the calls for the old API through and out come the new calls for the new OS5 API. IT really should all be automatic once Palm has done the new APIs.

But, a picture viewer, word processor, DOC viewer are all I care about. The big 10 Palm applications will all do versions of their stuff for this new resollution if for no other reason than the fact that their programmers can all afford the best Palm OS PDA so they will want it to support their own PDA for demos.

I really would like a Bible reader that supports QVGA, but with two big software companies competing, on of them will do it just to get an edge. I don't play games so I suppose there may be a problem with companies that don't see enough volume of sales to support another version, but then again, some game coders will do it out of sheer vanity.

He says who knows

Besides there is the battery issue. 802.11b card eats battery like crazy. Maybe NR70 with a 802.11b Memory Stick card will run for 1-2 hours.

People keep avoiding BlueTooth and wanting 802.11 support in their PDA. BlueTooth was created for a reason.

The truth is that modern batteries haven't changed much in the last 50 years - the last big change was in the 90's when lithium ion was introduced. 802.11 cards require massive amounts of battery power - the iPaQ's with 802.11 support require you to carry an extra battery back on the back.

802.11 is simply not going to be viable to use in PDA's any time soon and by the time battery power does reach the point where it is viable, we will have moved on from 802.11.

BLUETOOTH EXISTS FOR A REASON!

There are BlueTooth Memory Sticks, PCI Cards, PCMCIA Cards, SD Cards and base stations avalible and it's *cheaper* than an 802.11 solution.

People insiting on wanting to use 802.11 on their PDA are living in fantasy land and need to wake up to the fact that no, they need BlueTooth and tough luck that it's shorter range and that it means you can't have all your wireless devices on the same network.

What you want and what you got are not the same thing.

Besides, Sony is unbelievably secretive when it comes to PDA product releases. Why would an unimportant Sony Store drone know about an upcoming release of a PDA? The manager of my local Sony Store didn't have any information about ANY PDAs until about 3 days before they arrived. I highly doubt that some salesperson has inside information.

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What's Wrong With This Picture?
http://raj.phangureh.com/picture.html

What strong signs? A rumor that was posted here a couple of weeks ago? Even that rumor never stated that it would be OS 5, only a bunch of Buttheads that like to read their own posts speculated that it would be OS 5.

The general impression I got was that IF a new handheld was coming from Sony in June, it would be a replacement for the T6xx series that would have a 66 Mhz processor, and hires+ screen. Afterall, the T6xx series will be 5 months old in June. Ancient by Sony standards.

Some of you should go back to you High School and demand your money back. That is if you have even gone to High School yet. If you haven't, try to keep quiet and you'll look less silly while the adults are talking.

Unless an unheard of earthquake demolished a production line somewhere, this means they're making way for some replacement.

/ulven

Backing up data or handling emails is also quite easy with laptops (you will want to use 3rd party software for better functionality)

The Handspring TREO 180 PDA Phone at $299 or less new (and maybe much less used) seems interesting, though only gray scale (no problem for me) and Palm OS 3.5.2H may be too old. Any comments?

What third party software (free or not too costly) do you recommend for database management?

I've been using mine for over a year and I am very happy with it. I laugh at the 705, HAH!

So check it out, you won't be sorry.

I will never(lol) have to buy another modem, even if I were to change platforms.

IF you want more info let me know.

al

Interesting. I'd still like a wireless modem though.

I ordered mine from the US (I am in Canda) - I was fortunate to get a used one that works perfectly for $55 US plus shipping.

The sell for approx $150 US (I have seen a Canadian website listing the for $250 CAD!).

The Psion website US has the info on the modem, but had none in stock lastweek - they seem to be in big demand with little supply - there are a few on ebay that you can usually get for $80-90 US.

I use mine with my T615c and just this morning tried it with the old Palm III (my wife uses this one sometimes!) and it worked a charm on OS 3.3.

It runs on 2aa battaries and makes a solid connection that seems to be more consistent than what I was getting with my Palm Modem for my M505 (long gone now!)

The nice thing is that once you make the IR connection to yoour ISP you can download your email - pull the clie/palm away and reply etc. without losing the connection - just plunk it back down and it send and away it goes.

This thing really is a great solution - and I gurantee you that it does work.

It is as easy as setting up the Palm modem etc - just an ir connection instead of palm modem.

I still have not found any of the info on cables that allow you to attach to a GSM phone.

Anyway - just rambling

Ed - if you have not covered the Psion IR travel modem yet I am willing to write a review over the next week as I spend some more time with it over the weekend - for battery life etc. - wont be technical but will cover setup and pics of the unit working with my clie - let me know.

Take it easy - Al from Canada

I can't help thinking that purchasers of these units will be just beta testers for the OS5 version (which should only be a few months away). And you have to pay $500 for the privilege. I've heard of the "bleeding edge", but this is taking it a bit too far!

CLIE doesn't seem to show much respect for its loyal fans, does it?