New Clie Handhelds from Sony

A Commentor writes: "Sony has release two new handhelds including a super slim high-res color model, which has 16M and "AV Remote Control feature". It is also covered at news.com." Looks like Sony will continue to hold the coolest Palm clone crown.

Comments

Mix it with Ericsson

[Anonymous Coward]

Mix it with Ericsson's mobile phones and you have a hit; after all that is what their consortium is all about I guess.

HandEra!!!

[Ender_Stonebender]

Sorry, but in my book, the HandEra 330 takes the crown for coolest Palm-compatible PDA. 240X320 screen, virtual Graffiti area. All it's missing is color.

Ender

Re:HandEra!!!

[Chelloveck]

When I went looking for a new Palm last summer, I looked long and hard at both the Handera 330 and the Sony 710. The virtual Grafitti area is sweet; I wish other manufacturers would come out with it. But two things drew me to buy the Sony instead.

1. The Handera's 240-pixel width isn't an integer multiple of the standard 160-pixel width. To view standard low-res Palm apps in full-screen mode means the machine must scale by 1.5. In some of my tests, this caused bitmaps to look really bad. The Sony's 320-pixel width is exactly double the standard. While doubling the pixels makes things look blocky, they still look better than a stock color Palm or Visor.
2. The Sony's screen had much better contrast in all lighting conditions. I wanted a hi-res screen specifically so I could read books. Sony's screen wins, no question.

The Memory Stick format blows. I really wish Sony would adopt something the rest of the world agreed with. But frankly, the 8MB stick included with the 710 is more than enough for me. I just treat it an extra non-removable 8MB of storage anyway, so it doesn't really matter that it's incompatible with everything else I own. For my uses (books, once again; I don't care about MP3s) the stick is fine.

Re:Remote Control

[Sc00ter]

the IR for data transfer and the IR for controlling your TV are in different parts of the spectrum, that's why you Visor and most Palms for that matter don't do a good job at controlling your TV. You can get an IR transmitter for a Visor that fits into the springboard slot that's in the correct part of the spectrum.

Better the real or another totally different thing

[mirko]

I'm actually a little afraid of the Sony thing as it imho doesn't seem as easy to integrate under linux or others environments as the original thing (for example, I don't like this memory stick thing that looks it's here to force me to adopt a newer kind of yet unrecognized device under non-proprietary envts... The Sony spec also read "windows" and neither linux nor even MacOS[9X]).

One, month ago, Palm announced some forthcoming evolution (multitasking,e tc.) to their OS which seems quite promising since they actually bought Be...

I may wait a little and either buy some of these new devices or something totally different, yet exciting but pricier.

Weird Memory Stick stuff

[jvmatthe]

From the page on the N760C:

A standard 8 MB Memory Stick® media is included with your CLIÉ(TM) PEG-N760C handheld. This is adequate for storing a few, non-secure, music tracks at a time. To carry more than a few tracks at once, or to download and play secure music (ATRAC3(TM) audio content) requires a larger MagicGate(TM) Memory Stick® media (sold separately).

This makes me wonder a couple of things.

• With language like "non-secure", which probably sounds to the uninitiated like something bad, how serious is Sony about pushing secure content? After all, they do own the rights to a ton of music. Wording like this makes me think they're planning to lock it all up and make the general public think they're doing the right thing when they rent their "secure" music from Sony.
  
• Since they've clearly got "secure music" in mind, will we see a day when their stock MP3 player won't play "non-secure" music? If they did so, how open is the Sony hardware to creating third party players that would play "non-secure" music.
  

I mean, to me it looks like they want to (a) start sell^H^H^H^Hrenting their "secure" music while (b) tying the use of that music to increasing hardware sales (of MagicGate Memory Sticks) and then (c) use scary language and possibly locking up their hardware specs (Warning! Wild speculation!) to prevent the unsaavy from playing "non-secure" music.

Again, just wild speculation there.

Why Sony, why Palm?

[dzym]

Get one of these babies instead. There's ActiveSync type software for Linux, and if you tire of PocketPC 2002 OS, you can always put Linux on it.

For $430 (after rebate) you get 240x320, 96MB of storage, 206MHz StrongARM processor, expansion pack capability including "compactflash" and PCMCIA cards, infrared capability, USB, and it plays whatever audio Windows Media Player will take, up to and including MP3.

The question is, why Palm?

finally, a no-BS handheld

[xeno]

I wholeheartedly agree, and I put my money where my mouth is. I bought the 330 this christmas, and don't have a single regret. The screen is excellent (I only see scaling artifacts in one 3rd party app), the memory flexibility is nice, the voice recorder almost crosses over from nifty to useful, and the form factor allows me to use the doodads I've invested in (such as the keyboard, modem, extra cradles, palmpix camera, etc).

I spent a long time looking for an upgrade from my Workpad 20x (Palm III), and looked long and hard at the Sony PalmOS handhelds. But when the rubber hit the road, I came to some comparatively negative conclusions about the Sony:

• color is nice but not really useful to any app I use (except maybe the PalmPix, which is just a toy)
• the form factor/size isn't so much better as to justify buying a new keyboard & cradles
• I'll buy into that proprietary MemoryStick(TM) crap when they pry my CF+ and MMC cards from my cold dead handheld.

OTOH, the 330 gave me some killer advantages:

• Screen rotation combined with high-resolution text and spreadsheet apps is a compelling combination. Being able to reference items from large collections of synchronized information is why I carry this thing around. Seeing more of it at once (esp in landscape mode) is better. I'm anxiously awaiting the update to Brainforest, which Aportis says (as of last week) is in the queue behind a scalable/rotatable version of AportisDoc.
• I can use memory expansion (MMC), network connectivity (CF), and a keyboard (serial) all at once. And I can plug in the power at the same time. It's not a laptop-killer, but then again, everything I've seen pitched as a laptop-killer is so bulky as to become what it's supposed to kill. This is as close as you can get and still shove the whole mess of system and accessories into a coat pocket.
• The buttons are concave. I wouldn't have believed the difference this makes, but after using a Workpad for almost 3 years, the buttons on the 330 are a godsend. It really does make a huge difference in ease of use if you can just poke a button with the stylus and keep writing, rather than shifting your hand to finger it, then going back to the pen. These guys were being thoughtful in the design.
• The LiIon battery is a very nice touch, balanced by the practical ability to pop in some AAA's if you don't have the recharger with you.

Overall, I just found the 330 a better combination of practical features than any other option.
That's my $0.02
-Jon