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New Clie Handhelds

Posted by michael on from the things-to-break dept.

Carthis writes "Sony has officially released their newest Clié handheld, the PEG-NR70, in the USA. This one has a clamshell design, a high resolution 480 x 320 screen (half VGA), Sony's MemoryStick slot, built in MP3 player, enhanced IR port (like the Sony 'T' series), and a REAL SPEAKER for once, instead of the typical piezo buzzer. I want this to have my children. PalmInfoCenter has this story about this tasty new handheld. Following past trends of Sony, this handheld probably won't be available for at least 6 months for us Canadians *grumbles*."

4 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Wow...Tres Futuristique by waldoj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This thing is crazy. It takes pictures, communicates wirelessly, stores information little gumstick-sized cards, has a remote control, recognizes handwriting...can you imagine seeing one of these things 5, 10, 20, maybe 50 years ago? Even just 5 years ago this would have been quite tremendous, but 10 or 20? It would have boggled the mind.

    This is the kind of thing that Popular Science told us that we'd all have in The Year 2000[tm]. Turns out that they were just a couple of years ahead of things.

    -Waldo Jaquith

  2. Yes, but... by Aryeh+Goretsky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hello,

    It certainly looks very polished, in the SONY style of doing things, but how well does it work in every day life?

    The magnesium case is a plus, but how long do the pivot mechanisms last, and how solidly-built are they? Is the keyboard adequate for "thumb typing" or is it going to be limited to a "hunt-and-peck" style?

    How compatible is it with existing peripherals and software? One of the things I that annoys me about my Palm III and Palm V is that the peripherals are not interchangeable. Separate cradles, chargers, external keyboards, stylii, and so forth. Does buying a PEG-NR70V mean having to re-purchase all the accessories? I noticed that SONY has separate Memory Sticks for music and data. Which does the PEG-NR70V require to play MP3s? And does it actually play MP3s or require them to be converted to SONY's own ATRAC3 format?

    Also, I know it is hard to make comparisons between PalmOS and Windows CE devices, but does a 66MHz CPU have enough cycles to play MP3s and run an application in the foreground?

    With my Compaq Ipaq, I at least know there is a decent amount of expandability available via PC Cards. This device, while intriguing, seems to be lacking in backwards-compatibility and expandability.

    Regards,

    Aryeh Goretsky

    --
    Dexter is a good dog.
  3. Real speakers? by ckkoh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "a REAL SPEAKER for once, instead of the typical piezo buzzer"

    Given the dimensions of the PDA, it is just not possible to get good sound out from any speakers in it, whether real or not.
    Although it would have been cool to see people walking in the streets with their PDAs against their ears listening to mp3s. Sort of like the good old transistor radio days...

  4. When will PalmOS run on faster CPU:s? by erl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I agree that a key question is when Palm-based PDA:s will run on faster CPU:s, such as 200 MHz StrongARM:s.
    I'm working on Speech Recognition on StrongARM, and there are some really neat things that can be done on StrongARM-based PDA:s, but the Dragonball is out of the question.
    Personally, although I like PalmOS, I would rather go with something like the Linux-based Sharp Zaurus today, than buy a new PalmOS PDA with slow processors.