New Clie Handhelds

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*."

Comments

Excellent!

[Loki_1929]

This is wonderful news! It'll give me another expensive product tiny enough to be lost in hours having not yet been in my possession long enough to me to get my full use (playing with it) out of it.

Officially released? Is this early May?

[Software]

The site says it's available early May, not now.

Preorder today & receive FREE overnight shipping!
...
Shipping early May

Canada.

[saintlupus]

Following past trends of Sony, this handheld probably won't be available for at least 6 months for us Canadians *grumbles*.

Yeah, but just think of how organized your hockey equipment will be in six short months.

--saint
(Who has lots of family in Canada.)

Did Sony actually innovate?

[NanoGator]

I'm stunned! I like the swivel job they did with the screen. That's the type of feature this device needs. One thing I hate about my PocketPC is having to lug a seperate keyboard around. With this device, it nicely integrates the two and even gives the unit an extra usability mode. I wasn't expecting this from Sony, they usually put their money into marketing instead of research. Just look at the Playstation 2. *YuCk*

Yes, but...

[Aryeh Goretsky]

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

Re:Yes, but...

[k_187]

but does a 66MHz CPU have enough cycles to play MP3s and run an application in the foreground?

There's a seperate DSP to handle MP3 playback, so the processor won't be handling that.

Re:Yes, but...

[Keith Russell]

Does buying a PEG-NR70V mean having to re-purchase all the accessories?

Most of the accessories listed on sonystyle are also compatible with the T-series. Unfortunately, T- and NR-series accessories are not interchangeable with the N- or S-series. Rather like pre- and post-Universal Connector Palm devices.

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?

In reality, it's separate sticks for ATRAC3 and (World + Dog - ATRAC3). I believe the NR-series is like the N-series, which means it will will work with both ATRAC3 on MagicGate and MP3 on Memory Stick, with no conversion necessary. Interestingly enough, sonystyle always listed both MagicGate and Memory Stick as accessories for the N-series, but only list Memory Stick for the NR. The only other devices that ever required MagicGate were their Network Walkman ATRAC3 players. Maybe they've finally realized that nobody will voluntarily choose Digital Rights Management when given an unencumbered alternative.

...does a 66MHz CPU have enough cycles to play MP3s and run an application in the foreground?

No. That's why N- and NR-series Clies use a separate DSP for audio and gMovie playback.

Re:Wow...Tres Futuristique

[Mononoke]

Popular science is the same magazine that predicted that we'd be using zero emmisions vehicles by now too.

We do. They're called bicycles.

This is SWEET!

[inburito]

I just came back from tokyo and happened to visit the sony building where they had a ton of these to play with(aside new aibos and lot's of other cool stuff that they didn't even have in japanese electornics stores yet)... and it is SWEET!

It has everything you could possible want. You can use it as a regular looking pda or as a flip open communicator with a keyboard on the bottom. The screen looks amazing compared to regular palms.

Graffitti area could be turned into a click keyboard too (meaning that it was part of the screen) and the videos were actually worth watching. Sound was decent and of course it came with a sony style headphone plug(with the remote pins too) for when you actually want to listen to music.

I did not have too much time to stay there(how much can you do in a day and a half in tokyo) but the immediate impression (and for an aibo too) was that I want one! If only half of the programs on the display model hadn't been in japanese I might have been able to play with it a little more extensively..