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Lust After The Sony Clie NZ90

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-there-it-is dept.

V0rtex writes "Once again, Sony is ahead of the game with their new Clie PEG-NZ90. View the specs here. Not to be released until the end of February, this one is packed with some long awaited features since the NX70V such as built in bluetooth and the 2 megapixel camera with flash. Is it really that great? Check out a couple reviews. It would be nice if they would include the faster (400 MHz) version of the XScale processor and step the internal memory up a bit, but this one carries an $800 price tag as it is." Even if it has issues, I think any step towards integrating the vast array of personal electronics (Cel Phone, MP3 Player, PDA, Digital Camera) is a good one. And this looks like the first PDA with a real camera.

5 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Clies are Palm OS devices... by ClockworkPlanet · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... so 400Mhz is overkill. The OS is much more efficient on a Palm device because they're not copying files into usable memory to run them.

    --
    Now wash your hands.
  2. Re:Sony by david.given · · Score: 3, Informative
    Just out of curiosity why is that? Are you afraid that in a couple of years Sony will abandon the memory stick and leave to stuck unable to get new ones? Do you want to use your memory stick in other devices? Do you just not like the concept of a "proprietary (whatever that means in this context)" format?

    128MB Memory Stick: 58.73 UKP (not inc. VAT)
    128MB Compact Flash: 30.27 UKP (not inc. VAT)

    Both prices from Dabs. (Normally, I buy memory from Crucial, but they don't stock memory sticks.)

    So: memory sticks are expensive, hard to get, and only work in Sony devices. That's a pretty fair reason not to use them in my book.

  3. Re:Sony by Ella+the+Cat · · Score: 3, Informative

    With 6 in 1 card readers for USB costing around $30 in the UK, its easy enough to transfer data between different card formats, provided you buy one that has a slot for each type rather than a slot or two that multitasks. A PC with a card reader is such a useful machine for sorting out collections of MP3s or photos or whatever, maybe doing a bit of red eye removal, that the apparent disadvantage of going via an intermediate card reader isn't as bad as it seems.

  4. Re:Sony by NMerriam · · Score: 5, Informative

    The main reason is that the Memory Stick, in implementation, sucks in just about every way imaginable.

    It is bigger than SD/MMC, more expensive per MB than just about any other removable media, slower, and is still maxed out at 128 MBs.

    Sony has been promising gigabyte memory sticks for years, and just recently they announced that not only will it be delayed further, but in fact they won't work on ANYTHING but new devices.

    I'm the very happy owner of a Sony NR70V, but to suggest memory sticks are even remotely competetive with the plethora of compactflash and SD/MMC available in stores today is ridiculous.

    The sooner Sony gives up on this stupid attempt to control storage media, the better off they and their customers will be.

    --
    Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  5. Re:Clies are emulated Palm OS devices... by ardiri · · Score: 5, Informative

    > of the user code is written as 68K and emulated on the device

    damn.. i had moderator points - but, i figured my input in this story was better than moderating it :) as for how the OS5 devices run, i have posted a few stories in the past to /. and, a few of them are here in other stories:

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=35839&cid=38 73 166

    and, some other postings specific to native code in the ogg/vorbis threads. [maybe of interest - more specific to development of native arm code]

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=46474&cid=47 87 743
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=46474&cid =4787 183

    as a developer, having 400Mhz is nice. we have a 3D engine (raycaster based) running on 68k units, and, we were able to seriously enhance it for arm units:

    http://mobilewizardry.com/board/viewtopic.php?t= 13 4

    its been solely possible due to the extra processing power. while some may argue its only an emulated system - the extra Mhz means palmos can do pocket pc stuff :) - having 400Mhz would give us even more fun stuff to experiment around with. the real issue we are running into is the differences with ARM implementation, mainly OMAP and XScale. sony adopted XScale, Palm adopted OMAP. there are some slight issues between the two, which, gives different 'running speeds' for native arm code.

    > There is a way to write some code as ARM, but it's pretty painful

    it is not painful to write ARM code :) it just takes a bit of thinking and good design. we have been writing ARM code for palmos way before the pubic devices were available - it was fun figuring out how native arm code works and rebuilding cross compilers :)