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Sony Launches 2 New "Video" Clie Models

boss_ton writes "Sony is launching its newest Clie handhelds(NX80V, NX73V ), a combination personal video player and personal digital assistant, to the United States.Its already a huge hit in Japan. Amazon is reporting the launch date as July 11th. The NX80V is priced at $600. Here's the scoop on CNet. The official product page is here."

13 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Price Climbing by semanticgap · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's interesting that they keep managing to up the price a notch with every new iteration of the device... Might we see $1000 PDA's in the near future?

  2. Big-Hit life cycle by maliabu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Its already a huge hit in Japan

    Did they mention what the life cycle is for these kind big-hit gadgets in Japan, and what their target market is? it's easy to accidentally compare Apple to Sushi. Japanese youngster can adopt and dumb new things pretty quickly, Americans might be different.

    Ohh, for instance, sales of PS2 or XBOX in Japan vs the world.

  3. Re:Why is Japan so far ahead?? by beatniklew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Q: Why is Japan so much more advanced than the U.S. and other 1st world nations? A: Most other 1st world nations have to put large portions of their economies towards supporting and maintaining a military. Since WWII, Japan has not been allowed greater than a 1000 person National Guard; and is otherwise protected by the US's armed forces. This has many effects. One is more money to spend on technological R&D. Another is more money to spend on education, which leads to a smarter population capable of making huge technology leaps. Furthermore, the Japanese have other cultural factors that contribute alongside these economic factors to create an environment suited very well for developing bleeding edge technology.

  4. so what? It's not a phone. by asscroft · · Score: 2, Insightful

    my cousin's nokia does all that too. It has video, blue tooth, camera, games. He has a doom port on there, a gameboy emulator and tons of rom files and he also has the ability to play tv shows and videos created off the phone. Bonus! It dials and calls people who have regular phones! neato. I don't think he has pocket excel and word though, so you can't get your spreadsheet on. Or the other palm apps. so it still sucks. but it's only 300 dollars.

    --
    because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
  5. Where are the mid-range models? by X_Caffeine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I want the big screen and the virtual graffiti space. I don't want the freakin' camera. Drop the camera off one of those models and shave off $100 for crying out loud.

    Same problem with all these great new cellphones... the Sony Ericsson P800 looks like a pretty awesome device with a killer interface, but darnit, I have a $1000+ digital camera, I don't need a stinkin' webcam making the phone/pda bulkier.

    --
    // I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
  6. Dell Axim by anandcp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My Dell Axim X5 has MUCH, MUCH more. An MP3 player, 320x320 crisp TFT screen, 64 MB memory, 32MB SD Card, audio recorder, etc., Of course you need to buy a video camera and attach... but its just that. For the price Dell gives me $250/- its dirt cheap/

    --
    -------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
  7. Re:a flop? by lcorc79 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of us were surprised it didn't have built-in Bluetooth. Note however that the version of the NX73 Sony France released (and presumably the rest of the European versions) DOES have built-in bluetooth. France is NOT however releasing an NX80 at all, with or without BT.

    Some reasoning here: in Japan, there are a ton of fast wireless data services, and they have CF cards for access (similar to a GSM/GPRS PCMCIA card for your laptop). The Japanese haven't really adopted Bluetooth; connecting your PDA/laptop to your cell phone for wireless net access just isn't necessary with all the wireless services they have there. Everyone gets the appropriate CF card and hops online that way.

    Now in Europe, Bluetooth is all the rage - and pairing the PDA with the cell phone is almost a must. That's why Sony released the Bluetooth device in Europe but not Japan.

    But we're all surprised (and I'm personally disappointed) there isn't a Bluetooth model in the US - adoption here hasn't been nearly as fast as in Europe, but it's becoming more popular.

    There is of course a Bluetooth Memory Stick you can purchase to add support, but that's not as elegant as built-in. The high-end NZ90 model does however have built-in Bluetooth in all markets.

    --
    Groove Salad -- a nicely chilled plate of ambient grooves and beats.
  8. Re:Why is Japan so far ahead?? by SpikeSpiff · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Why is the US so far ahead in backyard BBQ and swimming pool technology?

    Relative cost. Gadgets are relatively cheaper, compared to housing, transportation, and cars.

    You can see the same effect in NYC. Why do secretaries buy Prada? If they spent the money on housing in a normal city, they could afford a house. If they spend that money on their apt in NYC, they move up from a 350 to a 375 sq ft studio.

    Geography and culture dictate dense cities in Japan, so people will tend to spend relatively more on gadgets and less on housing and cars.

    --
    "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
  9. Re:experience with Sony PalmOS handhelds by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You need to try a Pocket PC. Standard graphic API for games, everything's always hi-res, a real FS and a real filebrowser, multitasking, standard screen resolution, extensible input area (just look at the number of input options).

    Pocket PCs have their problems, but they overcame many of the incompatibility problems taht now plague Palm OS long ago. Palm can't seem to decide if they want to kill Grafitti or not. Sony and Palm have different screen resolutions on their devices (what a mess for trying to program a game). There's a whole legacy architecture to support, so we may not see many native applications for a long time. There's no standardized expansion format (Sony = Memory Stick, Palm = SD).

    All Pocket PCs on the market for the past year have had an ARM based processor. They all have 240x320 16K color displays. They all have SD expansion (with a few exceptions). They all have 32M of flash. They all have audio input and output capabilities. They all have a 5-way directional pad and 4 front buttons.

  10. Re:experience with Sony PalmOS handhelds by g4dget · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You need to try a Pocket PC.

    I have. Sorry, it's not an alternative as far as I'm concerned. Ultimately, no matter how badly PalmOS sucks as an operating system, its applications are much better than PocketPC, and that's what counts in a PDA.

    If I wanted something that was technically well-designed, then a Zaurus would be a better choice than either Palm/Clie or PocketPC.

  11. What, no telephone for $600? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Sony Ericson P800 is a pda, phone and camera, running Symian OS.

    Why on earth would anyone buy a Clie?

    P800 has Bluetooth built in, memory stick...why are Sony doing such an inferior AND superior product at the SAME TIME?

  12. Re:Why is Japan so far ahead?? by tetro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    necessity is the reason. When people have no room (have you seen the avg. apartment?) you gotta accommodate those limitations. That's why miniturization and electronics with various uses are so popular. Landlines are hard a little more expensive, so mobile phones are the perfect solutions. In the U.S., we have way more space than they do so we don't need to have those everything in one gadgets. The truth is Japan is ahead of the world when it comes to toys. In terms of important innovations, it's on par with most major countries.

    --
    .smell my feet.
  13. Bluetooth by ralphclark · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They can pile on all the features they want, but if there's no built-in bluetooth support then I'm not interested. Anyone else agree/disagree?