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Handhelds Hardware

New Clie Handhelds 226

Posted by michael 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*."
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New Clie Handhelds More

New Clie Handhelds

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  • It's cute, but I still like my Ipaq better.
    • I like the sony design, they tend to keep things clean... very nice...
    • I'll agree it does look rather cool. Pity I've boycotted Sony products outright, though, due to these [theregister.co.uk] comments made by (at the time) Sony Pictures Entertainment US senior VP Steve Heckler.

      Any company that decides they know what I should and should not have access to, will not have access to any of my cash ;)

      • huzzah!

        I just think their products are neat looking but not neat functioning. I have yet to see a sony dvd player play a vcd. (I have a relatively small control set of that (only about 3 machines one is SUPPOSED to play them).

        I had not seen that article, thanks. More fuel for the fire.

  • Excellent! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Loki_1929 ( 550940 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:14PM (#3238133) Journal
    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.

  • You want what? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by cscx ( 541332 )
    I want this to have my children.

    I knew geeks had trouble getting girls, but god damn, you're pathetic!
  • Now if only they can add on a nuclear powered engine that way i wont have to carry around 283726 batteries so i can use it for a day straight without running out juice.
  • Wow. That thing is sweet. It's unfortunate that I already have a decent functioning PDA otherwise I'd think about getting one. I wonder how many other people feel the same way? Upgrading your computer is one thing, but upgrading handhelds seems less of a priority for people. Most people who want PDAs have them, and most who don't probably aren't going to jump for a $600 one. Are they hoping that geeks and rich folk will find this too good to pass up? Are these killer new PDAs selling well? Just wondering.
    • I work for a major retail chain that sells these, and your answer is: kinda. Lots of people grill me asking what a US$600 PDA like a iPaq actually does for you, I go through the normal speil, that's about it. The color Palm's, OTOH, sell very well. Priced at US$399, they have better percieved value than even the iPaq, not everyone is savvy enough to load QNX or have the income to afford a iPaq with a microdrive to download their MP3 collections.

  • Wow...Tres Futuristique (Score:3, Insightful)

    by waldoj ( 8229 ) <waldo@@@jaquith...org> on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:22PM (#3238174) Homepage Journal
    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

  • The resolution of the screen... (Score:3, Funny)

    by yobbo ( 324595 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:22PM (#3238175)
    Is 320*480

    just thought someone might want to know the truth...

  • Officially released? Is this early May? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Software ( 179033 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:23PM (#3238182) Journal
    The site [sonystyle.com] says it's available early May, not now.
    Preorder today & receive FREE overnight shipping!
    ...
    Shipping early May
  • All I want is 802.11 so I can put my clie on the home lan.
    • Sony announced the bluetooth stick at the same time they announced the NR70 in Japan.

      Stroll around palminfocenter.com for the info.
    • All I want is 802.11 so I can put my clie on the home lan.
      As far as I know, the only consumer PalmOS handheld that can do 802.11b today is HandEra 330 [handera.com].

      • Re:Wireless (Score:2, Informative)

        by rtstyk ( 545241 )
        Not true. Handspring's springboard accepts an 802.11 b card from Xircom. It's pricey ($299) but it's available.

        http://www.handspring.com/products/Product.jhtml?i d=250018&cat=170003

        d.

  • Couple things... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by l810c ( 551591 )
    The resolution is better, but is the screen actually larger?

    Memory Sticks :( I wish they would lose these to make sharing between devices better. Sony being Sony I guess.
    • No, the screen's the same size. Just more pixels crammed into it.
    • Surprisingly it turns out the Memory Sticks are more common than SD cards... of course CF as the mature technology has the most toys, and SD is more open, but if you'r elike my neighbour and have a house full of Sony stuff then it everything does talk to everything else.
  • I don't think its fair to call that a PDA. It's definately more than an "assistant." It more like a "Personal Digital Take-Over-The-World Device." Hmm. I want one!

  • Canada. (Score:5, Funny)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:32PM (#3238228)
    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.)
  • sorry, I relly love the half-VGA but the zaurus better fit's my wants/needs.

    and I can get a camera for it too.

  • Did Sony actually innovate? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:32PM (#3238231) Homepage Journal
    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*
    • That keyboard is definitely going to come in handy. Especially since my thumbs have been "mutated" [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] from several years of playing Tetris on my Gameboy.
    • That keyboard is definitely going to come in handy. Especially since my thumbs have been "mutated" [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] from several years of playing Tetris on my Gameboy.

      You have thumbs that small? I mean, you do realize that the thing measures only 2 7/8 inches wide...that would allow a maximum width of 0.2875 inches per button, without any space between them (which a close look at the pix on Sony's site reveals to be a generous assumption.) Now that's a tiny thumb and quite a mutation!

      So, yeah, my point really is not to make jokes about our poor "mutated" children, teens and young adults but rather point out that such as small keyboard actually may be more of a hinderance and waste of space than it is a help or value-added feature. I think there are better solutions to the problem of rapid/efficient input for such small devices. Two examples that jump to mind are both the systems used by Nokia in many (all?) of their cell phones.

      First is the predictive input where the user simply presses the number corresponding to the desired letter (standard 3 letter per numbered button phone configuration) for each letter and the phone uses its internal dictionary and word frequencies to 'guess' what word the user is trying to input.

      The second, more simple system is the one that uses multiple presses of a particular number to select from the 3 corresponding letters. While it takes a little more effort to press the button multiple times it is very intuitive and the size of the buttons are still managable. For reference, Nokia's super small 8290 and 8260 series phones use both those systems and their buttons are approx. 3/8ths of an inch wide and they're almost too small to use accurately.

      • Out of curiosity, did you actually use one of these? It's called a thumb-board. And my 'mutated thumbs' do pretty good on small keyboards like that. My gf has a pager that's roughly the dimensions you said and it works out really well.

        Trust me, the 3 letter per numbered pad thing sucks. I have a cell phone that can send/recieve email, and I ended up buying a little keyboard on it. It is sooo much nicer, despite not being very big.

  • Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aryeh Goretsky ( 129230 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:38PM (#3238256) Homepage
    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... (Score:5, Informative)

      by k_187 ( 61692 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @09:47PM (#3238303) Journal
      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.
    • The magnesium case is a plus, but how long do the pivot mechanisms last, and how solidly-built are they?

      If the pivot/hinge is anything like a hinge on a Sony laptop I wouldn't give it more than a month before breaking.
      Broken hinge or not, I'll have to admit that this is one of the coolest gadgets around.
    • From what I know from the product reps and my own personal research:

      Pivot mechanism? Have no idea until I see one in person. Should be in retail stores in about 30 days.

      Existing periphs and software: Full compatibility with everything Palm as far as software goes, as far as hardware goes, yeah, you still have to get it from Sony, but the spiffy digicam you might have picked up for a N760C will work with anything else.

      IIRC, MP3's can be played using any Mem Stick media, doesn't have to be MagicGate (the SD version) Yes, native playing is supported.

      Processor question was already answered.

      Yeah, I agree with you there, the expandibility of the Sony is limited to the Memory Stick media. Be nice to have some sort of PC card or CF additions, but what can you do. :)

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:3, Informative)

      by screwballicus ( 313964 )
      I have to agree as to the CPU's questionable capabilities. I can't speak for the Dragonball, but I know under PocketPC OS on my Casio EM-500 running the MIPS CPU at 200MHz (hardware overclocked), I really couldn't expect MPEG1 to decode at a reasonable framerate at any resolution higher than 320x200, even at a lower bitrate. At 150MHz (standard), there wasn't much point even trying. That's under either Casio's built-in MPEG app or PocketTV. Even IPAQ users have to tweak a bit to get adequate video playing (and they've got it easy, cause they have a software overclocker). I find it hard to believe that the Dragonball is going to be able to do it better at one third the clock rate, MHz Myth notwithstanding. I know, I know. Playing The Matrix in your pocket isn't everything (I can fit the whole thing on a 128MB SD Card at an adequate res to watch), but if that isn't what these devices are about, what are they about? If I wanted a Palm III, I'd use the one I have. I'm getting one of these machines because I want to play Pocketquake and music videos. But is my now ancient Casio going to be significantly more capable than this new technology, cause EM-500s sell on ebay for $180 at the moment.
      • 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.

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Keith Russell ( 4440 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:03AM (#3238936) Journal
      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.

  • Hmm, it seems to have everything I want except for expansion opportunities (sniff, no CompactFlash, just proprietary Memory Stick...)

    Does anyone know if Sony is planning to introduce a GPS add-on or a wireless Internet add-on? That would really make it worth the $600+!

  • Real speakers? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ckkoh ( 514975 )
    "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...

  • I want one! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Hoo00 ( 123566 )
    But with current battery technology and my habits of listening to mp3, recording video, and running countless of background applications all at once, I wonder how many seconds I can unplug clie from the wall. They should make a wearable power generator an accessory.
    • I have a 760 and if you use it like me, you can use it for about 5 hours of Music + Games, which equals one trip to and from work for me. They say that you can get 10 hours of music out of it, but play any games and it burns the battery twice as fast. To answer a differnt post, the white memory sticks are only for the low end Clies to play music. I put regular MP3s on it and it plays them just fine, the remote is really a nice touch too. I even use it when I am driving (with a car adapter)
  • Hmmm... Sure, Sony's sexy. But isn't the real woman less expensive ? Not to mention the lifespan slightly longer then Sony's PDAs ...
  • Clie? How do you say that? Is it like "clay" or is it like Paul Klee? Is it Klee-ay? Does it rhyme with Lie?

    Why doesn't it have 802.11b network support? I can't spend my whole life beaming IR, that's way too inconvenient.

    And assuming that they did build 802.11b support for this clee-thingie, is there a Citrix client for Palm OS? Because then it would really be useful. Otherwise I will stick with iPAQ Pocket PC's tiny little 320x240 screen. I hate that little screen but it's more of a business tool and less of a digital camera / mp3 player / way to impress your friends. Especially if you need to run your Windows application on wireless handheld devices using 128-bit SSL over MetaFrame.
  • I was looking at new PDA's and Handhelds yesterday after an embarassing incident of forgetfulness. I saw the new Sony's and I love them and want one, but as money is being budgeted for a new home computer (forbidden Athlon ... *drool*) I'll probably settle for the cheapest thing that does the job of keeping track of stuff and beeping when I need it. No color, no MP3, no geek coolness factor *sniff*
    • Get a Diamond Mako or a Psion Revo (Same thing). It has 8mb ROM & 16mb of RAM, and the OS will stay updated because it's used in many cellphones (Epoc OS). I got mine for $99 and it's great. I've got a Quicken compatible finance program on it, Nethack, an MP3 player (low bitrate, it's only a 33mhz ARM), all of the normal PDA type software, and I've had it booting DOS 6 with an emulator. The only problem is I don't know where you could get one as Psion stopped making them, and SonicBlue bought out Diamond and stopped selling them. Try TigerDirect that's where I got mine, they might have back stock still.

      I do still drool over my friends IPaq though. :(

      Jaysyn
  • Unfortunately, the sony Memory Stick Vagina is about 6 months late to market.

    - A.P.
  • I'm seriously considering getting a Sony Clie as my next handheld. I bought a Palm IIIc a year ago, and it gave me nothing but problems. I've also been hearing bad things things about the new Palm 5xx series. If you have an option to buy something like a Visor or Clie, buy one of those instead of a Palm.
    • I'm pretty much in the same boat except that I've really enjoyed using my Palm IIIc during the past year and a half. But I just got a Handspring Treo, so this wouldn't be my primary PDA, since the Treo can do double duty as my cell phone does a great job at Internet access.

      Still this new Clie sure is tempting. With the camera, keyboard, virtual Graffiti, hi-res screen, and MP3 support, it could come in really handy during the day even if I'm not using it as my primary organizer. Snapping quick pictures, light typing, music, games, and document handling -- it's almost like carrying around a bunch of devices in one box.

      I could probably duplicate most of this machine's functionality with Handspring Visor Prism and several Springboards. But in that case, we're talking about one small box and several tiny boxes that need to be accounted for when they are not snapped into the main box. I wonder if a memory stick can be kept in this new Clie all of the time.
  • Sony is horrible for implementing proprietary standards. Once you have their mp3 player with the memory stick, then you need a Vaio (some of which have a slot for the memory stick), their digital camera and MP3 player.

    Some companies think it's slick marketing. But only Sony could get away with it. IBM couldn't with their Microchannel Architecture.

    Open standards (like XML and other markup languages), like Open Source, should be high on the list for most /. readers.
    • I've purchased in local store $30 USB reader which
      reads Memory Stick, Compach Flash, SDM, Smart Media.
      Is not produced by SONY.

      Also Memory stick is proprietaty. They are produced
      by other companies, like Lexar.
    • How is memory stick any more proprietary than the Handspring Springboard slot? I don't remember Handspring creating a consortium of Palm hardware manufacturers to agree on an expansion standard. It's only proprietary if the manufacturer is unwilling to allow others to implement it, which Sony is very willing to (just that no one wants to).

      Remember, ISA was "proprietary", IBM controlled the definition. It's just that they didn't charge royalties to use it. MCA wasn't any different in the "proprietariness" standpoint, it's just that IBM wanted to force manufacturers to pay a royalty, hence the defection and creation of EISA.
    • Tell me about it. I got one of Sony's new format ("micromv") digital camcorders for my birthday. It's an amazing little camera, but you can only use THEIR software to edit your footage. Let me tell you, it is one seriously UGLY, consumer level, cheesy program. It (barely) gets the job done, but man is it sluggish on my 1ghz/392mb RAM athlon thunderbird. I would MUCH rather cut videos on my powerbook G4 with iMovie or Final Cut Pro...but that's not gonna happen anytime soon. I know they just want me to buy one of their crappy Vaio computers to edit my footage. Greedy bastards.

  • Camera as disappointing as expected (Score:3, Informative)

    by horza ( 87255 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @10:35PM (#3238456) Homepage
    As with the original Slashdot announcement [slashdot.org] of exactly the same story, it's a shame to see the camera with a poor 320x240 resolution. Even the tiny Nokia 7650 phone [nokia.com] can manage 640x480. Huge disappointment in something I would otherwise consider as a purchase.

    Phillip.
  • Yes, it may be 600 bucks, and yes, that is a little excessive for something you didn't realize you needed until five minutes ago.
    However, Sony understands [sonystyle.com].

    Just pay twice the price spread out over a couple years. You'll be thanking yourself when you're making that final $30 payment on a PDA that was useless two years ago.

    Sony Financing services... I'll finance you!
  • following past trends of Sony, this handheld probably won't be available for at least 6 months for us Canadians *grumbles*.


    It's not like the CLIE handheld is a export restricted item, you know?

  • Do remember that this is the same Sony that is an member of the MPIAA.

    They would need to turn out a truly incredibly good product before I would either consider or recommend them. I don't think that this is good enough.

  • I never would have suspected PalmOS was this scalable. I have a Palm Vx, which runs at a humble 16Mhz. (No, I am not anal enough to overclock it.) I use it to do wordprocessing and gaming (Tetris anyone?) but not much else. (I have a Palm keyboard for the wordprocessing.) I guess I'm just surprized at the jump that Sony has made with this product. It is truely a breakthrough concept. On an unrelated note, Palm's strong point is their portability. I can take notes for 5 different classes and carry them aronud in my pocket. Bet you can't find any other way to do /that/ in an organized manner....

  • Storage (Score:2, Redundant)

    by asv108 ( 141455 )
    I was excited when I saw that the NR70V was an mp3 player and had a digicam, but was sceptical about storage since it wasn't listed on the main page so I clicked on the specs page

    Memory
    16 MB (DRAM)
    8 MB (Flash)

    With 8 megs of memory I guess can take one photo and play one mp3 without purchasing sony's propreitary memory stick(cough.. cough.. remember beta guys)? I would be much more excited about this device if it had a substantial amount of built in storage or had a CF reader.

  • Probably my biggest concern with this thing is how long will the screen last? Being rotateable and flexible is cool and all, but that's just asking for something unexpected to happen. It looks pretty easy to snap off.

    My Clie's screen has become scratched to HELL from everyday (very light) use, and the screen is not covered under the warranty.
  • Since this clie comes only with the usb cradle I'm curious how well it'll work with linux. Has anybody experimented the the usb support in pilot-link [pilot-link.org]. Is it stable? What about getting mp3s on? Does anybody out there know?
  • Amusingly, after following the palminfocenter link, you see a web page with a banner at the top saying, "Hello, Slashdot reader! You have been redirected to this low-bandwidth version of the story so as not to hose us." (Well, I'm paraphrasing.) Wonder when they set that up?

  • This is SWEET! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by inburito ( 89603 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:19AM (#3238808)
    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..
  • .... can you take it down to CompUSA and download warez? Until then, forget it.

    funny thought - you can use the 'V' model to take snappies of the clueless sales droids while you download M$ Offal X
  • are missing as far as I can tell. The camera resolution is a little low as well, but I probably wouldn't be playing games on it, so the CPU speed isn't important.

    I wish for the day I don't need to lug my TiBook around except when I'm coding...

    Winton
  • ...the form factor and functions of this device, but with 802.11b instead of a camera, and SD/MMC instead of a gumstick. Palm, are you listening? This seems *just about* a prime functional contender for Palm's introduction of their OS 5. Only by the time OS5 is ready this will be old and will need something a little bit newer on it - maybe more multimedia apps.

    And thank you Sony for taking back the lead in the over-$500-handheld market.
  • I won't buy until there's a color graphics version of Dope Wars.
  • If its not also a cell-phone, then screw it. Thats the one thing its missing. If i could flip it open and put it against my ear and talk to my friends, or use its built in cellphone-ness to access the internet remotely, now there's something to me worth $600. True convergence means only one device, i'm tired of my motorola startac.

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