PDA News

Sony Clie PEG-NX70V Review
By William| Reporter
Date: 06/17/2003

This fancy, top-of-the-line Clie sports a built-in camera, video recording, and optional wireless capabilities.

The NX70V is an updated version of the NR-70V with the same innovative design, including a flip-over screen, a keyboard, and a camera. When the screen is flipped up it provides access to the keyboard. The keys are small and have little travel, but the keyboard is fine for typing notes or short e-mail messages.

The camera (located in the hinge) takes pictures at 640 by 480 resolution, or short videos of acceptable quality for a PDA (although nowhere near as sharp or as detailed as a dedicated digital camera can). The 320 by 480 resolution screen is bright and viewable in all lighting conditions. Unlike most Palm PDAs, the Graffiti data input area is part of the active screen; software written specifically for this PDA can hide the area.

Fashion pose: You probably won't use the Sony with its screen swiveled like this, but it looks cool. Bright idea: We thought that the CLIE's screen was one of the brightest and the most colorful that we've seen.

The NX70V can play digital music; it includes a headphone socket and a wired remote. A 'hold' button turns off the screen, extending the battery life. The unit has a slot for an optional 802.11b adapter in the back, allowing for wireless Internet access and syncing over the Internet. It's also one of the first PDAs we've seen that uses Palm OS 5.

WHAT'S NOT: All this glitz will set you back $600--this is one of the priciest Palm OS-based PDAs around. The 802.11b wireless adapter adds another $150, making it significantly more expensive than other wireless PDAs such as the HP IPaq H5450 or the Toshiba E335. Although the slot for the wireless adapter looks identical to a CompactFlash slot, you can't use CompactFlash memory cards; the PDA won't recognize them.

You can also fit only a handful of videos from the built-in camera in the 16MB of internal memory. If you want to take more than a few photos between syncs, factor in the cost of a decent-size Memory Stick storage card.

Though the NX70V can play back MP3 files, it refused to play some of our MP3 test files created with software other than Sony's own OpenMG Jukebox, which implements a copy protection scheme; we found it difficult to use. You can also store music in Sony's ATRAC format, but this requires a special MagicGate Memory Stick memory card.

The warranty lapses after only three months unless you register the product with Sony, after which you get an additional nine months of coverage.

WHAT ELSE: We found the device's battery life reasonable, but the battery can't be swapped out. You can recharge the battery without using the cradle, a feature that's likely to appeal to travelers.

UPSHOT: This sleek, well-designed unit packs a wealth of features that go beyond PIM functionality and extend into digital entertainment, but it is expensive and you'll need to contend with Sony's proprietary software.

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