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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fast, Good Looking PDA - Worth the Cash, May 9, 2003
There are a lot of very thorough reviews of the NX60, so I'm going to just highlight a few of the things I think make this stand out above and beyond other palm PDAs, as well as some notes to the negative side of things, and things i have yet to try but will discuss after trying them out.Sony design - it's beautiful. Technically and from an asthetic perspective, the NX60 is almost flawless. The keyboard is somewhat extraneous if you've learned graffiti, but it's a useful backup. All controls are intuitively located (except the keyboard, which I find difficult to use while holding onto the device). Sony has employed their now famous and highly cherished Jog Dial physical interface, with the welcome addition of a "Back" button to allow you to not only scroll through and into menus/programs (the jog dial clicks in to allow what you've rolled over to be selected), but also to navigate back to higher levels within the interface. It doesn't work with all apps, however. I really wonder whether the flip-top screen on the NX60 was the inspiration for the new class of notepad style PC laptops. It's a great design. It allows for a larger screen than your standard palm. Great idea. It also means that the screen protection is built into the function of the device, a welcome change for me from the flip top or removeable styles of screen protection (if there is any built in at all). Contrary to a couple of the reviews, I LOVE the screen-based graffiti area. It's collapseable in (what i assume are) NX60-aware apps, which I love because it means more useable screen space, and when you write on it, you get immediate visual feedback of the shape of your strokes...it has, if anything, improved my speed and accuracy with graffiti. I love it. (review edit): I can now, thanks in large part to the visual feedback, write almost as quickly as I write on paper. Woo hoo! The screen is bright and sharp. Lovely. The processor is FAST, FAST, FAST. I guess i'll be testing this once i get a mem stick and load up some video...
(review edit): Tried out video...cooooollll...I found a decently priced 128 meg mem stick, so I'm not exactly ripping huge movies to this thing, but the quality is excellent. Very pleased. the size: just big enough for my big, american guy hands. some things shouldn't be the size of a quarter. the NX60 is in my opinion just the right size. think of it like a super-futuristic detective's note pad, and the size is just right. I tried out the Palm Tungsten, and found its short height and the "pull open to use fully" 'feature' awkward, and difficult to hold on to. If you have really small pockets maybe it's ok, but it sacrifices useability for minimal stowage size. i'd rather take up more pocket space than fumble while i use the device. (review edit): I've been using Eudora's mail product on the Clie to read mail from my Outlook inbox, and reply to some of the mail (it sends through the PC when I sync)...it rules. I took the Clie to jury duty standby with me last week, got through everything in my mailbox with time to spare. Thanks to the Clie's ability to play mp3s in the background while using other apps, I did it all listening to music. Yay. flash player. (review edit): have tried this out now. Pretty darn cool. I haven't really pushed it yet, just simple stuff. It's decently fast at rendering simple animations, and can handle sound pretty well, so (so far) another big win. Things I haven't tried yet: PDFs with images. mp3s - it sounds like VBR mp3s aren't useable, which is too bad. but that's what the iPod is for, right? ;-) Besides, I'd rather spend 400 bucks on an iPod and put 15 gigs of vbr mp3s on it.
(review edit): tried out the mp3 player. Pretty decent. The Bass booster is ok, but the power throughput IMO leaves something to be desired. Again though, that's why there's such a thing as iPod. notes: memory stick - I'm wondering if it's compatible with the up to gigabyte mem sticks that are available now...the user manual only talks about mem sticks up to 128 megs. Would be useful for the photo, video and mp3 capabilities of this device...i'll write more about it if I find some answers to this. wireless network card - i'm considering getting one, which i wasn't considering before - this is such a useable device that it might be worth dropping the extra cash for. camera module - c'mon...chances are, if you are getting one of these, you already have a multi-megapixel camera with at least partially manual settings. You don't need a camera on your PDA ALSO, do you? ;-) things i'm a little disappointed by: the remote control function doesn't seem to be able to communicate with my sony amp or my sony vcr, which surprised me. maybe i'm missing something. (review edit): ok I got it to work with all my sony gear. Yay! Still isn't working with the (Samsung) tv, which is old enough to probably be using some obscure, outdated IR set, so no huge disappointment there; I've never had a remote control for it anyway (got it used). it just would have been nice. The remote commander app does have pre-sets for Samsung TVs, so I'm betting that the age of the TV is the problem. Time to upgrade ;-) the internal memory (11 megs) is a little skimpy for a PDA with this much processing capability. i filled it up to capacity with word docs, excell files, web downloaded news, a couple of simple PDFs and my M$ Outlook info immediately. it reminds me of early days of laptops, when the standard ram was _never_ enough to do anything but read your good old text based email. You WILL need a memory stick, which i'm sure is Sony's general game plan. (review edit): if you look around you can find a 128 meg card for under fifty bucks, including tax, in San Francisco. the keyboard could give a little more tactile feedback, but it has a continuous surface, so there's no dirt getting under the keys and screwing it up to worry about, which I highly value. pockets pick up a lot of grit : )
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