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 November 1, 2002 -- Kenneth Rhee's Clie Corner: Comparing Sony's NX-60 and SJ-30

  Opposites Attracts? Comparison of two new devices from Sony (NX-60 and SJ30) - Part 1

Sony has released several new devices in the last few months. The latest are the much anticipated Palm OS5 devices NX70 and NX60. I'm glad that Sony decided to give a different number to each device since it was confusing to talk about NR-70 versus NR-70V. The NX devices build on the success of the NR series by improving the camera resolution (NX-70), adding voice recoding capability, CF expansion slot (Wi-Fi), and faster processor (Intel ARM 200 MHz). Palm OS5 represents the first attempt by Palmsource to migrate its OS to hardware based on ARM chips that have more processing power and faster speed. For instance, Sony NX comes with an Intel chip running at 200 MHz. That's 3X improvement from the fastest Dragonball chip we have at 66 MHz

The SJ30 is the low-end color device from Sony. Sony has just reduced its price from $299 to $249, and just looking at the price, it is a bargain. However, Sony had to cut corners in order to bring the price down (e.g., it does not come with a cradle but an USB hotsync/charge cable). Also some of the units do not come with flash ROM. The unit I have does not have any flash. However, it?s still a great machine with a 320x320 high resolution display and 16MB of RAM. If you compare it to the old N610 that was introduced about a year ago, the SJ30 doubles the RAM and improves the screen fidelity and brightness while charging less ($249 vs. $399). I would say this is an excellent example of the trickle down economy. (See the table at the end of the review for comparison).

This will be the first part of the two-part review. Since most of you are eager to read about the new device, I decided to print my first impressions of NX60, and I will follow up with a more detailed review of the device. The WL-100 (Clie Wi-Fi card) for 802.11b did not arrive in time to make this review, but it would definitely be included in the second part. So, stay tuned.

I was really looking forward to getting a Palm OS5 device. In order for me to do that, I had to resist my temptation to get two great devices NR70 and T665 (see my earlier review). They will surely become museum pieces having the distinction of the last great Dragonball Palm OS devices. However, why settle for OS4.X when you can have OS5, Right?

The SJ30 is a great little device that it feels like it?s not there?almost. I got one for my wife for her birthday with a new Sena case (review to follow), and both look gorgeous. The biggest advantage of SJ30 is portability. I can pretty much carry it in my shirt and/or pants? pocket, and it is nearly forgotten. My wife can put it in her purse without crowding the purse, and that is a good thing. The screen for SJ30 is gorgeous (as good as T665), but NX60 is a tiny bit better in terms of color fidelity and brightness. For those of you who are worrying about the smaller screen, don?t. It is big enough for even playing games. For instance, I had no problem playing the latest Billiard game (v. 4.0) from Megasoft. However, that is not to say it?s perfect. When I compared it to my NX60 with a 320x480 screen, I have to say I prefer the bigger screen (just like preferring 46? over 25? HD TV). The NX60?s screen is simply gorgeous and bright. Of course, keeping the brightness high takes a toll on battery life, but if you recharge every night that should not be a problem. The battery life in SJ30 is much better?comparable to my Clie N760C. I was able to test the device for a few days without recharging. Interestingly, when Palm released the Tungsten (OS5 device) a few days ago, there were a bunch of Palm devotees commenting on the superiority of Palm?s screen over Sony. I think they could use a bit more objectivity in my book. Yes, the screen on the Tungsten is great, but compared to my NX60, it looked bluish in the background and somewhat ?faded? in color. If you look at the hotsync symbol when you load the hotsync program, you will see Clie?s red and blue are much truer.

As we all know, Palm used OS5 to make the transition to faster processors in the hardware. So, theoretically, Intel 200 Mhz should really makes the device fly, especially compared to Dragonball 33 Mhz? Well, it depends. First of all, I was able to use the FASTCPU to speed up the SJ30 to 284% (using Benchmark 2.0). My curiosity got the best of me and I ran the same program in the NX60. FYI, Palm OS5 uses the emulator (PACE) to run OS4 programs. Anyone who uses a Mac to run PC programs should be familiar with this concept. Surprisingly, Benchmark ran OK and produced 269%. So, it is not a bullet train, but it?s not a slow city bus either. Unfortunately, the transition to OS5 meant all my beloved hacks and other ?hacking? programs could no longer be used. In fact, I would not recommend anyone loading any of those programs. I had to do this several times while testing my machine for this article. For instance, I installed the NR buttons from Standalone and the only way to get out the fatal loop was to do a hard reset. After several hard resets while trying a number of hack-type programs, I would strongly urge others to stay away any untested programs until you hear otherwise from other brave or foolish people (such as me). This is what I consider to be the biggest complaint I have for Clie NX, but it?s not really Sony?s fault. Any time you migrate upward in OS, you run into these types of issues. How many of us ?cursed? Microsoft as we upgraded our Windows. For some programs, it would mean paying more for upgrades ($$) or buying new programs (I just bought one of the ?new? programs even though I own the equivalent OS4 program from the same developer). I hope most developers would not charge us for the upgrade, but I guess they have to make a living.

The problem is not limited to hack-type of programs either. Although Palm did a good job preparing developers for the transition, the OS5 simulator is not an actual device. We are bound to have incompatibilities. So, currently, my Daynotez is pretty much useless, and Bugme (4.2) keeps giving me Fatal Errors. Even though these programs have been OS5 ready, they still suffer from display corruptions or fatal errors. I figure it would probably take several weeks/months before the dust settles (I?m hoping for a few weeks). On a positive note, certain developers have been quick to correct the problem. Ben from Standalone was kind enough to send me a new copy of Supernames 2.02 so that it now works in my Clie NX without any problem.

Now let?s talk about good things. Oh, wait. Before I talk about all the goodies for NX60 and SJ30, let me belch out another gripe. Although Sony America claims that the NX devices come with 15MB of useable RAM, let me put that to rest quickly. It?s not CORRECT. My NX60 shows only 11MB available out of the box. So, the question is where did 4 MB go? I?m trying to get an answer from Sony, but haven?t been successful so far. I venture to guess that 4MB is used as a buffer for functions within the device such as camera, voice recording, etc. However, SJ30 offers 15MB of RAM. After loading comparable number of programs in SJ30 (except the new Internet browser that comes with the NX60), it still shows having 7MB of RAM available whereas my NX60 shows less than 2MB of RAM. Believe me there is nothing worse than RAM withdrawal. Since Pidirect and other similar programs do not work, I will have to carry only essential programs/databases I use in RAM. It is a good thing that most of the programs I use are VFS aware so that I can save the data files in the memory stick.

Another gripe I have is that even for the programs that run OK, Clie high resolution fonts (those small and tiny fonts) are no longer available. So, I lost the small fonts in Datebk5, and my weekly and list view look ?Gigantic? right now. This is the result of Sony dropping its own HR API and using Palm OS API under OS5. I believe this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, we have to suffer. Also, I was disappointed to see that Sony didn?t use the high density fonts that Palm uses in their Tungsten. The Sony fonts are the same (i.e., thin fonts) as the ones used in OS4.X. The only thing I?m envious of Tungsten is Palm OS5 fonts. Hopefully, developers will be quick to respond and I?ll get my small/tiny/bold fonts back.

Before I got my Sony N710, I never used the jog dial, but I have gotten so dependent on it lately. Unfortunately, for the NX60, I could only say the dial works wonderfully about half the time. It seems due to the location of the dial, it works perfectly with my hand when I flipped the screen to use my Clie as a traditional PDA. However, when I use it in the clam shell mode, the jog dial falls somewhat below my thumb. After pondering this for a few minutes, I realized what was going on. It seems when I use the Clie in the traditional mode, its thickness (combined two side) make it possible to hold the device where my thumb would align with the jog dial perfectly, but when I use it in the clam shell mode, my hand has to move up in order to compensate for the weight at the top. As a result, now the jog dial is located below my thumb, and I have to reach down to use it (it?s pretty awkward). That really makes the use of jog dial more difficult in the clam shell mode.

Now for the great things. The Clie NX is truly a remarkable device. It actually builds on the success of NR series. The dual entry method (Graffiti and keyboard) as well as Virtual Graffiti makes the unit more versatile. I used the keyboard many times for entry when my Clie was in the High Resolution Plus mode (full screen mode), and it worked well for short texts. The extra screen real estate is great for scheduling, reading, writing, and calculating (Spreadsheet). This is something SJ30 or Palm Tungsten cannot match. When I showed the full-size photo of my Alaska trip to one of my colleagues, she just could not believe how large and gorgeous the picture looked. Interestingly, I did not get the same reaction with the SJ30 earlier. Mind you, the picture still looks great in the SJ30, but it just doesn?t have the same impact.

Sony has now made it easier for users to handle graphics (including photo). It now has a program called Clie Viewer (see the picture on the left) that acts as the central depot. As you can see from the picture, you can view the list (or thumbnail) of pictures, movies, notes, and voice recoding all together, and access those while you are in the viewer. When you click the item, the device launches the appropriate program (e.g., Movie player for movies) and you can click the return button to return to the viewer. You can filter which items are shown in the viewer as well. (It only shows the photos). I was impressed. Not only you can view and access multimedia content, you can also send photos to others via e-mail (Clie Mail), create a photo album (Clie Album), edit the photo (Photo Editor), and create a picture slide show (Photo Stand). It seems like one of the intent of Sony designers/engineers was a true integration of Clie?s multimedia capabilities.

Since we are talking about multimedia, I have to say this is the strength of Sony. Everything worked and worked smoothly. I was blown away when I viewed one of the sample movies. This is one of the advantages of having a faster processor. Simply gorgeous and realistic. I was amazed when I tested the Kinoma player with T665, but this experience was definitely one step beyond. The audioplayer (MP3) has also been revamped. Now you can rearrange the playing list, and there is a slider to fast forward/reverse the playback anywhere in a song.

The new Clie launcher is a decent launcher. I do miss my old Megalauncher and the latest Launcher X (still in beta), but it is not half bad now that I have created/modified/sorted categories and applications within the categories. You can use the jog dial to navigate and select both categories and applications. You can also assign commonly used programs as favorites, and they will show up on the left side (it?s a nice feature).

One of the new programs I have been using a lot has been Clie Memo. It?s a high resolution note-taking program that captures your hand-written notes. You can even beam your notes to other Clies as well. It is also interesting that the virtual Graffiti makes it possible to see your own handwriting. The device echoes back what you input via Graffiti, and I was able to see how my Graffiti strokes actually looked.

The NX-60 also comes with a new wireless communication slot. Well, it?s basically a standard Compact Flash type II slot that accepts Sony?s own wireless CF card (WL-100). Other CF devices or memory cards will not work without special drivers specifically written for Clie. I tried to insert a CF memory card, and the Clie beeped to tell me it saw the CF card, but I couldn?t access the card at all. Perhaps some enterprising companies will take advantage of this by providing the special driver for other devices or memory cards. I?ll be getting a Sony WL-100 in a week or so. So, look for it in the part II of the review in a few weeks.

Now why did I get a NX-60 rather than NX-70? I could have easily spent $100 more to get the NX-70, but I know I won?t be using the camera that much. In fact, I have two digital cameras, and 2 regular SLR?s (both high end Nikon and Canon); so, I knew I would not use my Clie to take any serious pictures. So, when the novelty wears our, I would simply be carrying around the camera. Instead, I got the NX60 so that I could use the large capture button on the left for voice recording and use the savings toward the wireless card. Now that?s a great segue to talk about another new feature: voice recoding. For those who own a Handera 330 or any Pocket PC device, this is nothing new, but those of us who didn?t, this is great. In fact, I recorded a couple of conversations (with/without others? awareness) and they sounded good. In fact, one of the persons I was talking to did not even realize I was recording our conversation. You can get up to 535 minutes on 128MB MS in long playing mode. That?s impressive. This would be great for taping conversations, lectures, interviews, etc. However, I for one would be careful in what I say when I spot someone with a Clie NX in the future.

It sounds like I?m sold on my NX-60, and it?s more than simply justifying my own purchase. It?s really a great device. Hopefully, with time, all the negatives I mentioned above will be resolved one way or another. I have also written to Tony Rudenko about upgrading NX-60?s RAM, and he is going to investigate the feasibility of RAM upgrade. When I was using my Clie 760C, even though I only had 8MB RAM, I used Pidirect, Jack Flash, and Jack Sprat. Those programs allowed me to load three times as many programs and databases as I have now and still leave my Clie with 4 MB of RAM.

So what about SJ-30? Does it pale by comparison? Actually no. It?s a great small machine. It allows you to use all OS 4 programs and also hacks and other programs such as Pidirect. It has a great color high resolution screen, and the best advantage of course is its portability. As you can see from the pictures, the NX-60 by comparison looks like a brick. It?s like comparing a Mazda Miata with a Ford Explorer SUV. So, if it?s important to run all your old programs/hacks and you don?t mind not having certain multimedia features (such as MP3 player), the SJ30 might be a great choice, especially if portability is the key. Besides you can?t beat the price (<$250).

Well this has been a long-winded journey, and I better stop. Be sure to stop by in a couple of weeks to find out about the Wi-Fi card, and other features of the NX-60 that I did not have time or space to discuss in this article.