Lasting Impressions (as opposed to First Impressions)

[Eric S]

I've had my NX60 for two months now, long enough for my opinions on it to settle.

I'll start with the things that were nice surprises, or at least not the annoyances that I expected:

Size: The CF bludge just isn't an issue, and even gives the PDA a nice gentle slope when laid flat on a desk/table. It wasn't easy finding a belt case that fit the NX-60, but Ripoffs came through.
Voice Recorder: Handier than I expected, and the quality seemed better than the same feature on my HandEra, though I can think of ways to make it handier.
Available Ram: Not nice, but not as annoying as I thought it would be. Then again, I'm used to a HandEra 330, which only had 8MB of RAM. JackFlash/JackSprat will be nice, given that there's 4MB of emty Flash.

Here's the shortcomings:

Balance: Unless you're in tablet mode, the center of gravity leaves the balance off, unless you hold it where the hinge is, and then you loose the jogwheel and other side buttons
Sound: For alarm purposes, nowhere near as loud as my HandEra 330. Loud enough for normal stuff, though because of the balance and speaker position, often I find myself accidentally placing a finger over the speaker which seriously mutes it. The bottom of the PDA is just about the worst place they could have put the speaker in this respect.
Voice Recorder Button: Tends to turn on voice recording whenever I slide my NX-60 out of its belt case.
Lack of transcription application: It would be really nice to be able to listen to voice files while entering them into ToDo/Memos/Address books/etc.
Alarm LED: Quite often, with my HandEra, if I did manage to miss an alarm (always involved being in some other part of the house), I'd notice the red LED blinking telling me that I missed an alarm. The NX-60 has the same thing, but since it's the power LED that blinks, and the power LED is barely noticable on the NX-60, the alarm LED is barely noticable. Maybe blinking the REC led would have been better.
App/Scroll Buttons: Yes, the recessed App/Scroll buttons are a pain to use for action games. My response was to stop playing action games that rely on the App/Scroll buttons.

Overall, I don't regret my purchase, though unless certain things happen, I'll be giving my NX to my girlfriend in June and upgrading(?) to something that is OS5, HiDensity, VG, always in tablet mode (no clamshell), and preferrably louder, with better buttons, and the Sound Streaming Feature (the official PalmOS version, not the version that Sony did but won't tell anyone about). Except for the fact that the JogWheel isn't as good, the Garmin iQue has my attention at the moment.

This isn't a knock to the NX, as my HandEra is the ONLY PDA I've ever used for more than a year (except for my P1000, and I upgraded it via memory cards, as no other updates were available at the time). Seven months is just a little short of average, but given the potential turbulence of the PalmOS PDA market given the upcoming iQue and Clie releases, understandable. Then again, if we get CF memory drivers, JackFlash/JackSprat, and an updated PalmOS that implements the official Sound Streaming Feature, I'll probably use my NX-60 for at least a year. Big IF.

[johnsoax]

Originally posted by Eric S
Alarm LED: Quite often, with my HandEra, if I did manage to miss an alarm (always involved being in some other part of the house), I'd notice the red LED blinking telling me that I missed an alarm. The NX-60 has the same thing, but since it's the power LED that blinks, and the power LED is barely noticable on the NX-60, the alarm LED is barely noticable. Maybe blinking the REC led would have been better.


Does your alarm light keep blinking till you acknowlege the alarm on the NX-60? This is something that I miss from my Handera. The alarm LED on my NX-60 blinks about 5 times and then turns green. When the unit then times out and turns back off, the LED is then black, meaning, I don't know that I missed an alarm!!

[Eric S]

You're right, it does go out. Sony really blew this. Got so wrapped up in "polyphonic" alarms that they missed actually getting your attention with them :)

Maybe the Zodiac, T3, or iQue will get it right and I can give my PDA to my girlfriend for christmas.

[Rick 098]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eric S
[B]I've had my NX60 for two months now, long enough for my opinions on it to settle.

Voice Recorder Button: Tends to turn on voice recording whenever I slide my NX-60 out of its belt case.

Before you slide the NX into your belt case, and after you turn it off, slide the hold switch off. This will disable all the buttons.
Alarms play(on my NX-60 at least) during hold mode but to agnolege them you have to slide the hold swich down.

[Rick 098]

App/Scroll Buttons: Yes, the recessed App/Scroll buttons are a pain to use for action games. My response was to stop playing action games that rely on the App/Scroll buttons.


Try using the sony GC-10 game controller. It works on the NX with a downloadable driver. It also gives an added bonus of being to use buttons in tablet mode.

[jdonalds]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Eric S

My comments at JOHN:

I'll start with the things that were nice surprises, or at least not the annoyances that I expected:

Size: The CF bludge just isn't an issue, and even gives the PDA a nice gentle slope when laid flat on a desk/table. It wasn't easy finding a belt case that fit the NX-60, but Ripoffs came through.
JOHN: I agree. The bulge is no big deal.

Voice Recorder: Handier than I expected, and the quality seemed better than the same feature on my HandEra, though I can think of ways to make it handier.
JOHN: I agree again. I've used the voice recorder much more than I thought and it's been very useful.

Available Ram: Not nice, but not as annoying as I thought it would be. Then again, I'm used to a HandEra 330, which only had 8MB of RAM. JackFlash/JackSprat will be nice, given that there's 4MB of emty Flash.
JOHN: There is never enough memory in the handheld. I don't think I'd be happy with 128M internal either. I just rely on the MS and CF for memory expansion.


Here's the shortcomings:
[list]
Balance: Unless you're in tablet mode, the center of gravity leaves the balance off, unless you hold it where the hinge is, and then you loose the jogwheel and other side buttons
JOHN: Yep I agree

Sound: For alarm purposes, nowhere near as loud as my HandEra 330. Loud enough for normal stuff, though because of the balance and speaker position, often I find myself accidentally placing a finger over the speaker which seriously mutes it. The bottom of the PDA is just about the worst place they could have put the speaker in this respect.
JOHN: The speaker is great but not loud enough and definitely in the wrong place. Mounting the speaker on the front near the keyboard would have been better. Although I'm amazed they can fit so much stuff in this small package in the first place.

Voice Recorder Button: Tends to turn on voice recording whenever I slide my NX-60 out of its belt case.
JOHN: I solved this problem by making the button snap a photo instead of starting the audio recorder.

This is my third PDA and I think of it as a small computer. I like the large screen, the soft keyboard that comes up over the graffiti area (never liked graffiti) that I can also see in the dark. The built in hard keyboard is great for longer typing sessions. Watching videos is something I didn't expect and is a great extension to the already full featured PDA. I see no reason to upgrade and I hope to keep this PDA for a couple of years. My only complaint is the battery drains too fast; but I've found ways to keep it powered from the car, laptop, and external batteries.

[Eric S]

For the record, the NX73 addressed a few of these concerns. It has a seperate voice recording button that is press and hold and it has app buttons in tablet mode (though not scroll buttons). It may have addressed others, but that's all I noticed from playing around with it in the store.

Oh, and I do have the game controller, I just don't carry it with me everywhere.