Yet another "Hey, I just bought an NX80v!" thread

[Obsidian]

So, here I am. For quite some time now the thought of owning a PDA had not even vaguely entered my mind. I had been a content, functional individual. Then I noticed some of my coworkers whipping their little pocket devices out, and I once again became intrigued, just like back in the palm pilot days.

Back then, I had disregarded the notion of owning one, since the funcionality was generally limited, I didn't care for graffiti, and I didn't have much money to work with. However, today's PDAs are capable of so much more, especially in terms of multimedia capacity. I can watch full length movies at 480 horizontal resolution? I can listen to lots of mp3s? I can take high resolution photos? Capture short video clips? Write natural text and have it be recognized effectively, or even choose to use a compact yet efficient qwerty keyboard? Play games, record lectures, and swivel it around to exude shock and awe to surrounding onlookers?

This was not the PDA of old. Initially my eyes focused upon the clie nx70v, as the price was right and the features impressed. Then my standalone digital camera (only a 2.1 megapixel) broke, so my attention was brought to the nx80v, which could act as a replacement, at least for casual use in sufficient lighting. Plus, I never took my digicam along with me, and over the years I've surely missed many a memorable moment to the prohibitive bulk of the camera.

The price. Ouch, the price. Not one to jump into a purchase of a significant magnitude, I did my research, and posed a question on a rather large forum that I administrate. A kind fellow referred me to cliesource.com, and I proceeded to absorb what I could pertaining to the various models available, while at the same time considering the alternatives (Palm Tungsten, pocketpcs). While a Sony whore at heart, I tried to suppress my bias as much as possible while considering the appropriate solution for my PDA desires.

None surpassed the NX80v in form, function, or allure. I sigh that semifatigued sigh of relent, open up the fragile doors of my bank account and walk home with my first PDA, the Sony Clie NX80v. I've been playing around with it on and off today, using the 128mb memory stick initially used by my digital camera (R.I.P.), loading some video clips, mp3s, and applications on; just generally having a blast with it. I've had a casual itch for a drawing tablet these past couple years, and while a clie's small screen can't entirely satiate it, I am at the least definitely enjoying the illustrative capacities a high resolution touch screen provides.

So I smile.


I've been lurking up to this point, but now that I've bitten the bullet I'll just come out and say it: I'd like to thank all the folks at the cliesource forums for providing a veritable crapload of information that I've used to influence my PDA decision. Without you guys, I probably wouldn't have been confident enough in any single product to actually buy one.

*bows*

[Defiant79]

Congratulations! And welcome to the world called Clié!

Have fun!

[nickster87]

Congrats on your Clie, and thanks for registering here at ClieSource!;)

[JwY]

congrates
hope u enjoy ur new clie

[loverboydre16]

congrats ....i am about to get one...well a nx73 next week.
should i get a nx73 or a nx80
obsidian is the nx80 good or should i get a nx73

[Tocache]

buy the nx80v!!!!

[Dropzone]

the diff is in the memory size and the camera pixels. the rest are almost the same. i would go for the nx80v, unless u have a handy compact camera.

[nickster87]

Lovin' my NX80V!!!;)

[AmyClie]

Obsidian said what I've wanted to say and so eloquently too! I too have my first PDA. After much research I settled on the NX80v only to have to wait a month for it's release. I purchased it the day it arrived at Best Buy. I found Cliesource after my purchase and I faithfully read up and educate myself every night. You people rock!

[r0b456]

loverboydre,

I was originally planning on the NX73 myself, but ended up going with the NX80 at almost the last minute.


The thing that pushed me over the edge was something that isn't really advertised well by Sony. On the surface, the NX73 has 11mb of Useable RAM and a .3mp camera, while the NX80 has 16mb of Useable RAM and a 1.3mp camera. I already had a digital camera, so I was then asking myself "Is 5mb of RAM really worth an extra $100?" I mean, for $100, I could buy 256mb of memory in the form of a Memory Stick Pro card. But rather than jump the gun, I asked around. It was then pointed out to me that the NX80V has 32mb of RAM, of which 16mb are useable, while the NX73 has 16mb of RAM and only 11 are useable. So what's the difference? What did the NX80 have that used 16mb of RAM that the NX73 only used 5mb of? Was it extra programs pre-installed?

Through this forum, and Brighthand, I found that that extra RAM is called Heap Memory. This heap memory is sort of like (but not exactly) Virtual Memory for Windows. When you run a large program in Windows, like a high end Game, the most accessed information is loaded into whatever available Physical memory you have. The rest is loaded into a swap file on your hard drive that Windows "sees" as RAM. Again, it's not exactly like that, but it's the closest explanation I can come up with at the moment. Basically, one of the things that separates the newest Palms from the old B&W Palms of yesteryear is the beefed up Heap Memory. Many old palms only had about 3 to 400k of Heap Memory, because programs were very small. There was no multimedia, there was no Audio, there was no Web Browsing. Now that Palm devices are doing things like movies, MP3, and WiFi web browsing, they need larger amounts of Heap Memory to keep things running smoothly. Right now, very few applications really use a whole lot of Heap Memory. The one place you will see it the most, however, is with web browsing. When web browsing on devices like the NX70 and NX60, users will experience frequent errors which tell them that they file size of the page they are viewing is just too large -- like if you've ever tried running a program in Windows and it tells you you do not have enough Virtual Memory.

So right off the bat, I can tell you that if you plan to EVER use your next Clie to get online, that you should really consider the NX80. Maybe you're not going to go out and buy the overpriced Sony WiFi card Tomorrow, but if it's something that you've considered, why limit yourself before you even have a chance? It's $100, which may be a lot when you're already spending $500. But later on, down the road, when you do decide that being able to surf the web from your Clie in anywhere in the house is worth the investment, you won't be able to go back and add more RAM to your NX73.

It's also worth considering that Web Browsing, Video, and high end Gaming is relatively new to the Palm devices. It seems every couple of days, some new game or app comes out that wows people in that it does things they've never seen a Palm do. As these programs become more advanced, they become larger. And they will require more of that Memory Heap that previous applications. When it comes down to it, for $100, the NX80 has 3 Times the amount of Heap Memory as the NX60, NX70, and NX73. To my knowledge, this gives the NX80 the most heap memory of any Palm OS 5 device. For $100, you can very well be guaranteeing that your next PDA purchase will not be obsolete before you get it out of the box.




It's just a thought.

-Rob

[n2ifp]

Getting the NX80, was a wise decsion;)

I wish you the best of luck with it!

Enjoy the new toy!:D

[neogin]

i'm staring at my nx80 everyday .. don't use much like b4 ..

but i still recommend for nx80 over 73 .. better cam and more ram .. unless you like black color on 73 :D ..

[caseyatbt]

Originally posted by AmyClie
Obsidian said what I've wanted to say and so eloquently too! I too have my first PDA. After much research I settled on the NX80v only to have to wait a month for it's release. I purchased it the day it arrived at Best Buy. I found Cliesource after my purchase and I faithfully read up and educate myself every night. You people rock!


Welcome Amy.................you'll soon become as addicted to this site as the rest of us.

Occasionally I miss the Bay Area, but then I come to my senses :D

[ZNB]

Greetings

I like that ... "prohibitive bulk".

A couple of thoughts for green NX80v guys like myself... probably boring for everyone else.

After 3 weeks with NX80v, I would only recommend to be realistic about how much you spend on your hobby. You will find that the costs multiply... nx, then ms, at least 128, then cf, got to be 1gb, and wl100, why not, and then... comes the software-- you will become a free-trial junke for a while, and then comes acceptance.

Decide what you really need, and take your time. My one and only tip is not to go on a palmgear frenzy-- your 16mb will melt quickly, and you will have to do at least one hard reset for having loaded too much!

this site is addictive too, but control your gourmandise, because all these super ideas can leave you with an nx hangover... especially if you dabble in video.

get mini's patch so you can use the CF correctly. Get zlauncher so you can put some ebooks on the cf to save ram. get acidimage becuase it allows you to do slideshows MUCH better than other programs I have seen. And you will probably need Docs to Go for the cool spreadsheets.

If you like video, get the Hansschmucker add in for image convert, it will make sure the longer cf movies run better. and I like Mobipocket and Avantgo, mainly because of the sources they have... not too tied to the software itself.

MP3 is a nice add on, but not too useful... you will find that the precious ms ram is all too quickly filled. The system sound is not too loud, and the headphones are just one more thing to put in my pockets. And it is not so nice to keep them on CF (though you can) because I dont like to keep the cf card in unless I am using it. It does not feel so stable and I am worried that this little door will fail.

I do think that an NX80v clone WITHOUT keyboard would be a super invention, but I am not sure the other models do quite as much.

Oh yes, and the wl100 is a nightmare without end just now. I am sure I will figure it out and be happy in the end, but for now...

OK that was theraputic!

Thanks

ZNB

[ricleo]

Welcome to the Nx80 family :D
I'm loving the movie recorder with capture light more and more by the minute, just had some fun on friday night filming "BlairWitch" style using the NX80v, and it turned out great!! footage was really errie and brought out the atmosphere of the place I was spending the night in/

[nickster87]

LOL!

[AmyClie]

ZNB......You're too late! I've already gone off on a Palmgear frenzy but having lots of fun doing it. Zlauncher is great with the cool waterdrop background on the skins page here. I purchased way too much MS memory so I'm filling it up with MP3's. Got Mobipocket for ebooks, lots of games. As a newbie I do find an uninstall manager helpful because I'm not familar with all these files and not all of them come off when you delete software you decide you don't want. I hate a messy Clie! I fly a lot so my Clie has been a wondeful thing.