More indication that North America is an after-thought market....

[Pseudo Nim]

Well, here's more indication that North America is just a cash cow, and doesn't warrant any innovation. We get all the remnants of what the Japanese use for themselves. :)

Check out (the bottom of) this link: http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PEG/PEG-NZ90/feat4.html, for those that can read Japanese. Those that can't - ever heard of the Suica smartcards that they use in Tokyo now instead of train tickets? Passed on Wired as an article a few days back. Well, apparently, the NZ is capable of reading those cards and showing the balance and usage and so forth!!! How *COOL* is that?!?

So the Japanese Clie can:

- go on the Internet from anywhere using a cell modem;
- check the balance on a SmartCard;
- probably something else I'm missing;

And what does the North American NZ do? .. "It takes photos!"

That reminds me of that old MPEG that circulated around (Tripping-something..), where the captain asks the engineer, "What the hell have you been fixing these past few days?" -- "The transdigital freon converter." -- "And what's that do?" -- "It makes ICE CUBES." -- "You mean to tell me that with all the crap that's broken on this ship, you start with the ****ing ice machine?!!?!?"

Maybe Sony learned from that video ("You want a full-featured CF slot? No! You take pictures and stay quiet!"), cause I'm really surprised we got the WiFi card even... hey, maybe they figured "Gee, if we don't give them the WiFi card, they MIGHT get angry cause the slot is 100% useless then. Let's give it to them so that they be quiet. Crazy North Americans they are."

That was one long rant. I stop now. I still like Sony........co.jp :)

-pN

[jedix]

The smartcard has been a known feature on the Japanese NZ. I'm sure that if we had a smartcard sysem set up in this counrtry they would have included it here, too. I'm not offended because they know there is no use for that feature here. If they included it on the US version, I'm sure people would complain that the NZ has a smartcard reader, and there is no use for it here.

[BRiC]

Maybe people would complain about the useless Felica Reader in the US version NZ90 -- but not because it's there, but because they've paid for something they do not have any use for. For the same price, would you want the NZ with or without the reader anyway?

It would have been nice if the price of the US version was lower considering the exclusion of the Felica Reader... Isn't anybody mad just the same that it's selling at ~$800 (I know it's cheaper someplace) versus ~$665 for the Japanese model? :D

BRiC

[sindu]

Is the Asian (the one outside Japan) version have Felica Reader ?? Places like Hong Kong and Singapore do have smart card system to pay for our bus fare, subway, and paying bill in the foodstall among others.

[Pseudo Nim]

Sindu - I doubt it. You have the English version of the Clie, right? I don't think they would include the SC reader as part of it, because it's an extra cost, and they don't know if they'd be able to sell it I'm sure :(

Jedix - you do have a point, I agree with that. I suppose I sort of jumped the gun on that -- it didn't occur to me that the SC reader was a separate peripheral - I thought maybe you stuck the SC into the CF slot (okay, yes, I'm stupid. :) ). In perspective, you are probably right. But wouldn't you agree that overall, we sort of tend to get the remains of what was cool in Japan? :)

-pN

[sindu]

Pseudo Nim,

I guess you can blame it to the deregulated economic environment of USA. In Far East, as you know it, lots of things are regulated and hence it would be eaiser for service provider to expect a uniform platform. Consumer benefit if all service provider have the same platform. When smart card was first introduce, it was the government that push the project inconjuction with retailer, banking system, and all other economic sectos. And now we use smart card to pay all sort of things. My good friend from Utah was incense when he visited me in Singapore to find out the services provided by the telecom company verus what he gets in Utah (that was a year ago), specially the mobile phone we have here with Bluetooth, GPRS, and MMS. He said "I thought we are in the forefront of technology...." Well, that was his first visit to Far East and wait till he see our 3G service in near future. Well, Europe will also have 3G very soon too.

[Pseudo Nim]

Hahaha, it's honestly funny when people from North America think they're on the forefront of technology in ANYTHING. :) After having visited the Far East, I've noticed that. Sure, we make the fastest CPUs, and maybe a few other components, but they are all integrated and developed into a coherent product over there - and we just see the news postings about that in Wired News or whatever. We just have our stupid phones that can send messages of 160 characters.

Give me i-mode!.... :(

-pN

[sindu]

Give me i-mode man...I am drool just hearing that. 3G..way to go.

[davy19]

Sony is a japanese company...

they will always have everything come out in Japan first.

I am sure if the market was for the reader they might have included it

[hong kong nick]

We call it the 'Octopus' here in Hong Kong ... bus, tram, subway (MTR) ... even McDonalds and 7-11 ... just swip and go. They even build them into watches now!

More info here http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/contents03.html

I doubt that the HK version of the NZ90 (english language) will have this feature.

I haven't made up my mind what to buy ... NZ 90 is near the top of the list but I still like the Samsung NEXIO Wirelss PC thingy (bit bigger than a Pocket PC ... ).

Cheers,

Nick

[nike33]

Sony does not treat the American market diffrently then the Japanese market...............NOT!!!

[MythoFactory]

1-the NZ was announced in USA BEFORE JAPAN
2-when the N700 was launched here, you couldn't play MP3s. Only the proprietary ATRAC3 system. Try to guess what happened when we knew Sony was selling the N710 in USA with MP3 Playing... They nevertheless made us pay an extra (20$) for the 'upgraded' MP3 player that US customers had bundled...

[nike33]

MythoFactory

Your points are well taken. However the North American NZ, has NO CF support other than WiFi. It seems in Japan, one can purchase and use Modems, Cell Phones, and GPS CF cards in your NZ.

Or how about the Smart Card reader you have and we do not.

Hey you were able to at least buy the MP3 Driver for 20.00!

We would GLADLY pay for CF drivers, but Sony's customer bashing regime prevents that from happening.

Lastly, the NZ is apparently about $150.00 cheaper in Japan !!

[MythoFactory]

Well, Japanese People (and me) live in -very- little houses, work like slaves, breathe pollution, can't drive their cars more than 100km/h even on the highways, and have 10 days off in one year... let them (and me) have something to be happy to be Japanese...;)

[beano]

Apparently the Japanese have three eyes too?! :)

[PhilB]

Rock on, Karim. Enjoy!!!!

[phattie]

I don't want to sound like a troll, but, did you know that car prices up here in Canada are ridiculously cheap. ..even with the echange rates and taxes. It has something to do what the market is willing to pay for what. On the otherhand sony prices tend to be higher over here so the to thing balance out.

[jedix]

Originally posted by Pseudo Nim

Jedix - you do have a point, I agree with that. I suppose I sort of jumped the gun on that -- it didn't occur to me that the SC reader was a separate peripheral - I thought maybe you stuck the SC into the CF slot (okay, yes, I'm stupid. :) ). In perspective, you are probably right. But wouldn't you agree that overall, we sort of tend to get the remains of what was cool in Japan? :)

-pN
Oh, yes, we do get the remains. I wish we had the entire smartcard reader system here. But since we don't, I don't care that its not in the clie. By the time we would get the system, I'll have been through 20 more different clies!:eek:

[jedix]

Originally posted by BRiC
Maybe people would complain about the useless Felica Reader in the US version NZ90 -- but not because it's there, but because they've paid for something they do not have any use for. For the same price, would you want the NZ with or without the reader anyway?

It would have been nice if the price of the US version was lower considering the exclusion of the Felica Reader... Isn't anybody mad just the same that it's selling at ~$800 (I know it's cheaper someplace) versus ~$665 for the Japanese model? :D

BRiC


Yes, It would have been nice if it was cheaper. But I paid the price, anyway. But I wanted it. What was I going to do?

[jedix]

Originally posted by beano
Apparently the Japanese have three eyes too?! :)

:eek:

[blueprints]

Originally posted by MythoFactory
Well, Japanese People (and me) live in -very- little houses, work like slaves, breathe pollution, can't drive their cars more than 100km/h even on the highways, and have 10 days off in one year... let them (and me) have something to be happy to be Japanese...;)


In some ways i agree with MythoFactor. But in i still think Sony should at least let us buy CF drivers for CF cards to work... Cos e MS are juz too X.