NZ90 Full Review

[bargainPDA]

This took me a very long time, it's perhaps the most detailed review I've ever written. Thought you guys would dig it.

http://www.bargainpda.com/default.asp?newsID=1213&showComments=true

Brian

[NX70BOY]

Very nice review Brian. I've played with the NZ at BestBuy, but it's attached to the counter and you can't hold it. So I couldn't really tell how big it was. After looking at those pictures on your review page, the NZ looks MASSIVE!

[Unregistered]

Nice pics, were you trying to get them to be life size? Good job if you were.

[mkpc]

Great review. Just wish you had mentioned that the 90 can't read artist name and song titles in the ATRAC3 format..... Sony has yet to even acknowledge this is a problem.

[NewtUser]

If you have a Comp USA where you live in, they usually display their PDAs so you can hold it in your hand freely. They just have it attached to a security cable.

[jmg_NX21]

Nice review... too BAD it isn't a BARGAINpda.

*yet to HANDLE one in person =( *

[oneeyesquare]

My speaker on my NZ is loud, way better than the NX. You can hear it from across the room easily. Is your volume turned all the way up? It would be nice to have it up front though....
I'm not getting nearly the battery fluctuations after a total discharge/overnight recharge. I'm trying to repeat that scenario frequently to see if I can "condition" the battery.
Nice review. I disagree with your final accessment in that buying both a PDA and seperate camera defeats the intent of the NZ, that of integration. Yes, you can get two seperate units for less and camera wise be better off, but you're back to carrying both devices again. Not to say I'm 100% dedicated to the NZ, I'd be very interested in a Garmin PDA and CC-sized Casio camera setup., but I'd absolutely have to have a case that carried both adequately.... That, IMO , is whre the NZ excels....

[ralchizar]

Good review,
The only thing is that the battery issue has been talked about a lot in this forum and I think that you should look through them and see if you want to make more comments about how it really works.

[Unregistered]

Battery comments are totally off base. I have found the battery life itself to be more than adequate, but the battery reading in the camera app seems to be faulty. It's really misleading to say that the NZ has poor battery life.

[bargainPDA]

Thanks for all the possitive feedback and the constructive critisizm.

A couple notes -
* I did find the battery to be not that impressive even with normal use. It is better than most Pocket PC's but still not that great when compared to other Palm's. I suppose that's the point of having multiple batteries...but not being able to use one and charge one at the same time is a problem.
* I get the point of integrating the camera into the Clie. Some things it does very well, like emailing pictures from the camera app. Overall though, I found the integration to be of less value than having two seperate units that perform much better.
* I have tried so many things to resolve the battery issue, which only occurs with the camera. The best fix for me is to use the camera only when the battery at or very near 100%. My Sony contacts deny the battery is a problem at all, quite humorous.
* The speaker sound was fine for everything but MP3's. I definitely could not hear MP3's across the room.

Brian

[mashoutposse]

Don't forget to consider the fact that the Sony battery is much more accurate than any other PDA battery (the camera app bug notwithstanding); my NX70V stays at 100% for a long time, then drops at a much more rapid pace as time goes on -- you can see similar behavior in practically every LiIon-powered PDA, Palm or PPC, except the NZ90.

The NZ90 has a bigger battery than the NX70V, while retaining the same processor and other bits, so it should follow that the NZ90 should AT LEAST have better battery life than it.

There are people who have managed to take literally hundreds of pictures w/ flash with the NZ on a single charge. I'm about to perform that test shortly -- as stated above, it's best that you read some of the other threads and perform some tests.

In addition, check the GigaPocket/TiVo threads on this board -- that's one feature that really deserves mention in your review.

[davy19]

yep I did a test when I first got my nz90 about 2 weeks ago and was able to take 140 pictures with flash and only go down to 75% battery life...

if you ask me that is pretty good..not sure what the complaints are


have you tried to do whatever everyone else has said? drain the battery completely then charge overnight? if that dont work maybe you have a bad abttery, it can be possible.

but the fluctations you are talking about i have yet to see



also you are complaining about using camera in lowlight that is what the flash is for.

[bargainPDA]

I have tried all battery suggestions and am expecting a new battery fron Sony soon. If that works better, I'll amend the review to show the improvement.

With flash, the quality of low light pictures seemed poor. They had a lot of greenish undertones, if that makes any sense.

I do love the battery software that comes with the NZ. It does add a ton of value and overall is very impressive.