Some pictures of the VZ

[lmame]

I just got some days ago a VZ90 and had some time to play with it ;)
All pictures are here:
http://www.forum-palmspirit.com/viewtopic.php?t=13391

I put my remarks here in english because they are in french in the other forum ;)

The VZ is as wide as a UX, but twice as "high" and much heavier (nearly the NZ90 weight)... It seems everything is in metal, and it makes a better impression than a Zaurus C760, really stylish, not plastic touch as UX...
the good thing is that you got a real stylus now...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_009.JPG
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_011.JPG

The skin used is "black" in all applications, really cool ;)
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_cf_03.jpg

Everything is in Japanese, only litle indications in English in the media Center...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_06.jpg

You got 40 MB Free in RAM, 88 MB free in virtual MS, a CF slot and a MS Pro slot:
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_03.jpg

You can place applications everywhere (RAM, CF, VMS, MS) and MP3/ Videos in CF/VMS/MS.
The good thing is that you wan use "freely" the CF port for data, applications, MP3, video...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_015.JPG

All application are in 480x320 mode (as in the UX) and you can't switch to 320x480, the only one that does it is the agenda (same as TH55) and picsel viewer.
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_37.JPG

Picsel viewer is a new version, you got two icons that enables you to zoom in / out, better than on the UX (tap on center of the screen then drag up or down... :( )
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_36.JPG

Another cool thing is the new MS Backup, now you can perform several backup and choose wich one to be restored (on virtual MS or / and MS, but not CF).
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_0003.jpg

The Media Center is brand new and rather cool, more stylish than the ugly Audio Player from UX. You access directly Videos / photos / Audio.
The photos application is really faster than the UX or TH one... The MP4 videos are rather cool and smooth, but you can also play the "old" MQV or MPEG1 files.
The audio application is brand new and really cool :)
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_025.JPG

And the screen is ... Marvelous... :) some photos show the difference between the UX and the VZ, it's rather incredible, you got the feeling there is a thin film on the UX screen... :eek:
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_026.JPG
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_027.JPG
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_031.JPG
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_032.JPG
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_021.JPG
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_022.JPG

The API sound are the same as TH or UX, so you can use pocket tunes or aero player.
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_01.jpg

You see a little jogdial when you push up the screen, in fact it is a wheell which you can turn clockwise (or the other way), same function as US jogdial, and also in its center a pad (directions arrows) and it the very center, a "confirmation" button... It's practical to use...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_34.JPG

Now you can see the Wifi signal strength clicking on the Wifi icon.
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_07.jpg

You can change the luminosity AND the gamma (is it gamma or the warmth of the screen?).
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_12.jpg

[lmame]

Nearly all applications I tested with it, for now, are working... Some problems appears with files (corrupted icons) and Acid Image Pro 3, but it seems it's due to the "black skin" used, icones used to be filled in black because the back of the screen was all white...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/vz_cf_04.jpg

I tested somes games too (microquad, kickoo's) and they worked fast and good, so no problems.
I tested some DA (HrcaptDA), Dalauncher and they were working.
Zlauncher 5 beta is working good too, it uses the same skins as the UX50 ones...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_02.jpg
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_0004.jpg

I did not have time to test the battery yet, but I used Wifi, Audio Player for three days now, and the battery is still at 93%...

Well... Is it a PDA? Not really, the UX was a PDA with its keyboard, thin for factor and its litlle weight...
Is it a media player? Not really, it does not have a hard disk embedded but supports CF and MS...
So, what it is? I would say... an ovni :D some kind of mixture between a PDA, a media player, and a designer "wet dream" and it's a pretty cool piece of hardware ;)

[lmame]

Using the speedy benchmark (I know, it is stupid since the VZ processor is "special"), it seems that the VZ is slightly faster (frequency and power) than the UX...

[The Mad Dog]

say, how do you got the VZ? Over dynamism.com?

[MrNako]

I have been following the other thread using a translator LOL. Do you speak japanese also?

Its a shame the new audio player didnt work on my TH55 I really like it, specially the visualizations. I hope somebody does a skin for PocketTunes.

[lmame]

say, how do you got the VZ? Over dynamism.com?

No, directly from Japan :)
http://www.pdakobo.com

[lmame]

I have been following the other thread using a translator LOL. Do you speak japanese also?

Its a shame the new audio player didnt work on my TH55 I really like it, specially the visualizations. I hope somebody does a skin for PocketTunes.

Not fluently at all :)
But I take time to translate some of the menus and I got used with a Jap UX I had...

[Gazpacho]

Did anyone notice the "white frame" that has been bothering PalmOS devices' screens since the first colour Clie came out has vanished with the VZ90?

No more white frame around the screen in programs.

[The Mad Dog]

what about shipping costs?
How do you paid? (shipping costs etc. ) (I have no credit card ;))
(Plz, send me detailled informations how you bought it. I dont understand the site Laylot of this jap. page)
do you see a way to translate the Menus?

Perhaps we can later use the one of translated Roms of dynamism.com ones :D

[222aaah]

I want to ask question that every UX and probably TH owner want to ask ;).
Since you have UX as well - can you try running all this cool multimedia progies on UX ? Will it work ? Cos it is nice opportunity for UX users to upgrade software :)

And what is MP4 in video means ? Can it play DivX or Xvid ?
And concerning Image Converter desktop app. What version is it ? 2.0 ?
Whats new in it ?

Thanks a lot.

[lmame]

what about shipping costs?
How do you paid? (shipping costs etc. ) (I have no credit card ;))
(Plz, send me detailled informations how you bought it. I dont understand the site Laylot of this jap. page)
do you see a way to translate the Menus?

Perhaps we can later use the one of translated Roms of dynamism.com ones :D

I paid by credit card, by the way you can send them a mail in english ;)
For shipping they used UPS (I got a UPS account) but you can use EMS as well.

How to order?:
Send them a mail with what you want, they make you a quotation, ask you if you agree with it (cost + shipping).
The shipping depends on weight.
Then I paid by credit card, I don't know if they accept other ways of payment, just ask them.
Then they shipped me the VZ...

Everything is in Japanese, and for the moment, there is no way to translate menus.

For the english ROM, I don't think there will be any :)

[lmame]

I want to ask question that every UX and probably TH owner want to ask ;).
Since you have UX as well - can you try running all this cool multimedia progies on UX ? Will it work ? Cos it is nice opportunity for UX users to upgrade software :)

And what is MP4 in video means ? Can it play DivX or Xvid ?
And concerning Image Converter desktop app. What version is it ? 2.0 ?
Whats new in it ?

Thanks a lot.

I tried to run apps, the video app is working, but it can not run the MP4 files, just MQV files...
The audio app is really buggy since it seems the audio player skin is missing, I will try to find where it is. Still, it plays MP3 but impossible to choose the media (MS / VMS) and even if the MP3 is played, the UX is nearly completly freezed, like 99% CPU was used...

So it is not really cool for the moment...

MP4 means "Sony" MP4, so no DivX.
You got Image Converter 2 which gives you the opportunity to convert into MP4 the AVI, MPEG, QT, MOV, WMV files...
It seems, as previous versions of Image Encoder, that is does not handle really well DivX files.
You can encode with the following settings:
Super quality (30 fps, 320x240, 768kbps video, 128 kbps audio)
Good quality (15 fps, 320x240, 384kbps video, 128 kbps audio)
Low quality (15 fps, 320x240, 192kbps video, 64 kbps audio)
Super Low quality (15 fps, 160x112, 96kbps video, 32 kbps audio)

The presentation is brand new (a bit like sonicstage) and it encodes really quickly, but only in MP4.

[lmame]

It seems it is possible to tweak the Image converter 2 parameters in the registry, as previous versions...

[lmame]

I confirm it is possible, I just tried succesfully, replacing the 192 kbps parameters by:
20 fps, 320x240, 512kbps video, 128 kbps audio
and it's working great :)

[jjesusfreak01]

Do you think the black menus and theme are there to show off the contrast ratio? What are the exact dimensions of the screen, since it is obviously bigger than the screen on the ux.

[MrNako]

Did anyone notice the "white frame" that has been bothering PalmOS devices' screens since the first colour Clie came out has vanished with the VZ90?

No more white frame around the screen in programs.

Hey you are right!! I hate the white frame on my TH55

[lmame]

Do you think the black menus and theme are there to show off the contrast ratio? What are the exact dimensions of the screen, since it is obviously bigger than the screen on the ux.

The screen of the VZ is 5,7 cm by 8,5 cm against 4,7 by 7,5 for the UX.

The black theme is great to look at, and it changes from "classic" PalmOS PDA.
Problem is that quite a lot of applications (files / agendus Pro ...) believe that there is only white as background color... So they use extensively black to make a great contrast against what they believe the white background...
So mode icons are black on black background... Invisible...

[The Mad Dog]

what about bright daylight? I have a Samsung E700 and cannot see anything on the small OLED screen in daylight...

[222aaah]

And this new IC - can it convert to old MQV ? or just to new MP4?
Can you check - what is the difference in size between old MQV and new MP4, if you will convert the same file ? (Using IC 1.1 and 2.0).
Is there still stupid problem with sound conversion in video? Means - that only uncompressed audio can be converted successfuly? Or it is fixed and new version can convert mp3 encoded audio?
Can new Audioplayer play VBR mp3 ?

Anyway - judging from you words - it wont be possible to use all new multimedia features in our UX'es :( . That's bad. I was really counting on it .

What about PalmOS version there? Is it the same with UX?

[lmame]

what about bright daylight? I have a Samsung E700 and cannot see anything on the small OLED screen in daylight...

The screen is better than the UX, it is easier to read on it on daylight, still, it is far from perfect, as all PDA...

[lmame]

And this new IC - can it convert to old MQV ? or just to new MP4?
Can you check - what is the difference in size between old MQV and new MP4, if you will convert the same file ? (Using IC 1.1 and 2.0).
Is there still stupid problem with sound conversion in video? Means - that only uncompressed audio can be converted successfuly? Or it is fixed and new version can convert mp3 encoded audio?
Can new Audioplayer play VBR mp3 ?

Anyway - judging from you words - it wont be possible to use all new multimedia features in our UX'es :( . That's bad. I was really counting on it .

What about PalmOS version there? Is it the same with UX?

I'm working on it now and it is a bit difficult, trying to rip a DVD with subtitles but in a good resolution to ben encoded in image converter...
The biggest difference is the time...

Image converter encodes only in MP4, so you don't have the choice...

I encode with Image Converter 2 on the Vaio U50, Celeron 800Mhz and Image Converter on a PIV hyperthreading 3.4 Ghz...

Image converter 2 converts "lighting speed" compared to Image converter... even on a far less powerful computer...
The quality is very good in MP4, still I would prefer the MQV because to avoid "pixels" during actions scenes, MP4 puts some "blur" between frames when it moves too fast... They cheat :)
Yet the quality is very good.
The second reason I will stay on MQV is the file sizes...
MQV best quality for 24 minutes is 160 MB, and for MP4 best quality 240 MB and there is no difference in quality, except for the encoding time, much longer with Image Encoder...
It seems that on little time files, MQV and MP4 have nearly the same final size...

There is also a third reason, MP4 is much more dependent from the quality of the original file and its size (height / width), if the quality is not perfect, the result, even using the best settings won't be really good... On the same file, MQV gives a better result, yet with a processing time much more important...

For example I ripped a DVD I own with its subitles (FLCL), if I encode it from VOB to 320x316 MPEG1 2MB/s and MPEG2 6MB/s.
MQV done with both files are good (the best is from the MPEG2 file), but on MP4 there is an enormous difference between the MPEG1 and MPEG2... MP4 from MPEG is as beautiful as MQV, but from MPEG2 it is just awful...


So I guess it will be more complex to compare both systems MQV / MP4 as several parameters come:
-> Time processing, much faster on MP4,
-> File size, on big files, advantage for MQV, nearly the same on small ones,
-> quality of the original file, MQV is less sensitive to the quality, MP4 require perfection,


Else, you can also play directly MPEG1 file, it seems it is better on a VZ than on a UX, a bit smoother.

So, don't worry, not playing MP4 files on the UX is not terrible, as MQV seems to be the good choice, even on the VZ...


For the encoded video, it seems that like IC 1.1 you can not encode DivX files with audio encoded in MP3... I will do others tests, but it seems that way.

[lmame]

Two more things:
I corrected an error in my previous post, the MP4 gives a better result if the file is in MPEG1 than in MPEG2 (don't ask why)...

I checked encoding a DivX file and MP3 audio...
In IC1.1, video is encoded, but no sound.
In IC2, video AND sound is encoded ;)

But I saw DivX files refused so I guess the compatibility is not perfect, yet.

By the way encoding a DivX file gives a great result :)

[The Mad Dog]

It seems there is a new icon in the Netfront Status bar. What is it?

BTW: is this the mail of the shop? executive[at]u-systems.co.jp

??

[jjesusfreak01]

I could be going crazy, but I dont see netfront in any of the pictures. Mad Dog, do you mean the new icon in the regular status bar. Im sure youre thinking this but if id have to guess I would say that it is a clock.

[jjesusfreak01]

How long till someone rips the media player off this thing and posts it on the internet? I have a TH-55 and most of the installed programs on the VZ-90 will probably work on it.

[lmame]

It seems there is a new icon in the Netfront Status bar. What is it?

Which icon?
I can only see a difference between Netfront 3 and 3.1 (the zoom icon in 3.0 replaced by an icon to arrange the display of the web page, icon number 5 from left).

[lmame]

How long till someone rips the media player off this thing and posts it on the internet? I have a TH-55 and most of the installed programs on the VZ-90 will probably work on it.

I guess you did not look well enough ;)
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67550&page=3&pp=15

But you will be desapointed as it works only in 480x320...

[lmame]

It seems there is a new icon in the Netfront Status bar. What is it?

BTW: is this the mail of the shop? executive[at]u-systems.co.jp

??

No, this one:
pda-shop@pdakobo.com

[NJL!2016]

The VZ kinda reminds me of a Zaurus rip-off

[JAmerican]

Can that Movie Player on the VZ90 work on the UX40/UX50? I see that you can play Quicktime format files.

[lmame]

Can that Movie Player on the VZ90 work on the UX40/UX50? I see that you can play Quicktime format files.

Yes it will work fine playing MQV files, but not MP4 files.


EDIT:
Finally it is possible, see the other thread...

[CliePet]

> It seems it is possible to tweak the Image converter 2 parameters in the registry, as previous versions
Cool.
And you can tweek it for "full screen" 480x320 MP4 video as well
[plays back on the VZ, but not true "full screen" because the controls on the right hand side get in the way]

[phxchristian]

The screen of the VZ is 5,7 cm by 8,5 cm against 4,7 by 7,5 for the UX.

The black theme is great to look at, and it changes from "classic" PalmOS PDA.
Problem is that quite a lot of applications (files / agendus Pro ...) believe that there is only white as background color... So they use extensively black to make a great contrast against what they believe the white background...
So mode icons are black on black background... Invisible...


BTW, there is an app called Colorize (http://trials.palmgear.com/dl2.php/46384.zip/Colorize.zip) (Right-click to Download) or Spray Paint (http://palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&PartnerRef=&prodid=43866) (link to Palm Gear Page) that may work to change different default colors of icons, text, or background... Not sure if Colorize will work on the VZ or not.

-Chris

[lmame]

With CliePet hack you can work with Clie Organizer in paysage mode, but only in 320x320:
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_org_01.jpg

You can force it in 480x320 with Code Diver, but obviously Clie Organizer was coded to work only in 320x480 so there are a lot of graphics bugs, and sometimes it freezes and force you to perform a soft reset...
http://www.lmame-bug.com/vz/scr_org_02.jpg

[mutantblack]

god damn...look at all those photos. i think my ux50 has really good resolution and brightness. how wrong i am:(

[khad_o]

wow...nice pics :D the black finish looks great. i'd probably be tempted to get one of these if they come up with an english version in the future

[tapf!]

are they any way to put that black skin on my UX?

EDIT: I found Colorize and a second.

Fabian

[SonyStyle]

WOW THE VZ90 IS AMAZING WITH ITS COLOURFULL GRAPHICS. man when is sony coming back. i miss the nice pdas they made but for some reason they just can't make the perfect pda i want. i want a 4gb microdive, 2 MP cam, backlit keyboard, OLED, audio remote, enhanced IR, portrait and landscape, and palm os cobalt clie!!!

[Master-Q]

Do you think the black menus and theme are there to show off the contrast ratio? What are the exact dimensions of the screen, since it is obviously bigger than the screen on the ux.

I think you are right. I too think could it be to same battery power? Since, "black" is not on for each of the pixel.

Master-Q

[CliePet]

Colorize (free) works on the VZ90. Here's the 'dressed in black' theme from the VZ90 ready to import into Colorize on other PDAs
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69624

[SonyStyle]

Did anyone notice the "white frame" that has been bothering PalmOS devices' screens since the first colour Clie came out has vanished with the VZ90?

No more white frame around the screen in programs.

wow you are right, good observation!