I'm considering a NZ90 for a work project.

[exiii]

I work for a civil/environmental engineering firm, and we just completed phase I of a source study for an industrial waste treatment plant at our local air force base.

The job basically entailed a two-man team going through about a hundred buildings and inventorying all of the drains that inlet to the on-base treatment plant. All of their notes were completed by hand, and later had to be entered (by hand) into a database developed for the project as part of a GIS (geographical information system). All told, there were about 2500 records of information over 20 fields that were essentially entered twice (once in the field, once in the office).

Of course, a huge problem we encountered was handwriting. Quite often, the field teams couldn't even read their own notes let alone one of our office interns who were charged with populating the database from their notes.

We also had to take photos of each drain and system. These photos are also used in the GIS. This part went pretty smoothly with our digital camera, but might be a little easier with the Clies camera.

Later this year, we will be completing phase II of the project, which basically involves more of the same with increased detail over a focused area, and this time I'm looking to save a couple hundred man-hours of data (re)entry. I'm considering a NZ90, an extra battery (or two), a big MS, a car charger, and SmartListToGo.

So I have a few questions for NZ users:

1) what kind of battery life can I expect my field teams to get with the NZ90, both with and without the camera? They'll be logging drains continually for several hours each day in various light settings.

2a) is there a car charger available for the unit. I couldn't find one on sonystyle?

2b) if there is a car charger, can it charge an extra battery without the handheld?

3) can the extra battery be charged on the cradle?

4) has anyone here used a Clie in this sort of manner (basically a field data logging tool?

5) how stable are the units? My T415 crashed all the time. My T615 works great.

Thanks.

[the_iceman]

exiii,

I can answer maybe a few of your questions.....

1> 4 hours of good use (50% brightness) and not using the camera. 6-7hrs using lowest brightness setting and no camera

Camera functionality and battery drain seems different to different people. If you plan on taking say 50pics a day ... you would definately need 2 batteries to take pics and do your logging.

2a> Yes there are car chargers on ebay .... go take a look

2b> Not that I know of

3> only when it is in the PDA and in the cradle

4> Tons of good databases out there which you can get to track all the information you want to. I use HanDBase from www.ddhsoftware.com and I love it!!!!!!!!!!)

5> Very Stable. Very very few crashes... mostly in 'testing' out different software. Most software is very stable on the Clie NZ90.

When Taking PICS for work, I'd use the lowest resolution what your job needs (like 640x480 or 800x600). Less battery consumtion as it writes the pics to the Memory Stick (MS). Less data which has to be written on it... the better. :)

[exiii]

Thanks the_iceman.

I still might consider just using the digital cameras we have in conjunction with the NZ. Sometimes two devices just work better (we do have two-man teams after all, and I'd never use a phone/pda combo).

The reason I'd still choose the NZ over the NX is the removable battery. It'll be even more attractive if I can be charging one battery while I use the handheld.

I'll have to try out HanDBase. I've used SmartList and liked it a lot - I just didn't have a justifiable and practical application for it at the time. Using HDB, can you design full-screen forms on the 360x480 screen? The website didn't seem to specify this.

Again, thank you. I wondered if this would get any responses.

[Bo_]

I think you are better off with two devices...

The Killer app which would have changed that would be if the camera software would have ONE more option, so that a click would attach the image to a database entry, and let the user make notes before returning, that would be a time saver. but it takes VERY long time to browse through a large number of images in the Clie, and they would be spending more time looking for images than organizing thoughts.. (now this is not true if we were talking a limited number of entires... but in your case).


Bo

www.bophoto.com/clie

[exNewt]

So none of these softwares alllow one to create a data collection app that has a picture field? I know Pendragon Forms supports the Zire camera, but does nothing work with a Clie?

[anitanium]

if you are totally convinced in getting an NZ, i'd get an external battey pack that uses AA batteries rather than another NZ battery. It is much cheaper and you'll be taking a lot more pictures than you'll need

the NX80 has just as a nice camera if you're taking pictures in daylight all the time

[exiii]

exNewt: I know what you mean. Linking photos to a database seems like such a small thing for a Clie to do.

anitanium: Thank you. This thread is almost a year old.

I considered it, but ultimately decided against it for several reasons.

One reason was the thing exNewt just revisited. Another was that the main guy in the field on this project is intimidated by technology, his computer and even his work cell phone. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him I wanted him to use a handheld computer. I knew right then that we'd burn the budget in training him how to use it and then redoing work that he'd somehow lost. This guy worked on this project for six months a year ago and still asks someone else to download the photos he takes in the field. It was simply not worth it.

It would make sense in so many ways to utilize some sort of handheld data acquisition, but he's here for keeps, and it really is useless to try to teach someone who thinks they can't learn.

[exNewt]

The good news at least is that HanDbase
http://www.ddhsoftware.com has a plug-in
http://www.ddhsoftware.com/description.html?II=DDHPLG400&UID=2004031514433363.148.254.180
that supports at least linking to and viewing a photo stored in the Clie.

Another option relates to http://www.pumatech.com/sf_mad_main.html (formerly Satellite Forms) and a developer who has a camera plug-in for the Zire camera http://www.palmdatapro.com/itm00117.htm I e-mailed him and found he was working on a plug-in that will support all Clies except the NZ90.

[exNewt]

Even better (as Satellite Forms costs $$$) the folks at PenDragon forms said this:
" For a long while, Sony had removed their camera SDK (Development Kit) from developer hands. We did not have access to their SDK, but did have access to the Palm one, so we made a control for the Palm. They very recently released the SDK to developers again, so there may be work on such a control for Sony devices in the future. I unfortunately do not know for sure, or have an ETA for such support."