Sony Clie PEG-NX73V Handheld

Sony’s Clié range has included flip-and-swivel PDAs for some time, but NX73V is the sleekest yet. With its magnesium slate black case, Sony has managed to bring together a huge range of features, in a PDA that while on the large side, is still quite pocketable.

Running Palm OS 5, on an Intel PXA263 processor running at 200MHz, the NX73V has 16MB or RAM and a 300K pixel camera that supports up to 640 x 480 resolution. However, it is the screen that is the biggest attention-grabber as its capable of 320 pixels of width and 480 of length if you shrink the Graffiti area. Viewing diary dates, or reading files using the supplied Picsel Viewer, which can cope with document types including HTML, PDF and Microsoft Word, is a positive experience because the display format is closer to the ‘portrait’ orientation of standard paper, and therefore somehow feels better than more usual squarer Palm PDA screens.

There is plenty of other software provided by Sony, pre-installed so you don’t need to take up any of the RAM to use it. The range runs from an MP3 and ATRAC3 player to an infra red remote control, world alarm clock, handwriting recognition software, digital video and stills viewers, email and SMS applications, and software for taking still and moving images with the built-in camera. There is no flash, but you can make settings for indoor and outdoor shots which should help you get the most out of your images.

There are both Compact Flash and Memory Stick card slots, and as is usual with this range from Sony, there is a tiny thumb-tappable keyboard which, if your fingers are small enough, you can use pretty effectively.

This is an expensive, top of the range Clié, which has plenty of multimedia capability but could also be used to good effect at work.--Sandra Vogel