It's here!! (Pre-production eval unit from Philips.) "Review" coming soon!!
Expect some serious activity here upon my return. Cheers!
The Nino is slightly larger than the two currently available Palm-size PC's, an issue that has been discussed on the newsgroups as being the Nino's Achille's Heel. But when I was writing on the screen of the E-10, I found it quite awkward--the lack of a place to rest my wrist was causing me to do the writing, in large part, with my elbow. I guess I've grown accustomed to my Newton MessagePad 2100 which is of a size (much larger than any Palm-size PC or Pilot) that allows the resting of the wrist along the side or on the bottom of the unit's front, making writing on the screen quite similar to writing on a pad of paper. The lack of such a "rest area" makes writing feel, to me anyway, quite unnatural--a feeling magnified by the fact that the soft input panel (where Jot accepts character input) is towards the bottom of the screen. The Nino is the only one of these first three units that will allow for what I consider to be comfortable handwriting input (made apparent by "air stylusing" on the screen of the actual-size photo of the Nino on Philips' info flyer). And what's more, SmARTwriter is bundled with the Nino which allows on-screen handwriting input that is not confined to the lower-region soft input panel area.
I know that over a million Pilot users are subject to this cramped writing situation and are dealing with it well enough. It's been about a year and a half since I was using a Pilot, and I have become quite used to not being cramped when handwriting on the Newton, though always wishing it was about half its current size so that I could carry it everywhere. It seems that the Nino offers the best possible ergonomic solution for handwriting recognition in a very small, notepad form-factor. So it's the Nino's accomodating size, rather than it's 16-shade screen, built in softmodem, superstylish steel casing, or high-speed CPU, that I now consider to be it's main attraction. (And it will still fit in your pocket.)
...and various other related newsgroups. If you've been keeping up as well, then you're probably aware that there are definitely some issues that users are having with these units. Judging from the large quantity of comments from different users, it seems that the Freestyle's screen has very poor contrast and a very weak backlight. I've seen numerous users online that have promtly returned the unit in exchange for a Casio or to await the arrival of the Nino. There are also complaints of it getting turned on when put back into its case due to the placement of the power button on the side of the unit. As for other, less serious issues I've heard (which apply to both units), it seems that the battery life does not begin to approach that which has been stated by the companies, which is not horribly surprising to me considering that these units use AAA batteries (as opposed to the more powerful AA's used in the Nino). Also, people are complaning of accidentally hitting the application launch buttons on the lower portion of the units' front when attempting to rest their wrist while writing on the screen. Philips has stated that the Nino's larger size was due to their desire to give the user a place to put his/her wrist while writing. It looks like sacrificing the smallest possible size for this ergonomic enhancement was a wager that is going to pay off.
I am one who is put off by "negative campaigning," so I hope this report does not come across as an evil attack against the other units. It's not meant to be anything of the sort. I do think that these are important issues to consider right now as people need to decide if they're going to wait another two or three weeks for the Nino, or march down to a local CompUSA, or whatever, and buy one of the currently available units. Also, I'm sure there will be certain issues with the Nino as well, when it comes out and users begin to report--I doubt any PDA is going to transcend potential improvement. Given the nature of some of these complaints, however, I definitely think that they're worth mulling over in the minds of prospective buyers.
Be sure to jump over to the above newsgroups and have a look. I think it'll make the short remaining wait a bit easier to bear. Cheers!
6/5/98 - Palm-size PC Case
Many of you may be unaware that there's a good number of WindowsCE-related newsgroups hosted by MSN that are available for everyone. The newsserver is publicnews.msn.com and you can get to their Palm-size PC-specific forum, msn.computingcentral.windowsce.devices.palmpc, by clicking here.
