From: Richard Kilpatrick (dmc12_at_btconnect.com)
Date: Wed Dec 08 2004 - 09:33:16 PST
I recently sold all my Newtons but my 110, because whilst the
technology does do impressive things, it's still somewhat bulky. I
replaced them with a Sony Clie UX50, which I think is about the best
Clie you can get - perhaps the black NZ90 with 2MP camera and
(optional) WiFi CF card would come close to surpassing it, but it is
bigger and the card is optional.
Needless to say the Clie is faster and more capable than my 2100 was by
sheer brute force, it has 104Mb memory and dedicated graphics and sound
CPUs meaning the relatively slow 123MHz ARM core is not as overworked
as you'd expect.
Anyway, the UX50 was discontinued a while ago - accessories are
frighteningly expensive used and if anyone does find a PEGA-EB40
battery pack for it for close to the $119 RRP, rather than the
$229/$200+ people are asking (and FWIW getting) on eBay I would love to
hear from them. Sony appear to be replacing it with another Palm form
factor machine, sadly, since I adore the 'tiny laptop' form - I am
considering getting a scaled down white Apple logo to stick on it.
Freak people out when running Palm VNC talking to my Mac (it's colour,
of course, and looks scarily like MacOS is running on the Palm).
I know that the 2100 and UX50 both occupied an expensive end of the
market, one that is filled by cheap laptops and even iBooks financially
- but even then, the UX50 is what I always imagined a pocket computer
to be, the Sci-Fi reality. I've owned Palms in the past and been
decidedly unimpressed. Why is it that companies just can't keep on
producing the good products? If the Clie were to die, apart from
another Clie, my nearest equivalent would be the Zaurus (admittedly the
new one with 4Gb HD is incredibly interesting) which presumably lacks
the 'efficiency' of PalmOS.
I know at least one other UX50 owner is around on the list, so I wonder
if this is the only Palm deemed worthy of Newton 'replacement' ;)
Richard
-- Tasty Other - Because Far Too Much in Life Makes Sense Music for download - coming soon (RIP MP3.com) G.A.S. http://www.dmc12.demon.co.uk/music/ Platform: PowerMac G5 2.0GHz Dual, 20" LCD, Logic, Hammerfall. -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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