New Sony Clie packs 2-meg digicam

 

Gallery

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 17 Feb 2003 at 17:56

Sony's new Clie PEG-NZ90 tops out its Clie range of handhelds, sporting Palm OS 5 zipping along over an Intel chip at 200MHz, along with Bluetooth and a 2megapixel digital camera.

Available at the end of the month for a suggested retail price of a shade under £600, the PEG-NZ90 maintains the same clean lines you expect from the Clie range and incorporates the swivel/rotate higne that allows you to position the button keyboard underneath the 320x480 TFT colour screen or flip it behind to protect it when not in use.

The key addition to the PEG-NZ90 is the 2megapixel integrated camera, with built-in flash and scene modes for difficult lighting settings. You can even manually adjust colour and exposure settings.

Movies and images can be viewed and edited using Sony's supplied software and images can be sent direct to a printer via the USB connection in the cradle or over Bluetooth (if you're lucky enough to have a Bluetooth printer).

Further connectivity comes courtesy of the obligatory infra-red, but also thanks to an AV cable so you can view images direct through a TV or monitor.

Storage and add-on modules can be had through the CompactFlash Type II slot and a Memory Stick slot.

Also new on the PEG-NZ90 is the inclusion of a removable Lithium-Ion battery pack. Sony claims a charge is good for 10 days' average use, so having a spare battery just in case may prove a useful backup.

Other touches include an integrated audio player that supports MP3 and Sony's ATRAC3 formats, a voice recorder and a remote control application that works through the infra-red port to control TVs, VCRs, DVD players and the like.

Beside the software already mentioned, Sony bundles the Picsel Viewer that acts much like Documents To Go, allowing the user to view Microsoft Office documents, as well as PDF and image formats without having to convert them.

There is also software for browsing the Net and setting up email accounts.