Documentary of upgrading from my NR70 to my new NX70V - Informational

[twoforty]

:D

I took advantage of my Performance plan at Best Buy and replaced my "old" NR70 with the new NX70V and have never been happier. I recommend you get this puppy, It's all I imagined it would be.

My NR70 was a great little PDA. I worked the hell out of it: big address book, calendar dates galore, hacks, mp3s, the occasional 'adult' movie, etc. However the whole time I used my unit ( about 5 months ) it had a burnt out pixel right in the lower-left of the screen. No biggie, but reason enough for the good ole' Performance Plan 'upgrade'.

So I took my trusty NR70 to the store, and within ten minutes and paying $104.75 for the difference, I had a brand new NX70V. Plugged it into my wall right away and ran off to the Jurassic 5 show that came into town. By the time I got back, she was warm (from charging) and ready !! What follows is the experience of upgrading from my old NR70V: old files, progams, address book, etc and throwing all my old files onto the new guy.

Bad Idea, HotSync NX70V with settings from NR70:::
By 12:00 midnight it was charged up. Figured what the hell, just try a HotSync and see if it updates all my old info/files/calendar info/etc.... CRASH. The NX70 took a shit. Wound up filling up the entire NX70V and didnt have enough free mem. to run. Bad Idea. *Interesting note: there's only 10mg of free space on the NX70V from all the default prog's and such. Much less than the old NR70. So after doing several Hard Resets ( hold down power, hit reset switch, answer 'yes' to the full reset question ) I had brought the NX70V back to it's default state.

Manual Backup of all old files / programs:
The easiest way to copy everything over is to start over again. However you can still import your old address book, calendar, etc. This is how I did it.

I copied my entire user directory: c:\program files\sony handheld\<myusername>\ and put it in a backup folder. Then I removed the ENTIRE Sony Clie program tree. Palm Desktop, Memory Stick programs, Avant Go, etc. Wiped it all.

Next I installed the new program set from the CD that came with the NX70V as usual. Once completed, I manually copied over my old address book entries, calendar info, memo pad, etc.

Transferring Old Address Book, Calendar, etc:
I went to the backed up directory and into the 'address' subdirectory. Got address.dat and copied it to my *new* sony directory: c:\program files\sony handheld\<username>\address\ and replaced the address.dat file. Ran HotSync and violla, address book back in style. Do the same for 'memopad' and 'datebook'.. grab the .dat's and HotSync.

Transferring Old Programs: So I went into explorer and copied all the important stuff, for manual install onto my new unit. I went to backedup directory and grabed any files that stood out. For instance 'DopeWars.PRC', 'SecretPad.PRC', and other programs I wanted to keep that wouldnt bitch too much about jumping to the new OS. Keep in mind, don't copy over AvantGo or programs more intricate than your basic freeware. Best to re-install completely. Just double click on the files and the NX70V installer prog will load and on next HotSync, they'll update.

After all was said and done, it was 3:00am, I spent the next hour messin with installing music videos and mp3s.

Changes from NR70 usage to NX70V usage:
I'd like to say that Sony has done a MUCH better job with this handheld and it's interface to the PC. There are a few new programs which automate copying over mpg's and mp3s for instance. Called 'MS Export', just run the program, and it fires up a browser for .mp3s, .mpgs, etc. Select the file you want to put on your mem stick and hit 'Update'.. thats it. No digging around /PALM/MSAUDIO, etc.

Palm Desktop is pretty much the same, no major changes.

Clie Mail is still a pain in the ass. Can't get it to work with my multiple IMAP accounts, seems to only support POP3. I'll keep messing with this.

Image Converter, Sound Coverter: Very cool programs that let you import .wav files as alarm sounds. Already added some upbeat drum-and-bass tracks as my alarm clock... 'Afternoon' just got on my nerves.

Flash 5 player: Yup, a pretty neat add-on. Ive uploaded several flash promo movies from my company and its pretty impressive. Lets you full-screen the flash movies and rotate to widescreen. Neat if you do on-the-road presentations. Does the basic Flash MX things, haven't tried off-the-wall .swf's that have forms, etc.. but the basics are there.. tweening and sound.

The Camera and Voice Recorder: very neat. Camera is at 640x480 and looks decent. Does the job for me. Still grainy images at times, but not as bad as the old NR70V. Supports 320,000 colors I believe. With my 128mg memory stick I can record up to 60 minutes of video with audio!! Now thats bad ass. I've already filmed some business meetings. Also good to note is the Voice Recorder. Just press the button on the side and you can record voice memos or voice conversations. Great for meetings, and with the 128mg mem stick I can record several hours of audio. Video play back is excellent. The old NR70v sports a 66mhz Moto. Dragonball processor, the NX70V has a 200mhz arm intel chip... huge speed increase. Video playback is a champ, excellent frame-rates... i'd say mid 20's.


Palm OS5: Cant tell too much of a difference feature-wise. However the screen is much-much sharper, and the icons are much more detailed. You can also hide the graffiti pad and full-screen almost 100% of the applications. Also a great new UI-frontend for the apps. A new applauncher which is very customizable and heavily uses the jog-dial.

All and all, I'm very happy with the new NX70V. Has everything the old NRx had yet much more capable and solid. As compared to the old NRx, it acutually has support for all the buttons you see. ( The NR series had full screen buttons, etc... however never worked and weren't supported... pretty lame ). Let me know if you have any questions, I'll post answers if I get the time....

[cerberus]

Wow, sounds like a lot of trouble. I too took advantage of my PSP and traded my NR for the NX70. Not to make light of your situation, but it really wasn't as difficult as it had to be for you. All you really needed to do was uninstall Palm Desktop, MSExport, Sound Converter, and Picture Gear. Then browse to your Sony Handheld directory and then your username folder. Delete all the items in the archive and backup folder(backup is where the problems come into play). All your addresses, contacts, dates and memos will still be in their respective folders. Reinstall Palm Desktop, MSExport(if you want it), and the other apps. Then Hotsync and watch the magic happen. You'll have a fresh install but with all your old data. I only know this because I also did the same as you. Mine didn't crash, but it didn't like most of my old programs for the NR! If you know what the files are, you can actually save the backup folder to another location and reinstall most of your programs without losing their settings. After two Hotsyncs, my NX was exactly the same as my good ol'
NR, except better!

[Teqanjel]

Thanks for the informative post. I will (hopefully) be upgrading from a HandEra 330 to an NX60 in the next day or two.

On a more humorous note, I couldn't help but smile at something you said (boldface is mine):

"So I took my trusty NR70 to the store, and within ten minutes and paying $104.75 for the difference, I had a brand new NX70V. Plugged it into my wall right away and ran off to the Jurassic 5 show that came into town. By the time I got back, she was warm (from charging) and ready !! What follows is the experience of upgrading from my old NR70V: old files, progams, address book, etc and throwing all my old files onto the new guy."

If I'm not mistaken, I believe clicking on "Info..." ought to tell you whether your new Clie is a boy or a girl. ;)

Either way, good luck with your new NX70V!

- Teqanjel

[AZSideroad]

Unfortunately I've used my Best Buy plan so many times for exchanges, that Best Buy may personally deny me. I've used it (the replacement plan) since my N760C, to exchange to a Compaq iPaq, a T665c, and three different NR70Vs (two had dead pixels, then the current one which has no problems). I would feel like slime (more so than some of you think I am), if I were to try to use it to exchange my NR70V. I may just wait until I have the cash instead of putting it on my Best Buy card, and sell the NR70V once I know my main programs will work (mostly games).

[Skilover]

I'm with twoforty. I had exactly the same result after "upgrading" from my NR70 to the NX70. I filled the memory, etc. when I tried a simple hot sync, and had to Hard reset the unit, move my personal user data out of the "user", create a new user, move my personal data (contacts, etc.) back in and then hot sync. I then, of course, had to install any aps I wanted. Several are not yet compatible with OS 5, and I suppose you all know OS5 does not support hacks (I had some pretty clever ones).

The NX70 is a fine machine, though heavier and a bit thicker than the prior model. IT IS FAST. The launcher is cool once you get used to it. I am not nearly as good at video as twoforty, I haven't really gotten past mp3's and a couple pics. I need to explore, I guess. My old unit didn't have a camera, either.

I do have a BIG problem, tho. I cannot make the thing connect to my GPRS Cell phone to access the internet. I followed Nokia's directions to a T, and it won't work. I use the same cell in bluetooth mode with my PC, and it works great. I'm trying to use IR with the Clie (although you CAN get a bluetooth memory stick, but they're expensive.) When I hit "connect" the Clie acts like its trying to connect, but the phone isn't getting a message or responding. IDEAS?

[DigitalJEM]

Originally posted by AZSideroad
Unfortunately I've used my Best Buy plan so many times for exchanges, that Best Buy may personally deny me. I've used it (the replacement plan) since my N760C, to exchange to a Compaq iPaq, a T665c, and three different NR70Vs (two had dead pixels, then the current one which has no problems). I would feel like slime (more so than some of you think I am), if I were to try to use it to exchange my NR70V. I may just wait until I have the cash instead of putting it on my Best Buy card, and sell the NR70V once I know my main programs will work (mostly games).

Hey, they sold you the plan, you paid for it. use it up. :-) I traded my Visor Prism in once for a replacement, then on the second time I went ahead and upgraded to the NX-60. I must say I like it alot more, though it does seem like I have to charge the battery on this nx60 more often that I had to on my Prism, but that's o.k. with me, as long as the battery lasts me all day long.

Just as note, the first replacement was cause the backlight would come on, but the screen would stay black and you couldn't see anything. The second replacement was cause the screen was flickering lightly, but to me it was very noticable and the battery wasn't lasting as long. I've loved my nx-60 since I got it.. not issues with it yet.. except for the hotsync app crashing problem i'm having.. but that isn't a big deal.

[Tristan]

Obviously you had a problem with your previous clie hence why you took it back. I do have a question though which is out of curiosity, why did they not just give you a new nr70 instead of a NX70? I ask this cause I assume they have fixed the glitches in the last of the nr70 and there seems to be a lot still in stock at the stores. Its cool that they let you do this by far, I am just waiting out the holiday rush to get a replacement cause my hinge is broken and I have the memory stick glitch still.

[Skilover]

Believe it or not, they no longer have NR70 in stock, that is why they upgraded me to NX70. Perhaps they send them back to SONY, but actually I have seen this before, they know well in advance of release and stop adding stock. They generally sell out of the old product before a new one comes in, but, of course, not always.

[THEDOC]

AFTER UPGRADING TO IS UNIT FROM NR70V THE MAX MEM ON THE NEW UNIT WAS 11.6 APPROX OUT OF 16 EVEN AFTER A HARD RESET THE NR70V HAD 14-15 . BECAUSE AFTER I MOVE ALL DATA FROM THE OLD UNIT I RAN OUT OF SPACE AND I STILL HAD SOME MEM LEFT ON THE OLD UNIT. IS THERE A WAY TO GET MORE SPACE BACK>? THANKS THEDOC

[Skilover]

move some software you don't plan to use to the memory stick. I think the NX has quite a bit more software out of the box than the NR did, including email. That is about all i can think of to account for the difference. Also, the operating system itself is most likely larger. That certainly happens with PC's as the operating systems get more sophisticated they grow.