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Sony's ClIE PEG-NX80V and NX73V handhelds build on the revolutionary design of the original models in the NX series, the NX70V and NX60V, which were first released last year. At the time, the NX series' combination of a digital camera, powerful processor, huge 320x480 resolution display, integrated keyboard and swivel screen was truly startling. Sony took it to the next level with the bulky, heavy and expensive NZ90. The newest models take these features and refines them, however, making the NX80V, in particular, a PDA that can accept the label "jack of all trades" and do them all efficiently.

For those not familiar with the swivel design of the NX series, it allows you to use the device as kind of a min-laptop or tablet style like most other PDAs. The Palm OS 5 NX80V also features a 3.8-inch, 320x480 pixel and 65,000 color display that can stand toe to toe with the screen on any other PDA. It is 50% larger, resolution wise, than any other Palm OS handheld except for Palm's new Tungsten T3.

The handheld uses Graffiti 2 (based on CIC's Jot), the latest version of Graffiti that accepts strokes closer to real world handwriting than original Graffiti. Users can write on a virtual graffiti writing area at the bottom of the screen or choose to write anywhere else on the display. Speaking of handwriting recognition, Sony bundles another application called Decuma, which allows you to write in a manner even closer to they way you would on paper. It is also customizable and allows you to create shortcuts. The device also features Sony's unique application launcher that is more pleasing graphically and functional than what comes standard in the Palm OS. The launcher runs as a shell on top of the operating system.

The NX80V includes a powerful 200MHz XScale processor, which nevertheless is half the speed of the CPU found in the Palm Tungsten C and Tungsten T3, and has 32MB of RAM, half that of those two Palm branded handhelds. 16MB of RAM are available to the user, while the rest is used as what is referred to as heap memory, helping applications to run more efficiently, which is important for a device like this one, which excels in multimedia.

It weighs 8 ounces and measures a not very compact .8 x 2.8 x 5.25 inches, but is far less bulky than the earlier NZ90. Anyway, if you take into consideration how many features are crammed into the NX80V's shell, it is not very big at all. The power button is located on the left side of the NX80V just bellow a jog dial and back button that are used for one hand operation of the device and its applications. While we like the jog dial, some users prefer the 5 way navigation button found on the more recent Palm handhelds. There is also an application ribbon that rests at the bottom of the display and serves as kind of a start menu found on a PC. On the right side of the unit is a button to launch the voice recorder application and a jack for stereo headphones.