Philips Nino 300
Power, Style and
Ergonomics

By Jason Perlow

Many consumer electronics manufacturers develop "me too" products in an attempt to capitalize on the success of others and establish market share. Perhaps a more important influence on Palm-size PCs is the Windows CE operating system, which specifies the look of the user interface, the basic applications and utilities, the general size, shape, screen, input method of the device, and number and type of buttons.

Because they are so similar, the different Palm-size PCs tend to be viewed as "me-too" products. But in reality, manufacturers put a lot of attention on giving their Palm-size PC an edge over the others. This is readily apparent with the new Philips Nino 300 Palm-size PC. Instead of creating a "me too" machine, or even a "mine is different" device, Philips aimed at creating a "mine is better" Palm-size PC. To a great degree they succeeded.

Well-thought-out and superbly engineered

The Nino is the third Palm-size PC to hit the market, preceded by the Everex Freestyle and Casio Cassiopeia. But third out of the gate doesn't necessarily mean third across the finish line. Philips has developed a well thought out and superbly engineered product that will certainly give Casio and Everex a run for the money.

Ergonomics was obviously an important consideration in the Nino's design. The stylish, silver and dark gray Nino 300 measures 0.8 x 3.4 x 5.3 inches. This extra length makes the Nino a little more difficult to carry in your shirt pocket, but also makes it easier to hold, especially in a larger hand. Both sides of the Nino are padded with a rubber-like material that is soft to the touch and less slippery than metal or plastic. The Nino's tapered shape comfortably fits the contours of your hand.

The Nino sports a 75MHz 32-bit PR31700 processor (also used in the Philips Velo 500 H/PC). The Everex and Casio Palm-size PCs use 53MHz and 66MHz processors respectively. Menus pop up almost instantaneously and applications start and run very quickly, even when scrolling though long lists of contacts in Pocket Outlook. The Philips PR31700 processor in the Nino 300 also provides processing power for an internal 19.2Kbps soft-modem, which must be used with an external connector module, sold as an accessory. You have to be careful making performance judgments based on megahertz numbers, especially when the numbers are so close. But the Nino clearly has the snappiest performance of the three.

One-handed operation

The Nino and other Palm-size PCs are designed to hold and operate with one hand. For example, a right-handed person would hold the Nino in his or her left hand and access the scroll/action/exit buttons with the thumb, and the four application buttons with the index and forefingers. The right hand is free to use the stylus. The Nino's (and other Palm-size PC's) design favors right-handed users.

The Voice Record application is accessed via a button on the right hand side of the case. Press the button once to open the application or just hold down the button and speak to record a voice memo. The button is always exposed, even when the Nino is in its slipcase, making it easy to make a quick voice memo. The built-in speaker faces the front of the unit and produces loud and clear sounds.

Backlighting, battery life and more

The Nino's screen is very easy to read, even in bright sunlight. And should you need to adjust the screen contrast, Philips has conveniently placed a thumb wheel control on the lower right side of the case. The backlighting is bright and it makes it easy to see the screen in the dark. However, you should be aware that using backlighting on the Nino (or any Palm-size PC) drains the battery 10 to 15 times faster than normal. Use it when you need it, but don't overuse it. One of the nice things about the Nino is that it comes with a NiMH rechargeable battery. Slip it into its docking cradle at work or in the evening and you should never have to worry about running out of battery power. The Nino has two bright LED indicators that tell you when the unit is charging and when an appointment comes due.

Another nice touch is the cover to the CompactFlash slot, which slides open easily, but never completely detaches from the case. You won't lose this cover, but it is a little fragile, so be careful when you insert the CompactFlash card, and close the cover immediately. The Nino's CompactFlash slot lets you add memory, a LAN adapter, and other I/O devices. The Nino needed a "software update" before it would recognize any of the CompactFlash memory cards I tried with it (32 MB Kensington Technology card and an 8 MB SanDisk card). In neither case would the Nino recognize the card until we downloaded and installed a software update, available free of charge from the Nino website: nino.philips.com/support/updates.html. (The Web site also has two updates to the Nino documentation.) Download the file labeled "Philips Nino Software Update 1.0" to your desktop PC, unZIP it, connect the Nino to the desktop PC using Windows CE Services, and run the software update setup program.

T9 makes text input easier

The Nino has the standard Palm-size PC applications, including the built-in version of the Jot handwriting recognition program and a "soft keyboard." In addition, Philips has added a new input system called "T9" (Text on nine keys), developed by Tegic Communications (www.tegic.com). T9 displays a large, nine-key pad on the bottom half of the Nino's screen. Each key represents three, and sometimes four characters, similar to a phone's keypad (see Screen 1 below). As you tap the characters, T9 lists the different possible words at the top of its keypad. When you are finished entering characters, you tap on the desired word and it's entered into your application.

Screen 1: T9's large keypad makes it easy to enter characters into any application on the Nino. Tap on the appropriate keys and then select the correct word from the list above the keypad.

All Palm-size PCs come with word prediction capability. For example, you start entering the word "computer" using Jot or the built-in soft keyboard. After you enter a few letters a box will pop up with a list of possible words. T9 did not predict words based on entering just a few characters. You had to enter the entire word and then chose from the list.

The big plus with T9 is the size of the keypad. The keys are much bigger and easier to find that those on the soft keyboard. I found that with a little practice, I could enter short notes faster with T9 than I could with the soft keyboard or Jot. And because I was selecting words from a list, T9 almost completely eliminated spelling mistakes.

In addition to T9, the Nino comes with ART's Pocket Commander and SmARTwriter. Pocket Commander lets you use voice commands to start applications, open contacts, and more. It's easy to train the application to recognize your voice, but I found that the Nino responded slower when Pocket Commander was running in the background. SmARTwriter is another handwriting recognition program. Instead of having to change the way you write (as you do with Jot), a ten minute training session teaches SmARTwriter to recognize your printed handwriting. I found it to be less accurate than Calligrapher, the other handwriting recognition program for Windows CE. But SmARTwriter is already built in to the Nino and doesn't take up any of its limited file storage space. The Nino also comes with a simple expense manager application built in, good for tracking business expenses when traveling.

Philips has put together a stylish and fast product with a lot of nice extras. They also offer a nice line of accessories for the Nino, including an attachable modem, Nino-to-PC connectivity cable, extra docking station, compact AC adapter, car charger, rechargeable battery pack, SanDisk CompactFlash memory cards (8 and 15 MB), and a traveling case.

Once Philips gets past some initial distribution problems, the Nino will certainly give the other Palm-size PCs very serious competition. For now, I have to send the review unit back to Philips, and I'm sad to see it go.

  About The Author

Jason Perlow (perlow@hot mail.com.) is a handheld computing enthusiast and the President of Argonaut Systems, a New Jersey-based systems integration firm.