No matter what manufacturers of Windows CE-based palm-sized PCs do to spruce up their offerings, they cannot seem to hit the vital sweet spot that will see consumers buying the devices in droves. Philips comes close with the Nino 500, which features a colour screen and a host of bells and whistles, but 3Com's PalmPilot continues to wipe the floor with the competition in this computing category. The Nino 500 shares the same ergonomic good looks of its monochrome predecessors - a silver body with tapered black plastic sides that give the user a firm grip. On each side of the Nino are buttons that allow the user to operate the device with one hand. On the left - up and down scroll buttons for scrolling within menus and Windows CE applications. On the right - buttons to launch applications. What distinguishes the Nino 500 from its predecessors is its 320 x 240 pixel colour screen which can display up to 256 colours - good enough for viewing photographs and images. The screen is also surprisingly sharp and text is crisp and easy to read. After all these years, it was a bit of a pleasant culture shock to see colour on a palm-sized device. Philips has tried to address one area in which Windows CE devices are being repeatedly thumped by the PalmPilot devices - inputting text. Since handhelds have no physical keyboards, users have had to rely on an on-screen keyboard or writing on the screen with a stylus to input data. While PalmPilots seem to have handwriting recognition down to a fine art, Windows CE devices have been struggling. The Nino has no fewer than four methods of text input - on-screen keyboard, handwriting recognition, character recognition and T9 Text Input. The 26 letters of the alphabet and three commonly used punctuation marks are arranged into nine squares. The user taps on the square containing the letter he is looking for and as the word is spelled out, T9 gives a list of alternatives. The method can be quite accurate for common words but it is slow and non-intuitive. None of the four methods on the Nino can match the PalmPilot's ease of use or accuracy. But there are advantages to the Windows CE platform - such as the ability to do voice recordings. Philips has even added a simple voice recognition applet, called NinoVoice, which after some training can launch applications you ask it to. For example, the user can say 'contacts' or 'in box' and it will bring up the address book or e-mail program. The front of the Nino sports a built-in microphone and speaker for voice functions. Although voice recordings sound tinny on the speaker, they sound perfectly OK with the device held against the ear or through headphones. The Nino 500 comes with enough memory for most handheld applications (16 MB Rom and 16 MB Ram) and can be expanded with industry-standard CompactFlash cards via a slot on the back. Despite that and a 75 MHz processor, prepare to be confronted with an hourglass when launching applications. Standard Windows CE applications on the Nino include Contacts, Calendar and Pocket Outlook. These applications are all well and good but they share the same problem. To get e-mails or on-line content such as news or horoscopes and audio into the device, the user must install software on your desktop or notebook computer, download the content and then synchronise it with the Nino. Tedious does not begin to describe the process. For Windows CE devices, the Nino 500 is as good as it gets on this platform. If you want colour this is it. If not, then one of the newer Palm Pilots are probably a better deal. Also, the Nino doesn't quite fit in the average shirt pocket. PROS AND CONS Product: Philips Nino 500 Price: Expected to retail at $4,000 in late July Pros: Nice design; bright colour screen; lots of applications Cons: Device is bulky; handwriting recognition still needs work; Windows CE
