I've had my Philips Nino 300 for a couple of months now. I was looking to upgrade from an old Sharp PDA and was really interested in the Windows CE platform. Well, I came across the Nino on an auction site an was very impressed with the options that it offered and the fact that I could purchase it for a mere $121!

Using MS ActiveSync 3.0 makes it a synch to synchronize with my desktop. am really impressed with its seamless integration with Outlook. The display is fairly easy to read, with and without the backlight on. The display supports 4 gray tones. I really didn't feel the color screen of the 500 series justifies the increased cost and decreased battery life.

The Nino has action buttons on both sides of the unit. This makes it rather easy to complete simple tasks with just one hand, such as looking up info on a contact, etc. It has 4 action buttons that are programmable to open programs with a single button, even when the unit is off. However, these buttons are fairly easy to bump. This happens occasionally when I carry the Nino in my suit's breast pocket. This is really not a big deal, for you can set the unit to turn off without any activity. The only exception is that the action button 1, by default, calls up the voice recorder. This can eat up space pretty quickly. The file can be easily deleted, just something to keep in mind.

The Nino also comes with some decent software. The handwriting recognition is one of the more user friendly ones that I am familiar with. You train it according to your style, rather than learning a cryptic alphabet. I have also found the financial program to be very handy. You can track expenses by categories, as well as separate projects.

Another big selling point for me was the fact that the Nino shipped with a supplied rechargeable battery. Even more impressive is, if I deplete the rechargeable, I can always toss in a couple of AA's to carry me over until I can recharge! The Nino can recharge from the synchronizing cradle or just plugged in directly to the wall. You can also purchase an adapter to charge from the cigarette lighter plug in your car. Like the Palm, the Nino also has a click on modem available for purchase, though I have not sprung for one yet.

The Nino 300 comes with 4MB of ram and 4MB of rom. There is more than sufficient. However, with the popularity of the Windows CE platform, there are a ton of great programs to download from the web, everything from games to digital books. The Nino accepts flash memory cards, just the same that many digital cameras use. I bought a 16MB one for less than $50. With that kind of memory available, the Nino is with me for the long haul, or at least as long as I can fight the temptation of the ever-more-powerful palms being released.



Recommended: Yes