Product Requirements:
Device:
Sony Clie n700 series
If you are unwilling to settle for just any stylus – and you feel that your
choice should be able to do more than just write on your PDA’s screen, then you
really need to check out the line of stylus replacements that Pilot Pentopia
offers.
Like other Chameleons that I have reviewed in the past, the
Pilot Pentopia
Chameleon for the Clie is a perfect example of form and function. Made of
translucent plastic with a gray metal barrel, the Chameleon manages to add
enough weight to not be cheesy, yet be light enough that you won’t mind it’s
presence.
| Not only do you get a vastly superior writing tip when you use the Chameleon, but you also get a built in black ball-point pen. Although this isn’t a pen you would want to write your life’s story with, |
 |
 |
A longer than average reset pin is revealed when you unscrew the stylus tip end of the Chameleon. Notice the spring behind the stylus |
| The Chameleon fits perfectly in the Clie 700 series silo. It is a welcome addition to my Clie N710c, and I have no intention of giving mine up! Now, if they would just make one for my new NR70V!! |
 |
The Pilot Pentopia
Chameleon for the Sony Clie is available at
Stylus Central and other retailers.
Price: $18.95 MSRP
Pros:
Built in pen
Built in reset button
Stylus "gives" on PDA’s screen when writing
Cons:
None
Product Information
| Price: | 18.95 |
| Manufacturer: | Pilot Pentopia |
| Pros: |
|
| Cons: |
|
Gadgeteer Comment Policy - Please read before commenting
Post your comments on the TECHXNY / PC Expo with the Gadgeteers Article.
http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/techxny-pcexpo-2003-monday-article.html
Just click the POST REPLY button on this page.
After reading about your experience in the NYC gadget shop, I have to say that it is typical of the shops down there. They cater to travellers who are wowed by the technology and don’t know any better than to pay the inflated prices for goods that may be of questionable origin. I almost bought two laptops down there…an Omnibook 300 and a Twinhead subnote. Different times, different shops. The vendors took out the boxes (of the supposedly new items) and showed me what they came with. The items were obviously used and missing some items. It was my opinion (which I kept to myself, as I wished to keep breathing) that the items were hot. They show you some wonderful things in the display window, but when you go inside the reality is often much different.
PC Expo is always a good time…though this year they decided to hold it when I couldn’t go. They have always held it the middle to end of June (when school lets out) but this year they held it right at the beginning of the school year. I never take a sick day this time of year unless I am in imminent danger of death. I will have to live vicariously through your narrative!
If you want to have a truly unique dining experience in New York, then you must try eating at the Churrascaria Plataforma. It is a brazilian steak house and buffet (all you can eat of everything). If you like bar-b-que’d meat, you will love this place:
http://www.in-newyorkmag.com/frame/set.htm?site=http://www.churrascariaplataforma.com
Larry B.
$600 air fare six months in advance? You’ve got to be kidding. Yikes, between that and your homeowners’ insurance premium you really should consider moving north. Of course you’ll have to factor in the snowblower cost and I don’t think the Harley truck will handle too well in the snow.
Mike 😉
I gotta say, as a native New Yorker (could you guess that from my username?) I am thrilled that you guys are experiencing NYC for the first time; you will have a blast. And Ollies is great for cheap good eats — I used to take weekend classes at Columbia and would stop there after class. Looking forward to your trip notes!
isobutane,
So true. I warned Judie about those electronic stores. They sell remanufactured, reconditioned, used, hot, or just plain broken items and also pull the bait and switch on you.
By the time the unsuspecting tourist realizes he’s been had, he’s back home in Podunk, USA and it’s too late.
Most of them also have an unwritten No Return Policy.
Buyer Beware…
Wow, Ollie’s? Hahaha, that’s too funny. I’m a Columbia (undergrad) student so I know alllll about Ollie’s. NYC is a blast. Don’t let the annoying drivers at JFK or LaGuardia get you down. This is the BEST CITY IN THE WORLD!!!!
P.S., if you feel like having a slice of pizza the size of a yield sign for $2.50, head over across the street from Ollie’s on 113th and B-Way and grab a slice from Koronet’s. Best deal in the city, I swear. Watch for clogging arteries though 😎
Enjoy your stay!
Oh, and an insider’s tip? If you’re willing to venture way underground into NYC (it’s really not that bad), don’t bother with cabs in the city. They’re almost always slower and *always* more expensive than the good ol’ subway. The subway runs 24/7/365, which is a lot better than the situation back home in Boston. :p Avoid buses when possible, as they’re tiresomely SLOW.
Agreed totally with maxintosh. Most NYers don’t commute via taxis, they take the subway. It’s really the only way to get around. 😉
Oh, and be prepared to walk around a LOT for Javits. It’s in the middle of nowhere.
Maybe I’ll see you two tomorrow, I’ll be there. 🙂
–janak
Ollies will do the trick, but you really should check out chinatown while you’re here. In particular, there’s a place I like called “Excellent Dumpling House” where they have great shau lon pau among other dishes. The place looks like nothing (the interior is green tile like a Krispy Kreme) and it’s cash only, but yumm…
It’s on Lafayette St. just south of Canal St.
You should also try Lombardi’s Pizza on Spring St. between Mott and Mulberry for the best pie in Manhattan. It’s also cash only.
If you like sushi, Tomoe is the best on earth (and reasonably priced). The lines can be long, especially on a weekend, but if you go early-ish on a weeknight, you shouldn’t wait more than 30 minutes tops, and it’s definitely worth that. It’s on Thompson St. between Bleeker and Houston, and they only take cash and amex.
NYC is full of great restaurants, but those are three of my practical favorites – great (even world-class) food and low prices with no pretention.
-nuxi, a new yorker and gadgeteer reader since 1997.
I know your TechXNY trip reports are like a travelogue, but do you think that you could keep the meal descriptions down to a minimum, please?
I am aware that your first day was not actually at the convention, but I am reading these articles to get some idea of the gadgets coming out soon.
Overall, I really like your trip reports. Keep up the good work.
I was extremely disappointed at the poor showing of vendors at TechXNY/PC Expo. It was using less than half of the main show floor, and no major PDA or gadgets were introduced there, like they had done last year.
There is a great dumpling house called “Joe’s Shanghai” on Pell St, just off of Bowery. Be sure to order their awesome dumplings with crab meat. They are succulent dumplings with soup wrapped up inside of them!
If you guys want to try out more Chinese food in the Chinatown area, feel free to drop me a line! I’d be glad to meet up with you sometime during the week!
You can email me at “khom at tmail dot com”
Enjoy your stay in NY!
ps – beware of pickpockets, always be on the alert and you’ll be fine
Too bad about the poor Tech show, but being that I lived in NY for most of my life, I would recommend the following tour activity:
Take the Circle line boat tour. If I remember correctly, their pickup spot is right near the USS Intrepid on the West Side Drive. I would recommend the half-circle tour around the Southern half of Manhattan. Lots of incredible views that you can’t get from a bus and a good bit of history from the tour guide.
Some other fun stuff to do while there (not in any particular order):
1) Walking tour of central park with lunch at Tavern on the Green
2) Central Manhattan museums
3) Bronx Zoo
4) Broadway show
5) Sports/Music event at Madison Square Garden
6) Lunch/Dinner atop the Mariott Marquise rotating restaurant
7) Electronics shopping along 47th st. and Canal st. followed by Lunch/Dinner in Little Italy or Chinatown.
8) Shopping / browsing along 5th Ave
9) Empire State building (doesn’t take long)
10) Statue of Liberty
11) Coney Island or Long Island Beaches
Enjoy,
L.B.
Shame that there wern’t more exibitors. More a shame that you didn’t see Joel from geek.com a day earlier, seems a lot of the gadgets you would have been interested in were at the pre-show the day before, his pre-show report over at geek.com is pretty good.
So in the picture of you two w/ the guy from Geek.com – did I detect you were both wearing Scott eVests??
Would be interested to hear any snippets about the gadgets you brought with you on this trip and how they performed. Similarly, any gadgets out there that would have come in handy. Obviously, any game / ebook that would help pass the extra time you had on your hands notwithstanding.
This looks more like a trip report…
Hand bag, food, buildings? WTF?
Looks as though some of you are out of luck.
It seems as though the TechXNY/PC Expo was merely a sham to get some much needed funds into the coffers of NYC.
Atleast the PC Expo is in a city where there is plenty to do with a lot of newfound free time.
Agreed. Judie & Julie, enjoy New York — the weather was highly cooperative today, and it’s an awesome city. I know, I work in it. 🙂
This year’s PC Expo, on the other hand, was a terrible shame. I do remember the good old days… and wrote up a rant on the subject on Pocket PC Thoughts about it. 😡 Hopefully next year, but I’m not holding my breath. CeBIT was quite a bit better in comparison, but even it was small.
–janak
Like making lemonade out of lemons.
I realize this may have been too much of a coincidence, but I’ve been traipsing around Manhattan for the last few days and I could have SWORN I saw someone who looked like Julie! Of course, I dismissed the thought at the time.
Anyway, I’ve just arrived back home in Manila and after reading your trip report I recommend you also drop by the wonderful Apple Store in SoHo. You can start off by taking the N subway from Bryant Park behind the NY Public Library (a free, open wireless hotspot, btw) to Prince Street and then walking two blocks west to Greene St. Once you’re there, do check out the newly introduced 20 and 40 GB iPods, and more importantly, the new 15″ Aluminum PowerBook that was announced only yesterday. You can also kill an hour by surfing on one of the new PowerMac G5s, and the whole store is a hotspot as well. There’s also a whole shelf of iPod accessories and cases to pore through.
Lastly, here are some of my own photos from my recent Manhattan walkabout: Click
here and here.
Have fun, guys, and enjoy what I think is the greatest city in the world!
Vic,
We just looked through your photos – and we saw the Naked Cowboy! Since we were on Times Square and took a picture of him while he was doing his “thing,” it is very possible that you did see Julie. If you saw Julie, then I wasn’t very far away. Too bad we didn’t get to say “hi”!
Judie :0)
What is the hidden meaning of this phrase ?
What do you mean with “twenty milk”?
A Starbucks Venti Latte is a 20oz. (or “large”) size.
The hidden meaning is that after having one, I didn’t need caffeine bad enough to stand in a long line. 😉
Judie :0)
Ah, Caffé latte, 0.6 litres, I see…
But, if Starbucks uses Italian words, why they do not use metric measurement units?
Probably because they are an American based company that likes to throw around foreign sounding words to help them justify charging $4 for a 20oz latte. :p
Judie :0)
Larry…you are absolutely right. You have to check out Churrascaria Plataforma! I did! My wife used to live in NY and she said that if I wanted meat (and lots!) I should go to Plataforma. I went there on Tuesday night after walking around Broadway for hours. PC Expo (or TECHXNY) was a bust, unfortunately. The service was great. The meat was great. The ambience was also superb. Anybody that likes to eat well and lots, should check this place out.
-Jin
:wow:
😀 I’m glad you loved New York. The big challenge here, given the restaurants and everything, is not getting fat and emptying your wallet at the same time. There’s a reason New Yorkers are so arrogant as to call New York “The City”. 😉 But yes, we are truly nice people, as long as you don’t bump into us while we’re in a rush. :p
Oh, and by no means have I seen everything, and I’ve lived in the NY metro area all my life. There is no way. A month of non-stop touring might get you around to 30% of the sights and sounds. The museums alone could take you a week or two…
–janak
We knew better than to even try to go to any museums…that will be another trip! 😉
Did you really see the lady with baby lamb with diapers on a leash???
Let me guess, were you in the vacinity of B’way and 54th?
That was a skit for the David Letterman show!!! You missed your big chance to be on TV!!
Actually, we saw the leashed lamb (wearing a diaper) at the side door of the Shubert Theater (225 West 44th Street) where Gypsy was showing.
At the time, we thought it was either an incredibly odd pet for a city dweller to own or it had a part in the play.
Perhaps it was the same lamb that was on Letterman, who knows. I mean, how many diaper wearing lambs on a leash could there possibly be at any given moment in New York? 😉
Judie :0)
Pardon me but what is the link to the TECHXNY?
Coz this reads like a “Julie and Judie go to New York” article :confused:
(PS: I once was registered using the same handle but couldn’t log in, so I had to recreate it. Was there a user database crash?!)
If you would read the article, you would see that TechXPO was a huge flop, so we made the best of the situation and turned it into what you see posted.
Yes, there was a database crash last week… Although I thought my account was the only one that was obliterated. Sorry.
Julie,
I was a little ironic as you probably guessed 😮
But I was in a hurry and at the same time eager to read something interesting, technologically at least.
Upon a second fly thru, all I could retain was LCD screens with hard glass covering/protection and a tiny business card reader 🙁
To tell you the truth, here in Geneva, the ITU Telecom World 2003 exhibition an every-four-years international event that runs just now is 25% smaller than the 1999 one.
Hey I should go there next week, so I could report here about my findings…:)
Jean-Louis
jlp:
If you get a chance, please do go! I’m sure we’d all appreciate hearing about your findings 🙂
Went today, quite interesting, lots to see, took many pix, didn’t see all, feet hurting, will go back tomorrow, Saturday out of town, will have to wait till Sunday or Monday 4 report, too tired to write more, will do much better then… 😉
That sounded like a cross between Capt. Kirk and Tonto. 😉
I know who’s Capt. Kirk, but Tonto?!
(Hey I was too tired to think a lot and write nice & long sentences)
Tonto was the Lone Ranger’s American-Indian side-kick. 🙂
Lone Ranger?! was he in a movie, TV series?!
While I work on my ITU Telecom World report project (got lots to sort and write) you can go there to find 4 pages filled with very nice pix of various phones and PDA phones:
http://www.androg.ch/itu2003/index.html
Jean-Louis
Tell me you are kidding! The Lone Ranger reruns were a Saturday morning staple when I was a kid!
Look here: http://members.tripod.com/~ClaytonMoore/
Hi-yo Silver…away! 😉
Judie :0)
Judie, I think we are showing our age 😮
28 and holding. 😉