Microsoft Outlook 98 software will be included in the Casio, Everex and Philips P/PCs and Microsoft will distribute vouchers for the new Windows 98 operating system for every Windows CE 2.0 H/PC or P/PC purchased between May 1, 1998, and June 30, 1998. These two promotions could turn the availability of palm-size PC products into a sell-out launch.

That's quite a deal. Outlook 98 and Windows 98--free--with the purchase of one of the first three Palm-size PC's to come to market (one being the Nino). The trick will be making the purchase of a Nino before June 30th--they'll be out, but you've got to get one of the first shipments! Should prove interesting.

It will ship at the end of June. It currently has some design flaws that need to be worked out. For example, memory management is still problematic, and the digitizer is calibrated incorrectly. The Casio Cassiopeia, on the other hand, never fixed the problem. According to the article I read in Pen Computing, the Casio gradually eats more and more memory (it never closes applications; it keeps opening and re-opening them when you access them).

Now for the promising points of Nino: the speech recognition works well and is trainable to specific commands. The unit is light and feels sturdy, as opposed to the Everex where I kept accidentally pressing the side buttons. The Nino will definitely offer both the Jot, T9, and SmARTWriter methods of input, although the prototype unit did not actually have SmARTWriter installed. The Nino also has the best screen! One would think that a screen is a screen is a screen, but the Nino was the most readable, bright, and clear. The Everex had severe glare problems and the Uniden seemed dim.

Anything else? Oh yes - for those of us thinking about the PalmIII, it is wise to note that the Nino 302 is cheaper. The PalmIII, without a carrying case or modem, costs 399. The Nino 302, with twice the memory (in OS equivalents), a modem, and carrying case, is 499. The PalmIII modem costs 139, and I'm sure the carrying case is at least 30.

Sounds like a rather positive hands-on reaction indeed. I believe the memory management issues are due to early WinCE 2.0 for Palm-size PC problems which should be remedied in the final release. The calibration problem could have been generated by a shakey hand during cold-boot calibraiton. It's quite nice to see that the Nino sports an especially high quality screen and is bundled with both SmARTwriter and Jot. It looks like the Nino more than stacks up well to the competition in side-by-side usage. Great report--anyone else at Comdex (especially with a digital camera)...please e-mail me!!