C-760
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So I received my 760 about a week ago from Dynamism, and I'm getting comfortable with it finally, so I thought I'd write a quick review of it. If you haven't already seen the initial pictures of the 760, you can see them here.
Obviously the manuals that came with the Z were in Japanese, so I took them out of the box long enough to unpack the Z. Then I put them right back in the box. What do I really need them for anyways?
The first thing I really noticed was the screen on the Z. It's just amazing looking. To be specific, it's very bright and clear.
Being that I'm extremely impatient, I plugged the Z into the wall outlet right away, and rather than leaving it alone for several hours (and torturing myself), I decided to play with it right away. I know you're not supposed to do that with the battery, but I figured that the Dynamism people had the Z on already when they applied the English fixes, so what the hell. I'll buy a spare battery anyway.
First thing I'd like to provide a little detail on is the keyboard. I really like it. You can't tell from many pictures of it, but it's not a "membrane" type keyboard. They are actual keys, it's just they are clear, which is why it gives the "membrane" impression.
Here's a close-up shot (click to enlarge):

Now I'd like to explain some of the keys functions:
FN+1 (magnifying glass with - icon) = scale down fonts
FN+2 (magnifying glass with + icon) = scale up fonts
Not only do I like the fact that there is a seperate row for number keys, but they were able to add this great functionality. I use these keys constantly to switch between smaller and larger fonts not only in programs, but also on the desktop.
Here's some screen shots to better explain what I'm talking about (click on any image to enlarge):


More key functions to explain:
FN+3 (lesser than with sun) = darken screen (backlight)
FN+4 (greater than with sun) = brighten screen (backlight)
Now the great thing about the beautiful screen and it's backlight, is that there are 6 incremental settings for backlight brightness. For regular usage, I seem to be keeping mine set at 4 (let's say 1 is darkest, 6 is brightest). I rarely have it set at 6. It just seems too bright for most situations having it that high. And I'm not concerned about battery life (I have a spare). The greatest thing about this feature, is you don't have to launch the stupid Light & Power app to change brightness... you can do it on the fly. Very cool!

One last note about the keyboard. I coudn't for the life of me figure out what the two Japanese only keys were for, and I happened to run into an IT employee from our Japan office (he's here for a conference), so I asked him what they keys said. He's a loose translation:
Key highlighted with Note 1: Change between Japanese character sets (Katakana, Kanji, etc.)
Key highlighted with Note 2: Change between single and double byte character sets

Lastly, I wanted to review the 760 in portrait mode. I mostly use it in this configuration while reading on the bus and listening to music. Since the screen is flipped facing out (screen exposed) and covering the keyboard, you might wonder what basic controls one would use to navigate, select, cancel, etc.
There are three buttons on the side, more like a button for On/Off, a see-saw button for the OK/Cancel, and a jog dial for scrolling. Here's two pictures to help explain (click an image to enlarge):

These buttons make it fairly easy to navigate the 760 while in portrait mode. Though I despise useing the screen-pickboard, or handwriting thingy. Anytime I need to enter data, I just flip it around to landscape mode.
Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this unit. I can't imaging how they could get any better, but I'm sure Sharp's working hard on new models (hopefully for the US/UK markets!
That's all for now, I'll be writing seperate reviews for accessories (battery mods, etc.), and more for apps that work on the 7x0 series.
Added: Wednesday, July 16, 2003
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