PRODUCT REVIEW: SONY CLIE PEGT415 PDA

What is a PDA you say? A PDA, also known as a "Handheld," is a small computer that fits in the palm of your hand, or in your pocket for that matter. (Hence the company "Palm") These Personal Data Assistants emulate many PC functions in a very small form. In general I wasn't into the whole idea of a cheezy organizer with a hard to see screen and low memory capacity in my pocket until more recent models have been appearing that were more appealing. PDA's are produced by various manufacturers at this time using two competing operating systems, Palm OS, and Pocket PC. These run in cost between about $150 and $600. In essense they are an offspring of the PC market. If my memory serves me, I'm pretty sure Apple was the first to try this back in the mid nineties with the Apple Newton. Remember those? It was a rather bold idea for that time that never seemed to catch a main stream wave, such has seemed to be the fate for Apple since after Macintosh lost a foot hold on the PC market back in the late eighties, they have never regained the prowess they once had. There is something I want to address here though. If any of the gamers that visit my sites remember accurately, Nintendo had the first PDA ever made with the GameBoy and a forgotten cart called the "Personal Organizer." They had a couple of other Apps for the GameBoy during the early nineties, but they didn't promote it enough and this forward thinking idea fizzled then. Toward the end of the nineties new ideas and start up companies appeared with the explosion of the PC/internet revolution and the cost of production on components lowered and some of the first PDA's were created by the company Palm, trailblazing with the Palm Pilot. Today Palm's incarnations of its OS have been liscensed by other companies and more and more of these little mini-PC's are appearing and even merging with cell-phones. In fact PDA's represent a technology that has great potential to grow in the next decade as microprocessors get smaller, faster, and cheaper, memory has greater capacity, and appearance improves. I personally didn't take much notice to PDA's until Sony and Compaq's series started appearing in 2001, and this prompted me to keep an eye out for something worth getting, and I seem to have found it in Sony's Clie.

Being a Star Trek follower, I began to recognize how much PDA's looked like "PADDs" from Star Trek. If you don't know what that is, basically it's those little handheld computers they are always carrying and reading books from, etc. Sony has been making some pretty interesting ones, and recently has come out with their Clie series that truly look, feel, and act futuristic. The reason I went with the Clie over the Compaq Ipaq was because of size and price. In many ways the Sonys were smaller, lighter, and looked more professional and futuristic. I've been watching them, but not yet willing to buy. One unit, the Sony PEGN710C caught my eye because it was color, and could play MP3's right from the PDA, however it's 499.99 price made me say, "Too expensive for a gizmo that plays MP3's, I'll stay with my Laptop for now." Then they one upped themselves and came out the the 760, and made some monocrome intermediate models. Finally in the last couple of months they produced a handheld that meets my criteria for being "cool." The PEGT415 is the first step toward better things if they keep improving these things.

The reason I picked the Sony Clie PEGT415 was because, well, none other than it looked decent, finally something that looked futuristic and made me feel like I was in the 21st Century. This is the slimmest PDA I've seen to date, and is composed of an entirely silver aluminum alloy exterior. It looks and feels solid and more durable than the competing models without being too large and having a bulky feel. It just exuded "Star Trek" in many aspects. This style coupled with an acceptable price point, $299.99 prompted me to give this one a test drive.

Once I got into the Sony Clie, I discovered some interesting capabilities and technology inside the unit making it worth keeping. The unit does use the Palm OS, ver 4.1, and you use the stylus, a pen like stick, to touch the screen to access the functions of the unit, however I found my finger to be ample enough to make it work. The Clie utilizes a 33Mhz Dragonball Processor. Dragonball huh, sounds like SOMEONE at R and D watches too much Anime to me, hah! It has 8 MB of internal Memory, and the Memory Stick expandibility slot. One thing that turned me off about previous PDA's was their low memory capacity. The fact that you can upgrade the Clie makes it worthwhile to me, as it is, I already have a Sony Handycam that uses the same Memory Stick. The Screen is monocromatic, however it's easy to see and retains very sharp clear resolution. The unit also uses an Infrared Port, and a dail on the side to select through icons and functions on the screen. The unit does also have a decent backlighting capability. It comes with a USB HotSync Cradle to connect it to the PC and transfer files between the PC and the PDA.

The Sony Clie was a perfect size for my hand, and I discovered that I could actually control some of the functions with one hand using the jog dail on the side. The Clie came with some good features and gimmicks, like Clie Remote Commander. Using the Clie's infrared port you can control any Audio/Video Device like a universal remote. I used my Clie to play havoc on Sears TV department at the mall, turning off all the various manufacturer's models on the floor, and putting parental locks on others. The effective distance of the remote function is pretty far, I was almost 25 feet away from most of the TV's I was controlling. I'm sure nobody was the wiser, considering none of those TV's had remotes near them. I discovered the various multimedia features of the Clie. I was amazed that I could put a movie clip on there, and post photographs with decent resolution into the unit. I synched it to my Notebook and transferred my Email to the Clie, and was able to read my Email on the go. I used to the Sound Feature to install some sound effects, stripped down MIDI, voices, and jokes into it. Just recently I discovered the use of the infrared "Beaming" capability where I was able to access another person's PDA's data and save it to mine. That was pretty damn cool. "Look ma, no wires!" Palm OS Uses Graffiti, but you know what I think Graffiti sucks, luckily you can use the on screen keyboard. I was much faster doing it that way.

I do have a few complaints about the Clie though. There's this nylon flip hard cover and it doesn't seem to work quite right. It keeps detaching from the back of the PDA and doesn't do much to protect it. The contrast on the screen is acceptable but it would sure be nice if this unit appears in color at a reasonable price. More than likely I'll sell this model and get the color one if they utilize the same design. They really need to have a far better MIDI file system. You can only play very stripped down MIDI files. I noticed several different instruments on different abbreviated songs, so it does seem that General MIDI is somehow supported. I'm not worried about saving memory when I have extra Sony Memory Sticks. I will buy the MP3 Player unit if they lower the price to 299.99 and sell the one I have now.

If you are looking for something futuristic in your hand, and a perfect place to save girl's phone numbers, then you need one of these things. Another interesting little handheld device to consider is Samsung's Color PDA Cell-Phone I300.

PROS: High Resolution, Expandable, Remote Commander, Palm OS 4.1, Cool Style, Easy to Use, Clear Speaker

CONS: Monochromatic, NO MP3 or Polyphonic MIDI Support