Nice PDA but...
Written: May 03 '04 (Updated May 04 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Solid construction, good ergonomics, sharp screen
Cons: Dark screen, speaker, Sony memory sticks, lack of speaker
The Bottom Line: A lot of PDA for the money, but could be better.
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| teleplayer75's Full Review: Sony Clie PEG-TJ25 Handheld |
5/4/04 update
Some more info and background to flesh out my previous review...
I didn't think I needed a PDA, until I inherited my wife's M100. I used it until it started randomly resetting itself, and wouldn't hold data during battery changes.
So, it's time for a new one. My wife said she saw a nice looking color PDA at Costco for $130. It was the TJ25. So, I went in a looked at it, and it looked nice. Feature-wise, I don't have special PDA needs (I don't need Bluetooth, WiFi, a camera), so I picked it up with the groceries.
I got it home, and it charged up in about 4 hours. It's got a charging light that goes off when it's done. That's a nice touch. The construction of the unit is also good. Nothing feels cheap. I only had 2 ergonomic complaints. First, the clip on cover tends to pop off if you keep your PDA in a pants pocket. Second, the telescoping stylus, even when extended, is too small to be comfortable.
I loaded up the software that came bundled. There are some pretty useful applications - the scientific calculator I found especially nice. There are some fun games, like Insaniquarium and a race car game.
The display is really sharp. I was blown away by what the race car game looked like. The sound, however, was like the old PC Speaker games on my 286 20 years ago.
I noticed things loading a good deal faster than my M100, and a bit more quickly than my wife's Tungsten E. Navigating the application launcher is fun with the jog wheel, but I could see the novelty wearing off pretty quickly. That said, the app launcher itself is very well designed. It's got a block of shortcuts in the lower left hand side for your important stuff, and the apps scroll in a straight line. I found it a lot easier to navigate than looking at an ocean of icons. Everything's customizable, too, which I liked. There are a lot of neat screen color schemes built in, but they're somewhat cheapened by the lack of a bright screen (more on that later). Many color combinations are very hard to see.
I was disappointed with the battery life. I had the unit for 5 days, and found myself charging it every night. It was completely dead each time. I didn't keep track of exact usage time, but I couldn't have used it more than 3 hours. When I let a friend's daughter play with it, it was toast in much less than an hour of continuous use - this was exclusively playing games. I tried to keep the backlight off when using it, but the screen becomes almost invisible if you do.
The screen brightness is my biggest complaint. I tried to get a friend's phone number out of the Clie while in the car. In the sunlight, it was pretty difficult to see the screen. When in my house, I cranked the brightness up to full and compared it to my wife's Tungsten, which was at normal brightness. There was no comparison. The Clie was very noticeably dimmer.
The Clie (like most of the Palms I've seen) comes with Graffiti2 installed. I hate it. I find it a pain to get the 2 stroke letters ('I', 'T', 'K') to work. I know this isn't the Clie's fault, but I'd like to see the option to use Graffiti1.
So, it's going back to Costco. I'm considering a Pocket PC, even though I dislike Windows OSs in general.
Hope this was a little more helpful!
Original review:
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First, the good stuff:
- $130 for a color PDA? Awesome.
- The case feels solid in your hand, and the cover is actually functional.
- I really like Sony's jog wheel. It a gadget that actually works.
- The launcher software included is fun - it reminds me of the new Mac OSs.
- It's fast!
- The screen is beautiful. At 320x320, things look great.
The bad stuff:
- Telescoping stylus. It's useless.
- The screen is dark. Much darker than my wife's Tungsten E, even at it's brightest setting. That's with the backlight on. Don't bother turning it off.
- It uses proprietary Sony memory sticks. Why, Sony, why?
- It only beeps. The games included on the CD-ROM sound awful. When I beamed them to my wife's T/E, they sounded just like a PC version.
- Battery life is a bit on the short side. I haven't had it last more than a day.
- When accessing the memory card, mine went insane and had to be hard reset, clearing all memory. It only did this the one time, and may have been a fluke.
Overall, it's a tremendous value for the money. A casual or firsttime user would be very happy with it. I, however, have decided to pay a little more to get a PDA I'm more happy with.
-Joe
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 130
Recommended for: Beginners - Simple and Easy to Use
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Epinions.com ID:
teleplayer75
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Member: Joe Fisher
Location: Jefferson, NJ
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
A power hobbiest who's out to try everything.
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