CLIE TG50 PDA - Sony trying to hold the line against Palm
Written: Jun 29 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Decent price, multimedia features, screen, lighted keyboard
Cons: A little too long in size, wish the cover was translucent like SJ33
The Bottom Line: Has a bit for everyone, although lacking a digital camera like Palm Zire71, lighted keyboard is a major plus. However, lack of a Graffiti input method may hurt.
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| yusakugo's Full Review: Sony CLIE® PEG-TG50 Handheld |
The mid-range models for Palm OS PDAs are becoming a fiercely contested battle between Palm and Sony. Sony's offering is the Palm OS 5.0 based unit dubbed the TG50 model. Palm released the Zire 71 a month or two after that. Originally, the TG50 sold at $399 and quickly dropped it's price to compete with pricing of the Tungsten T model which ran in the $349-399 range. The TG50 quickly fell to $349 and sells at an average price of $299 at many stores... in fact, you may be able to push the price down to the $280s.
Regardless, this review is based off the tinkering with TG50 model of a good friend who works at the hospital. It was the only TG50 I've seen in the hospital since the majority of models running around the hospital are Sony SJ30 and SJ22 units and more Palm Tungsten T and Zire 71 models are popping up.
Ironically, I typed up most of this review via a Palm Tungsten C.
Pricing?
You can read my epinions article The Art of Buying... Getting your money's worth! to see how I go about buy electronics for as low as I possibly can.
The common deals are $299 at Circuit City after a $50 mail-in rebate. Staples.com may cost you as low as $249 after mail-in rebate and Staples coupon but before sales tax.
My Quickie Opinion
The TG50 is a very nice model that hurts a bit in the size department. The unit is a bit long especially compared to some of the other models in Sony's lineup although not as long as the NR/NX/NZ models. The standard high resolution screen used in almost all Sony PDA products shines through again with the addition of a lighted QWERTY keyboard (which accounts for the length of the unit). Sony grants you Palm OS ver 5 on the unit although not the updated version used in the Zire 71 and Tungsten C. You have a decent 16MB of standard memory although only 11MB is available. You also have a speedy 200MHz processor in the TG50, and the addition of an integrated screen and keyboard cover is a nice thought but it has pluses and minuses to it.
There are some gripes with the TG50, especially with the return to small thin application buttons and nearly unusable scroll rocker. I've never liked the stylus used by Sony for many of their handhelds. The unit is extremely easy to scratch up. A major detractor to me is the lack of a decent way to use Graffiti on the TG50 without sacrificing most of the screen space.
What will most determine if you prefer the TG50 versus the Palm Zire 71 is whether you prefer using Graffiti or using a thumb keyboard to input data. Against the Tungsten T, it is mostly based on the size of the units... the Tungsten T being the clear winner here.
Pros:
1) Palm OS 5.0
2) 16MB of RAM
3) 16MB or Flash ROM
4) High resolution transreflective 320x320 pixel 16-bit color screen
5) Integrated unit cover
6) Accepts Memory Stick and Memory Stick PRO formats
7) Compatible with most of the SJ/T/NR/NX/NZ accessories because of Sony's version of a universal connector for their PDAs.
8) Lighted QWERTY keyboard
9) Fast 200MHz Intel XScale PXA250 processor
10) Removable Lithium-Ion battery
Cons:
1) No way to use Graffiti without losing a large portion of your screen space
2) Only 11MB of the 16MB or RAM is usable by you
3) Battery life is rather poor
4) Casing and cover scratch very easily
5) Unit is a bit long and will stick out of a shirt pocket
Details
In size, the TG50 seems to fill a size niche between the long discontinued T615/665 series and the NR/NX/NZ series PDAs. The TG50 has dimensions of 5.0 x 2.8 x 0.63 inches (5 x 2 7/8 x 1/2 inches by Sony's web site) and weighs 6.2 oz. before adding a memory stick (cover and styli included in this measurement). The unit is much longer/taller than the SJ22/30 unit but thinner than that model as well. However, if you believe Sony's numbers, the TG50 is thinner by nearly 1/4 inch! In reality the unit is thicker than a 1/2 inch and seems to be less than 0.1 inches thinner than the SJ22/30 model. Regardless, the bulk of the unit will fit into your shirt pocket although it will stick out of your pocket by a good amount... enough to be annoying. The standard items like a jog dial with back button, mono internal speaker (that can supposedly simulate stereo), memory stick slot, the standard connector found on all current Sony CLIE PDAs still being manufactured by Sony, infrared port, etc. The case and cover are a mix of white/grey and chrome accents. I must admit the unit looks very nice.
There are some nice additions to this unit... that includes the power switch found on the SJ33 model. You slide one way to power on, another to to put in hold mode, another way to play MP3/ATRAC music files... a very nice feature. Another addition is the thumb keyboard that lights up with the backlight on! This was a extremely nice feature... especially with the lighted keyboard! However, to implement the keyboard, you lose the dedicated Grafitti writing area and the silkscreened home, menu, find, and calculator buttons. You have a dedicated record button for voice memos too! The 4 hardware application buttons have also taken a step backwards as well... they are the same small size found on the older T series CLIE PDAs. They are hard to press and the scroll rocker button/switch is near unusable again! Sony did add two additional buttons to take the place of the 4 silkscreened Grafitti buttons.
The screen is as usual a high quality one for Sony PDAs but it seems to use a frontlighting system instead of a backlit one. The bottom of the screen is the brightest area and it gets gradually darker as you go up the screen. With the backlight off, the screen is quite readable in bright lights and sunlight. You would like to keep your frontlighting system on in other lighting conditions. The screen shows great color reproduction especially with reds and yellows although dark colors tend to be too dark (like blues and purples).
Now for the internals... big difference from Sony's other mid-range models. Now you're using Palm OS ver 5.0 and a much faster Intel XScale PXA250 processor running at 200MHz! You will notice a major speed difference on older Palm programs! A major problem is being stuck with 16MB of main memory. The problem is not with the 16MB of total main RAM... the problem is that you can use only 11MB of it. 5MB are permanently used up for other programs! You also get 16MB of Flash ROM for Palm OS 5.0 upgrades in the future. Note that Sony created programs for their Palm OS 4 based handhelds do not work under Palm OS 5.0. Programs such as PhotoStand and Photo Viewer do not work... Sony has included updated versions of this software on the TG50 that will read the older PGP picture format.
Screen and Colours
Well, as I said earlier, the screen is excellent for the most part. Thank goodness you can still turn the backlight on and off by holding the power switch in the power on position for a second or two. The frontlight system could be a bit better however... this system causes an evenly lighted screen (since the lights are at the bottom of the screen). Brightness can be adjusted as well.
The digitizer (i.e. touchscreen) seemed to be fairly responsive.
OS 5 alive... performance issues?
Palm OS 5.0 with the speedy 200MHz processor make a big difference over Sony's SJ models... even the SJ33! The TG50 is certainly quite speedy although not as fast as they are on a Tungsten C unit. What may be a bottleneck is the 16MB (remember only 11MB is user accessible) main RAM limitation. I think seeing 32MB would have helped... and having 20-24 MB of that be user accessible! Guess people will have to wait for the NV80 (I believe that was one of the most recent models announced) for Sony to increase the main RAM.
As far as compatibility of older/legacy Palm OS 3 and 4 software goes, the only problems I encountered were programs written specifcally for Sony's older hi-res standard (although the hi-res standard was also 320x320, Palm OS 5 implements 320x320 resolution in a different way), programs with graphics tuned specifically for 160x160 resolution color (Galax), and Sony programs written specifically for older non-Palm OS 5 CLIEs. You'll note that most programs will load and run at a much improved speed... sometimes too fast (especially games!).
Data input: Part I - Are you all thumbs?
The keyboard on the TG50 is actually quite good. I had an easier time typing on the TG50 keyboard than on the Tungsten C keyboard since the TG50 has square keys. compared the slanted oval keys on the Tungsten C. I had a bit of trouble figuring out the symbols since there is a red shift and a blue shift key. The symbols for the blue shift with a key are printed just to the right and below each respective key... but you have to figure out the red shift symbols on your own (or look through the manual which I didn't have access to!). The keys are lighted as well which makes it easier to type in low light areas. I found that I was still faster typing on the thumb keyboard than writing in Grafitti. However, the thickness (welll thinness really) of the TG50 prevents you from doing long typing sessions since my hand started cramping up after 5 minutes of typing. I could type 15 or more minutes on the Tungsten C because it was a thicker handheld.
The loss of the silkscreened buttons on the Grafitti area of other Palm models is substituted with two dedicated buttons (that can be programed to launch other programs)... one on each side of the standard four application buttons and rocker console. This was a nice touch that I wished Palm implemented better on the Tungsten C. However, the four application buttons and the rocker scroll switch are too small and thin... the same problem that occurred in the T series CLIE PDAs. Otherwise, there is one other problem that comes up...
Data Input: Part II : I want my Grafitti!
Well, the TG50 has Palm OS ver 5.0... not 5.2.1 like the Zire 71 and Tungsten C. That means no dedicated Grafitti area... and no Grafitti 2 either. To use Grafitti, you have to call up a Grafitti area that takes up valuable screen space. The area the virtual Grafitti input box takes up is slightly bigger than calling up the on-screen keyboard. Regardless, calling up the on-screen Grafitti input area takes up about 2/3 of your screen. Sigh...
Multimedia... MP3s, ATRAC, Video Files, Pictures
Although it doesn't pack the computing punch that the Tungsten C does, the TG50 is more than comparable to Palm's Zire 71 and Tungsten T units as well as Sony's more expensive CLIE PDAs. You do have a stereo headphone jack on the TG50 and MP3 and ATRAC playback is excellent as it has been with most of Sony's CLIE lineup. Movie playback on the Kinoma player was good with a hiccup or two... It wasn't as smooth as the Tungsten C but it was acceptable and sounded great through stereo headphones. Picture loading wasn't as fast as the Tungsten C but more than acceptable. 3 MegaPixel files opened up fairly quickly... thumbnail views took about 1 1/2 for 4 thumbnail sized shots.
Overall, it performed well as a basic multimedia device.
Bluetooth
Well, I only saw this function being used for tranferring phone numbers from my friend's cell phone to the TG50 and vice versa. He also used it to connect to the web wirelessly but this was slower than a 56k modem connection (the cell phone/service is the major bottleneck here... not the Bluetooth connection). The TG50 could also send information to my DeskJet 995 printer well to print stuff of course!
Battery Life
Well, I couldn't run my usual gambit of tests on this model. My friend wouldn't let me have the unit for that many hours in the day. As per him, MP3 playback on hold mode/no display was more than 4 hours. At least 3 1/2 hours of power with use of the backlight for 1/3 of that time. By these numbers, the battery life is rather short even by Sony's standards. I am unsure if turning off the Bluetooth hardware would significantly boost these numbers.
The battery is apparently a 900mAh 3.7 V Lithium-Ion battery that is non-removable. Given that the TG50 has Bluetooth built-in, this is a weak battery for the unit.
Memories and the PRO Memory Stick
Well, I can't say much about the Memory Stick Pro other than the TG50 can use it. The only thing this guarantees is that the TG50 can access large memory stick cards in the future and with speedier results I hope. The standard memory stick seems to be quite a bit speedier in access on the TG50.
The limited 11 MB of user accessible RAM is a pain however. You should keep 2 MB free at all times to run files off a memory stick... you may need to keep more free for smooth MP3 playback as well. That leaves you with no more than 9MB for you to place your programs on. That isn't alot of space for some people. A vindigo user in NYC will likely use up 2-2.5 MB for the NYC and Brooklyn area information already. Add AvantGo and you've likely used up another 2-3 MB there. The amount of memory the TG50 allows you to use is quite limited compared to other Palm PDAs on the market.
In the Box... Any Value Here?
Well, in addition to the standard Palm OS PIM programs, you get a ton of Sony specials like the CLIE Album, files, launcher (which I personally didn't like... since I wasn't use to it), mail, memo, remote commander, viewer, memory stick backup, memory stick import, movie player, Photostand, photo editor, Remote camera, Reversi for CLIE, Sound Utility, Voice Recorder, and World Alarm Clock. You also get full versions of NetFront, Macromedia Flash Player 5, MobiPocket Reader, PowerOne personal calculator, Picsel Viewer, and StreetFinder Express. You get trial versions of AcidFreecell, Bejeweled, Breakout, BumpAttack, Contacts Pro, Crossword Puzzles for Palm OS, Presenter-to-go, Tak Tik, Vindigo, WorldMate, PowerOne Finance. There is no Documents to Go packaged with the TG50 anymore. Piscel viewer takes the place of Documents to Go... but is limited more to viewing Office files. Kinoma player you have to download on your own.
Accessories
As before, the things you would need are a memory stick of 128MB in size is preferred ($50+), a travel charger/hotsync cable ($40 from Sony since it comes in two parts), and a portable keyboard if you need to do prolonged typing sessions($75-$100). The case is more difficult with the TG50 because of it's flip cover design. As of now, you may be stuck with an ill fitting belt pouch... but I haven't looked up TG50 cases yet. Some of the major PDA case players include E&B cases, Vaja cases, RhinoSkin, and seveal others. You can also look at DirectCase.com for additional manufacturers.
Another interesting accessory would be Sony AA battery adapter unit... this allows you to recharge your CLIE with 4 AA batteries... although you might not get the unit fully recharged, it is an interesting solution.
By the way, think about a better headset as well.
Final Word
Overall, good PDA that competes well in its price range but competition is definitely stiff!
Go to my profile page for other PDA reviews.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 299
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yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
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Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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