Manufacturer: Sony Model#: PEG-UX50 Weight: 2lbs Height: 3..5"     Width: 4..1" Length: " Average Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars	Retail Price: $649.99 Online Sale Price:
Features: A new concept in handhelds: an extremely portable personal entertainment communicator 6 oz. with stylus Integrated wireless LAN (802.11b) and Bluetooth interface Built-in QWERTY-layout wide-pitch keyboard with backlight What's in the box: Clie handheld, Charger Cradle, USB HotSync Cable, Retractable Stylus, AC Adapter, Hand Strap, Installation CD-ROM, Instruction manuals

User Submitted Sony Clie PEG-UX50 Handheld Reviews (cont...)

The good things:

Wi-Fi (and bluetooth)!!!! It is built in so I don't need to get a $200 component to take advantage of my wireless network at home, at work, and several other wireless enabled sites I frequently visit.

I like the wide-screen feature of this Palm. I haven't seen any software conflicts with this so far but it makes looking at movies a lot nicer.

As with all the other Clie's, the fantastic high-resolution screen. This is what sold me on the Clie's in the first place. My pictures look so good that I don't carry pictures in my wallet any more. I also love the fact you can read an eBook without any eye strain. Best of all, this screen looks great in ANY LIGHT!!! In Las Vegas, I can turn off the back-lite and read off of the sun's lights beautifully. It does not matter the lighting, I've never had a problem looking at this screen. The ability to swivel it around for use is pretty handy and has raised a few oh's and ah's among my friends. I like the fact that you just turn it around after using it to protect the screen. It feels better than one of those flimsy plastic covers on some other Clies and most other Palms.

The Internal memory on this is nice. It was especially annoying when I had to get a memory card to listen to music with my first Clie when I still had plenty of memory on the inside.

I love this keyboard. It is much easier to type on than earlier models. Warning: this is not a keyboard for taking extensive notes. Use your laptop or desktop for that. But jotting down a few notes or a quick meeting is quick and easy with this keyboard.

I love the more compact size. Yes, the screen is a bit smaller, but this is supposed to fit in your Palm afterall. I prefer the smaller size. When I need more real estate on my screen, I just turn on my laptop. The Palm computers were never meant to replace the laptop or desktop afterall.

Very light weight at just over 6 oz. Fanstastic!!!

I had a problem and called customer service. I had to send it in (that was bad, I missed it) but it came back quickly and in working order. Great job!!!

The Decent Things:

The .mp3 player. Why can't the volume be any louder. Yes, I know you just plug in some headphones or speakers to listen to it but sometimes I want to share a song or audio clip with a small group of people. Very annoying. I now turn to my laptop for that instead but the Palm would be more convenient. It is odd that the Palm has the quietest .mp3 volume but yet rocks the house with its midi and alarm sound files. Other than that, the portable .mp3 player is fantastic and very convenient and I would rather have this than any dedicated .mp3 player I've seen on the market. The only problem is that 128MB gets filled up fast. I would suggest a Memory Stick card reader... it is easier to get music on there than by using Clie's import program.

The buttons. I'll give them credit in that my first Clie, the NR70, had the buttons in the worst place. When you wanted to go to the address, notes, etc. you needed to lift the screen to reach them. It was very annoying. Now the quick-launch buttons are accessible even when the screen is swivelled. My complaint is that they are the wrong buttons!!! The four buttons on every Palm are Addresses (always use), Tasks (always use), DateBook (always use), and Notes (often use). Now we only have one of those, DateBook. The other two are nice... Internet and Email. And I know I can reprogram them to how I want them. But I use the other stuff more than the Internet and Email. If the DateBook button would at least toggle between the different applications.... oh, I don't know. I just wish they hadn't messed with that.

The camera. This was borderline descent and bad. The resolution is higher than my NR70 but it still isn't good enough to do anything good with it other than taking pictures of my contacts and including them in the address book. I would rather spend $100 less and use that $100 credit towards getting a decent camera. I bet you can get one at that amount at less than the extra $100 needed to get this one in the first place. Save the picture taking for a better device. Sony had a Clie with a 2MP camera built into it... what happened to that???

The Bad:

The price... OUCH!!! You can get a decent laptop for this amount.

But, I'll still give it the 5 stars because the Clie has always shown great and continuing innovation and because, overall, it truly is a great piece of (small) technology.

Date: 2003-10-11
The most useful handheld ever done
Thank you sony. You've thought not just in movility, but in practicity when you did this handheld. Including access to the internet was vital, maybe some more internal memory is needed. Sort of 512 megabits.

Date: 2003-10-09
Close to being the notebook replacement
First came the laptops that aim at replacing the desktops. Now Sony is working hard at producing PDAs that strive to replace the notebooks. After spending a week with the UX50, I say their first try is a success, the high price aside.

Let me first talk about the cons, so I can focus on the pros more.

The screen is quite small. It's 3.5 inches diagonal and packs a 320x480 resolution, (...) , which has a bigger screen. This reminds me of the slim VAIO notebooks: they feature 1280x1024 on a 10.4" screen. Ouch! If you are over age 50, forget this. You'll have a tough time making out the icons.

Battery life is also below average, when you have wi-fi or Bluetooth or both on. In fact if you use either one continuously, with backlight set to 3/4, you'll run out of juice in a little over an hour. Kinda scary. I wish Sony would give us a compact battery extender that uses NiMH batteries.

Price. Of course everybody thinks this is too expensive. It's expensive, but since it does everything you can imagine, it's cheap compared to notebook. So whether it's a good value comes down to whether you'll use it a lot. Of course, given the battery life problem... You see what I mean.

Now the pluses. There are tons of them.

First of all, this is a *very* stylish PDA. Pictures don't do it justice. You should go into a store (Staples, Circuit City, etc.) to check it out up close. The exterior design is excellent, with the right amount of curves and edges. It's also surprisingly lightweight. Not for your shirt pocket, of course, but jackets and pants should be ok, unless you wear jeans all the time. What really impresses me is how good the unit feels in my hands, even when I hold it with one hand and use the stylus with the other.

Performance is very good, too. You can play an MP3 in the background while doing other tasks and usually you won't notice any delays. Occasionally you do, but that hasn't happened to me often. Apps launch quickly. If you load JPEG files they display quickly, too, unlike on many Pocket PCs.

The keyboard is sweet. It has the usual Sony quirks, but it doesn't take long to get used to the keys. The dedicated numeric keys are at the top, where God intended them to be. Shift and Ctrl are sticky, so you need not hold them down to type. All in all the keyboard feels great and well spaced, and I can peck away in no time.

The wi-fi function works like a charm. I have Verizon DSL and they have installed lots of hotspots in Manhattan, free for customers. I instantly got wi-fi near a payphone near my office. I surfed for about 15 minutes sitting on the curbside and it never got dropped. Back at home, it works fine with my Microsoft AP. I'm very impressed. Bluetooth, on the other hand, is another matter. (...) The manual is very weak. (...)

I can't emphasize enough how great the keyboard is, and working in landscape mode (i.e., horizontal) is fabulous. You can browse the web and edit Office files with so much ease. You get multimedia as well. This is a very well put-together package.

Date: 2003-10-09
Significant Improvement Over Previous Clie Handhelds
The Clie PEG-UX50 is the latest in Sony's line of high-end Palm OS handhelds. Unlike many of its predecessors, which kept getting bigger and bigger to stuff in more features such as higher resolution cameras, etc. the UX-50 has returned to about the size of the 760 series (in fact, in height, it is slightly smaller).

Its high-resolution screen, unlike the NR/NX/NZ 60s & 70s, actually has a portrait aspect ration, making the device seem more like a micro-sized-pc than a Palm. Some prominent PDA vendors such as Mapopolis have released new versions of their software to support this latest form factor, but much of existing Palm OS software is unable to take advantage of the new unit, fortunately, Sony included a backwards compatibility mode! Its small QWERTY keyboard is much easier to use than the NR/NX/NZ units, but still is unsuitable for serious typing.

One area that the unit is really lacking is in the cradle department. It ships with a pad that it can be attached to for charging, unfortunately, it appears that the mini-USB cable must be plugged directly into the handheld to sync. Also, the pad is no where near as elegent as cradles for previous models. Also, as a result of switching to mini serial, Sony has rendered virtually all Clie accessories useless with it.

Overall, this unit is one of the best to come out of Sony. The camera (which can capture full-Clie-screen video) is incredible, the changes to the keyboard seem to be in the right direction. Now if they could only do something about the price tag ...

Date: 2003-10-04
Great toy, customer support is less than desireable.
I buy a new PDA once a year. I find it interesting to play with the latest gadgets. I found this PDA to be great with WI-FI application. I was able to log on the internet via Wi FI almost immediately. Now bluetooth application was more difficult to figure out. I have two desktop and two laptops and I was able to achieve sync via bluetooth only to my new Mac G5. I found sync via bluetooth on window based computer to be almost impossible. Also, although the ads promise ability to connect to sony ericsson phones via bluetooth easily, I found it impossible. I found getting help on my issues to be impossible. Most of the Sony support staff does not seem to know much about this product. Pictures looked nice, but needs more memory overall. Everything else is great!!!