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 Clie is exquisitely designed. Everything fits together very nicely. The keyboard is large enough to be useful, and you can hide it when you flip the screen to tablet mode. The one gripe I have about the physical ergonomics is the location of the scroll wheel -- I wish it had been placed on the left, where the power button is presently located. Its placement underneath the keyboard can be somewhat awkward. I thought the screen would be bigger, but it's high resolution and quality compensates for its size.

I'm relatively new to PalmOS, so I have no point of comparison other than the iPaq I'm also using, which is based on Windows Mobile 2003. For good or bad, you don't feel like you're using a regular computer on the Clie -- the interaction style is rather different. I'm guessing this is a feature of the PalmOS in general.

The web browser NetFront, which I'd read rave reviews of, is somewhat lame. You can't control the font size, and bookmark management is not especially flexible. As far as I can tell the only thing you can do is create a long linear list of bookmarks -- no user-defined folders or anything like that. It's also darn near impossible to control the web browser from the keyboard exclusively -- I found myself switching between keyboard and stylus quite frequently, which was somewhat annoying.

The "entertainment" functions such as the still/video camera capabilities are merely toys. By no means are they a replacement for a real digital camera. Still, very handy when you need to take a quick picture of something for a report and all you have is your PDA.

I have not yet tried syncing to my PC, so I can't comment on that aspect of it. The wireless networking capability (802.11) works well. I had it up and running with my Linksys wireless router in a matter of minutes with WEP enabled. Connection reliability was very good; I never lost a link to the router when within reasonable range (this has *not* been the case with the iPaq, I might add).

All in all, a pretty nice device. Would I have spent my own $700 on it? No way. I could never justify that kind of dough on something so frivolous. But it is a very slick gadget for those who must have the latest and greatest.