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Review : Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 PDA

I realized yesterday that I have not written a review of my Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 PDA so I opened up Memo pad on the little guy and jotted this review out.

The Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 runs the Palm OS 4.1 and is a better Palm OS PDA than the ones made by Palm.

It has a rounded metallic case and is a bit larger than a case of smokes.
It sports a damn nice form factor and is the perfect size for a PDA, Not to big and not to small. The jog dial for scrolling is a really good idea and I think it would be a great addition to most PDAs

Now this is not a color PDA but instead it sports a 256 shade grey scale 320 x 320 pixel back lit screen. The high res screen makes fonts very legible and it really add to the day to day use of the PDA. I would rather have a high res grey scale screen than the low res color screen of my now dead Palm M130. It works in total darkness and is still visible in bright sun light and can be used for weeks with out needing to be charged.

It has 16 megs of built in ram and is enough for most users but it can use Sony memory sticks in a slot on the top of the unit should one need to cram 128 megs of data into a PDA. There is software that lets you view images from Sony digital camera stored on a camera formatted Memory Stick.

My real complaint with this little guy is that there is no audio besides standard beeps. If they included an sound chip and headphone jack to allow Mp3 playback without additional hardware would have been perfect.

The software applications are Mac and Windows compatible unlike MS powered PDAs. Hypothetically I could sync it to my Linux drive but the open source tools can't find USB PDA cables. I wish that Palm would make some official tools to sync Palm OS PDAs on Linux but oh well. Eventually I see myself moving to a Mac so the cross platform aspects of the Palm OS is a big selling point to me.

Now a couple months back my Palm M130 battery died and the bastards wanted a $150 to fix it so it was cheaper to buy a new PDA. Sony makes a better Palm OS PDA than Palm and has a better service plan and I can actually get access to battery to replace it should I need to.

This Sony Clie PEG-SJ20 is $50 more than a Palm Zire, But ten times better in both screen and memory.

There is no modem, BlueTooth or Wi-Fi but Avant Go kick ass on this PDA with the good screen and memory.

Update : Having a pda like this really help you create a weblog or E-Zine. The ability to create and edit digital text on a compact highly portable PDA lets you work when inspiration or boredom strikes. I wrote this update at the laundromat and the review on the Ferry. Then the memo can be loaded into your word processor or directly up to your site

This would be a good first PDA and I wish i got one of these before my POS DOA Palm m130.It is a spartanistic work horse of a PDA. Inexpensive but not cheap and it gets the job done.

Jake at May 11, 2003 Reviews

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